WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

WOLVES AND HUNTING
By T. R. Mader, Research Director
Abundant Wildlife Society of North America


I'm convinced, based on several years of wolf research, hunters will bear the brunt of wolf recovery/protection regardless of location.

There is no language written in any wolf recovery plan to protect the hunter's privilege to hunt. Wolves are well known to cause wild game population declines which are so drastic hunting is either eliminated or severely curtailed. And there is no provision for recovery of wild game populations for the purposes of hunting. It simply will not be allowed.

Example: A few years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFWS) and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) agreed the state should take over the responsibility of wolf management. The DNR felt wolves were impacting their deer populations and wanted to open a short trapping season on the wolf.

The environmentalists sued and won. The USFWS could not give wolf management back to Minnesota in spite of a desire to do so.

The problem with wolf recovery is that most people, especially hunters, have not looked "beyond press releases and into the heart of the wolf issue."

It must be stated clearly that the wolf is the best tool for shutting down hunting. The anti-hunters know this. Most hunters don't. Thus, wolf recovery is not opposed by the people who will be impacted most.

In order to understand the impacts wolves have on hunting, let's look at some biological factors of the wolf and compare some hunting facts.

The wolf is an efficient predator of wild game and domestic livestock. Due to its ability as a predator, the wolf was removed from areas of the U.S. where man settled. There is no such thing as peaceful coexistence between man and wolf - one has to give to the other since both prey/hunt the same wildlife/ungulate populations.

Did the removal of the wolf cause it to become endangered? No, there are 40,000 to 60,000 wolves on the North American continent. The animal is doing quite well. During the years of wolf control, the wolf's territory was eliminated throughout most of the lower 48 states. That factor is the reason the wolf is on the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

A wolf requires five to ten pounds of meat per day for survival, thus the wolf requires a considerable amount of meat in one year - nearly a ton of meat per year per wolf. A wolf is capable of consuming great quantities of meat, up to one fifth of its body weight, at one time. Thus, a wolf does not have to kill each day to survive.

Wolves hunt year around - 365 days a year. Wolf predation is not limited to two weeks, one month or whatever a hunting season length may be, it is year around.

Wolves are opportunistic hunters, meaning they kill what is available and convenient. For years, hunters have been fed the line, "Wolves kill only the weak, sick and old." Worse yet, hunters have believed it.

It is true, wolves do kill old animals, but so do hunters. Those are the big bulls or bucks prized by many who hunt. In fact, biological studies have shown wolves kill older male animals more than any other adult member of a wild game population.

Regarding sick animals, there are not many sick wild animals today. Hunters and trappers are directly responsible for healthy wild game herds today.

In the cyclic "balance of nature" of years past (no hunting by man), ungulate populations would thrive until they overgrazed their habitat and starved. This malnutrition made ungulate populations susceptible to disease. Consequently, disease was more common. Lewis and Clark wrote of such herds. (The other major factor contributing to the decline in wildlife populations was predation.)

Hunting controls this cycle so that herds are kept at proper levels for habitat, preventing malnutrition and susceptibility to disease. Hunting dollars went to habitat improvement and biological studies which, in turn, help maintain healthier herds of ungulates.

Even agriculture plays a part in the dispersal of salt and other minerals to domestic livestock. Wild animals access these nutrients as well. Thus, disease is not as rampant as when nature regulates it naturally. It is also interesting to note that where disease is a problem today, such as Yellowstone National Park, hunting is not allowed.


Trapping completes the cycle of game management by controlling the predator. The predator is to wildlife what weeds are to a garden. They must be controlled or they will take over. Additionally, predators are disease carriers. Some people are aware predators carry rabies since reports of rabid animals or some person being bitten by a rabid animal are often in the news, but few realize predators also carry other deadly diseases, i.e. raccoons carry a deadly fowl cholera. And finally, trapping benefits the predator by keeping their numbers in check. This keeps the population healthy. If predators do overpopulate, they become more susceptible to rabies, mange and other diseases.

Wolves do not eat sick animals unless forced to do so. We have found this true in many cases.

Example: A Conservation Officer for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) found a moose with brain worm. Brain worm completely destroys an animal's instinctive and natural behavior. This moose had wandered out on a frozen lake in winter and was slowly starving to death. Wolves came by, checked the moose out and went their way. Tracks in the snow verified it. They did not kill it even though it would have been extremely easy to do so.

