Rather,

Now, now, there is no need to get personal.

Without trotting out the post graduate education crappola, let me say I love science and the wonders it has brought us. The marketing types would place me square in the “middle of the curve” i.e. don’t run right out and buy the newest stuff until the bugs are worked out and don’t hold out forever before buying into innovation just to resist change--- nope right in the middle. Real world proven science is great stuff, cures to diseases, medicines to ease symptoms, genetics, automotive/aviation technology are all really good stuff, especially in their “perfected” forms.

Of course, you don’t have to look that far back in our history to see premature claims made for all number of scientific “remedies” (which had what, at the time, was the latest scientific backing) that now, looking back at them, were totally ludicrous. Regrettably, science is a “two steps forward, one step back” proposition and then throw the federal government in to “tell you” whether the current situation is a step forward or a step back and you can find yourself being sold a quick “bill of goods” (e.g. ala Iraq, and I voted for Bush and cheered our boys on – feel a bit like a trusting idiot given what I know now).

In line with what you said, if I’m wrong (and God I hope I am), then I am more than willing to admit it and agree I was being overly skeptical. Point is that time is going to have to pass before any concrete measuring sticks will be available on a past tense “here is what happened” basis versus a “here’s the studies and here is what we predict” basis. Again, trust me, don’t be so