Wolves do kill the weak. Weak animals are not sick animals, they are simply the "less strong" of the herd. Wolves target these animals - the young and pregnant - due to their inability to escape. This is an important factor in limiting wildlife population numbers. Wolves prey directly on the recruitment and reproductive segments of ungulate populations.

While doing research in British Colombia, a wolf biologist from the British Colombia Ministry of Environment took the time to show me how wolves could impact hunting so severely. Here's his example.


In this particular example he used a number of 300 females in a herd of elk. In his region, wolf predation is often 90% on the young (100% mortality rates due to predation are common in the north). If 300 females gave birth in an area of wolves, the approximate loss would be about 270 young calves killed during the summer months, leaving 30 yearlings to serve as replacements. A regular die-off rate on such a herd is about 10%. So the 30 yearlings would balance out the regular mortality rate of the female segment of the herd.

But overall there is a decline in the elk herd due to the fact that the 30 yearlings are usually sexually split in half (15 females and 15 males), thus the reproductive segment of the herd declines although the numbers appear to balance out. Without some form of wolf control, the rate of decline will increase within a few years.


There were approximately 100 males in this herd of elk. Figuring the regular mortality rate and compensating with the surviving young leaves 5 animals (males only) that could be harvested by man.


Now if this herd of elk were in an area of no wolves, there would be approximately 60 - 70% successful reproduction (calves making it to yearlings) or 200 young. Half of those surviving young would be male (100 animals). After figuring a 10% mortality rate, 90 older animals could be harvested without impact to the overall herd numbers. In fact, the herd would increase due to additional numbers of the reproductive segment (females) of the herd.

Now you have some insight of the impacts wolves can have on hunting.

In spite of the negative publicity generated by the anti-hunting, anti-trapping movements, hunting and trapping are some of the best wildlife management tools.

Hunters' harvest can be limited through numbers of licenses issued, bag limits, length of seasons, and specification of sex of the animal harvested. Thus, only the surplus of an ungulate population is generally hunted. If the need arises that an ungulate population needs reduction, it is easily accomplished by allowing an "any sex" hunt and increasing license numbers. Additionally, hunters will pay for the opportunity to hunt which in turn pays for wildlife management.

Wolves do none of the above. They simply kill to survive and for the sake of killing. Studies have shown that ungulate populations cannot withstand hunting by man and uncontrolled predation by wolves for any length of time. One has to give to the other. In this day and age, the wolf will be the winner, the hunter the loser.

A point which should be stressed is "wolves kill for the sake of killing," not just to survive. Many are convinced wolves kill only what they need to eat. That simply isn't true.

Remember the moose with brain worm the wolves didn't eat? In the same area, the same winter and only a couple of months later, the same Conservation Officer followed two wolves after a spring snow storm and found the wolves had killed 21 deer. Only two were partially eaten.

The snow gave the wolves the advantage. These deer were autopsied and many were found to be pregnant. The total number of deer killed in 2 days by these 2 wolves was 36.

Such incidents of surplus killing are common. For example, Canadian biologists came upon an area where a pack of wolves have killed 34 caribou calves in one area. Another example came from Alaska. In the Wrangell Mountains, a pack of five wolves came upon 20 Dall rams crossing a snow-covered plateau. All 20 rams were killed by the wolves. Only six were partially eaten by the wolves.

Dr. Charles E. Kay, PH.D. has lectured on the impacts of wolf recovery. To illustrate the impacts of wolves on hunting, he did a comparison of moose populations in British Colombia versus Sweden and Finland. Both areas have a comparable amount of moose habitat.

Dr. Kay stated, "During the 1980s in Sweden and Finland, the pre-calf or the wintering population of moose was approximately 400,000 animals and was increasing. While in British Colombia, it was 240,000 animals and decreasing.

"In British Colombia where they have a population of 240,000 animals and after a calving season they killed only 12,000 animals which is a 5% off take. In Sweden and Finland, on the other hand, they have 400,000 moose and guess how many they killed in the fall? They killed 240,000 moose in the fall which is a 57% off take rate.

"Now the two main differences, I don't want to imply that there's not vegetation difference and other things, but the two main differences is that British Colombia has somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 wolves, all sorts of bears, grizzly bears and black bears which are also important predators, and mountain lions. Sweden and Finland have none of the above."

Veteran wolf biologist, John Gunson, Alberta Ministry of Environment, summed it up when he said, "Really, there isn't any room for harvest by man if you have a healthy wolf population."

Hunters, please understand the impacts of wolf recovery on hunting and the role wolf recovery plays in the anti-hunters' agenda. Natural predation, especially wolf predation, can replace your privilege to hunt.


****************************


Copyright 1991 - Permission granted copy this article in its entirety with proper credit given to the source.

T. R. Mader is Research Director for Abundant Wildlife Society of North America (AWS), a private wildlife research organization dedicated to the preservation of the Great North American Traditions of Hunting, Fishing and Trapping.

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RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Thanks for posting.

Remember thethree Sh's.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Thanks for posting but though this is all very interesting. We in BC know we have lots of wolves AND tons of elk, moose, sheep, goats,deer, caribou etc. The reality does not fit the picture you paint. There is obviously plenty of room for wolves and man to harvest.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

This topic has been beaten to a foamed frenzy over and over in this forum.

The truth is, you can have lots of preditors or lots of game, but you can never, NEVER, have lots of both!!!!!!!!!!!!

The difference in B.C. is you can shoot them, we can not ! And we will probably never be able to! Here in Wy, with unregulated wolves, they are killing and eating calf elk and moose to the point that the ratio is about 5 calves per 100 cows, true fact! And you need about 25 calves to maintain the existing herds.

I have hunted in B.C. three times, on all three occasions the oufitter said, get a wolf tag, and if you see any don't stop shooting until they are all dead or you are out of ammunition. But with your government and the hassles at the boarder I will never go back, that being beside the point, even your outfitters hate wolves because they reduce big game populations. Common sense, which most pro wolf people lack, says, more wolves, more coyotes, more lions, less game!


So, in my Wyoming, conservative attitude and beliefs, screw the wolf and those that support them !

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

yes lots of wolf haters out there, to me just another desireable game animal. It is not my or the wolves fault that you cannot hunt them but this doesnt mean there is no room for all. By the way the hassles at the border are US laws, not Canadian. If you want to hunt here your welcome, if not, just more for me. No need to insult Canada or Canadians, just stay home.
By the way Outfitters hate wolves because they eat
"their" game. The game actually belongs to me and all other residents.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Abundant Wildlife Society of North America? Here's their website: http://www.aws.vcn.com/. RMEF is ain't.

Here's a description from another page that calls the AWS an "Anti-environmental group". Of course that site is full of the same type of stuff, just on the other side of the arguement.

Founded by former cattleman Dick Mader in 1989 in effort to obstruct reintroduction of the endangered grey wolf in Yellowstone National Park. Mader's son, Troy, considers himself the world's leading expert on the wolf, and distributes booklets showing deer, sheep, and cattle supposedly mauled by the grey wolf. Associated with the Wise Use movement and is a member of the Alliance for America.Members are primarily fur trappers, ranchers and hunters, although AWS does not publicly disclose their identities.

Research Director? I guess Mr. Mader got a promotion.

OK, enough making fun of the attempt to hide its agenda. After all, if anti-hunters can form groups so can we. And I supposefolks on both sides can lookjust as silly.

That being said, I personally think that wolves in a national park, well fair enough I guess. Outside of a national park they should be fair game. I imagine that as long as the "kill 'em all" sentiment is out there they'll never allow wolf hunting in the states.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

They didn't call them "the greatest generation" for nothin'....
My kinda guys.
Too much common sense and too much "get 'er done" for todays world though.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Its funny that Europeans are always signing petisions to stop grizzly bear huntinghere in BC. They threaten tourism boycots etc. Now after 180 years the first brown bear to return to Germany has been shot because he has eaten someones rabbit. Guess they will wait another 180 years for the next one, and keep signing petitions to keep Canadians from hunting our
own healthy populations.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Well put...

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Western settlers killed off these voracious predators for a reason. It should've stayed that way in my opinion. I think the greater significance of this fine post is to make people aware of the anti-hunter agenda and how they're using wolf reintroduction to accomplish their own goals. I'm a fair bipartisan guy, let the tree huggers keep their wolves in national parks and a few other key places but get them the he!! out of Idaho!

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

You get it. The wolves are just pawns!

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Wolf and other large predator populations should be managed by residents of the states they are in, not USFWS, Congress, Interior Dept., "wooly things for wolves" or any other group thatis not directly impacted by these predators.

I'm really fed up with busy bodies (not here but in the public forums) sticking there noses in the business of people who live in the ranges of large populations of big predators telling them what they can and mostly can't do to control their populations!

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Your government charges the $50 and registers your firearm when you cross into canada. Why would our goverment want your government to do that??????

Here are two articles in the local paper. In the very beginning of the wolf introduction, the feds in yellowstone claimed the aspen stands were disapearing because of over grazing by to many elk. Well this bottom story contradicts the feds report as did several independent biologists that reported early on that the elk were not to blame.

I also just returned from two days in jellystone and with spotting scopes and binos, with late evening and early morning drives to photograph some elk, we never seen a single elk nor moose.

[blockquote]Win or lose, I like seeing the state standing up to eddie bangs and the feds.
Wyoming notifies feds of intent to sue over wolf management
By BEN NEARY
Associated Press
CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- The state of Wyoming has filed notice that it intends to sue the federal government over both last month's rejection of the state's wolf management plan and federal inaction on the state's request for changes in wolf management regulations.
"So far, their position has been their way or the highway," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We've chosen neither; we're going to court."
Last month, the federal government rejected Wyoming's petition to remove wolves in the state from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. In addition, the federal agency has yet to take action on the state's request to amend regulations.
Wyoming has proposed a wolf management plan that generally calls for leaving the animals alone in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks while allowing trophy hunting for them in areas outside the parks. The state has also proposed allowing them to be shot on sight as predators elsewhere in the state. In addition to their preying on livestock, Freudenthal has said he sees the spread of wolves in Wyoming outside the national parks as a public safety concern.
"It seems to me that we have a plan that satisfies the scientific obligation that they have imposed on us," Freudenthal said.
In rejecting Wyoming's proposal, federal officials said last month that they can't remove protections until the state sets firm limits on how many of the animals can be killed and agrees to minimum population figures. The state is now home to an estimated 252 wolves.
Ed Bangs, coordinator of the Fish and Wildlife Service's gray wolf recovery effort in Helena, Mont., said Wednesday he hadn't heard of Wyoming's formal notice that it would sue the federal government over wolf management. But Bangs said it was no surprise.
"They said they would pursue this thing in court, not matter how long it took," Bangs said. "I had hoped we could work out something more productive than litigation."
The Fish and Wildlife Service has already turned management of wolves over to state agencies in Montana and Idaho. Bangs said that about 400 wolves have been killed in those states for preying on livestock and for other reasons since 1987.
"They're continuing to kill wolves that are chronic problem animals," Bangs said, adding that his agency doesn't intend to leave Wyoming ranchers facing problem animals on their own.
Bangs said the federal government continues to manage wolves in Wyoming outside the national parks and said 106 have been killed since the reintroduction of the species. Last year alone, he said 41 wolves were killed in the state. "Those wolves killed last year 54 cattle and 27 sheep, confirmed, and one dog," he said.

[/blockquote]

West's aspen groves hit hard in '06
By CHASE SQUIRES
Associated Press writer Monday, August 14, 2006

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These towering aspens in the Medicine Bow Routt National Forest form a canopy over a section of road known as Aspen Alley. Many of the trees in Aspen Alley are thought to be near the end of their life cycle. Photo by Dustin Bleizeffer, Star-Tribune

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DENVER -- Something is killing the quaking aspen trees of the Rocky Mountain West.

The slender, white-barked trees that paint the hills gold every autumn are dying, some scientists say, leaving bald patches across the Rockies. Experts are scrambling to figure out what's happening.

"As soon as we understand what's going on, then maybe we can do something about it," said Dale Bartos, a Forest Service restoration ecologist based in northern Utah.

Bartos thinks a fungus may be to blame, while others suggest everything from hungry caterpillars to drought to man's interference with the natural cycle of forest fires and even resurgent herds of hungry elk nibbling saplings to death.



[/align]Aspen stands have been hard hit in southwestern Colorado and northern Arizona. Bartos said a conservative estimate is that about 10 percent of the aspen in Colorado may have died or become afflicted with something in the past five to 10 years.

Since 3.6 million acres across the state are classified as aspen-dominated, that 10 percent equals 360,000 acres or 560 square miles of dead or dying trees.

"We really don't know what's going on," Colorado State University forester Tom Wardle said. "We will, I'm very confident, figure it out."

More worrisome than the tree deaths is that aspen stands don't appear to be bouncing back from adversity the way they have in the past.

Aspen grow differently than other species. Rather than spreading through seeds, aspens send out shoots, called suckers, from giant, interconnected root systems. Each stand, or "clone" system, can live hundreds of years and some consider them the world's largest living things.

The trees themselves are just an aboveground manifestation of the communal root. A tree may die, but beneath the soil, the stand lives on, the root sends out fresh shoots, and the cycle begins again.

What has Wardle and others concerned is that stands with dying trees don't seem to have the vigor they normally have in sending out shoots to replace old trees -- perhaps an indication that years of drought have inflicted deep damage.

In an 8,000-square-mile swath of Canada near Edmonton, aspen are virtually the only species that grows in large numbers. Canadian Forest Service researcher Ted Hogg said as many as 30 percent of the aspen in the affected region may have been wiped out in the past five years; he suspects a combination of drought, heat, fungus and bugs.

In northern Arizona, it's been blow after blow for aspen.

Forest Service plant pathologist Mary Lou Fairweather, who monitors the region's trees, said she has seen multiple factors rather than one cause. A late snowstorm in 1999 crippled trees as they put out leaves for the summer, drought weakened the survivors for attacks by caterpillars and opportunistic diseases, and elk gobbled up new shoots before they could mature.

Another Forest Service researcher, however, said there is no conclusive evidence of any long-term decline.

"We've taken a very long, temporal perspective," said Claudia Regan, who works in suburban Lakewood. "We've looked at changes in forest conditions over several hundred years and examined if whether or not over that long time frame we see a decline in aspen. There really is no evidence of aspen decline."

Regan said it appears the number of aspen in Colorado has actually increased in the past century. It's noticeable when a clone dies off, she said, but reports seem to be isolated and anecdotal.

And if there is a decline, it might be a natural reaction to earlier human interference, University of Wyoming botany professor Dennis Knight wrote in a paper for the Forest Service back in 2001.

"Widespread disturbances caused by timber harvesting and fires in the late 1800s and early 1900s may have enabled aspen to become unusually abundant in the Rocky Mountains," he wrote. "If aspen is now declining, the explanation may lie in natural processes. ... There is no basis to suggest that aspen is threatened globally, nor are most aspen groves likely to be lost in the near future."

While scientists speculate, preparations for the leaf-peeping tourist season continue.

"I was just up at Kebler Pass," said Rob Strickland, marketing coordinator for the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association. "I'm not a scientist, but I didn't notice any change."

Riley Polumbus of the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association said no one is worried in the northwest Colorado area is worried.

"The aspens you ski through in the winter are excellent for hiking and walking through in the fall," Polumbus said.

On a cell phone from a hilltop near the southwestern Colorado town of Dolores, Dan Binkley offered some findings from his summer of research for CSU's Colorado Forest Restoration Institute.

There are fewer healthy aspens in the mountains of western Colorado, he said. But he hasn't found anything more than warm weather and drought to blame. Stocks of the trees may decline, but so far Binkley expects the stands to recover, someday.

"It'll be a visible blip, but the reassuring part is that the younger trees are faring better than the older ones. Unless I'm wrong, and it's not drought," Binkley said. "It's the sort of thing that we won't be surprised if we're surprised."
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RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Actually, there is no longer a fee for the firearms.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Americans need a passport to enter their own country.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

[/align]
[/quote]

Actually, there is no longer a fee for the firearms.
[/quote]


there isnt? thats news to me, good news :D


-Travis-

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Most Wy residents dont have a problem w/ the wolves being here, if the Wy game and fish was in charge there would be no issue. When the feds dump a bunch into the state then their only management strategy is to crucify anyone who shoots one.....thats a problem, and thats where we stand now.

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

A Montana rancher told me, " If they want the wolf sooooo bad. Let release them in Central Park in New York City & how about downtown Chicago, Washigton D.C., Philadelphia...... then see what they have to say about wolves." I whole hardly agree. It's easy to support wolf reintroduction when you don't have to worry about your dogs & cats & horses, farm livestock & children. They're not enough votes out west in the Mountains for politicians to worry about. (sad but true).All Politicians are the scum of the earth. Think about it, they have never had to really work for a living............AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER THEY WERELAWYERS..

RE: WOLVES AND HUNTING
 

Let them have their dogs and livestock (if they have any) out of their yards and pastures, then they might get what the problem is with quickly increasing wolf populations in states their "reintroduced" in or have been in all along just now with nothing or no one to keep them in check.

NE MN away from Lake Superior where most of my family lives, they've seen no fawns this year. None. The moose population has been stagnant for the past 20 years. Wolves are all over the place. No one in Wash. or St. Paul give a ####. People who don't have to live with them in the wild without a way to control them don't have a clue in most cases. They have this whacky idea that "the more the better" of everything including wolves is the ideal. Not so. Man is part of the equation and should play a role in keeping large predators in check, not wiped out, but in check. Otherwise, we'll continue to see the big swings, most down of the prey animals.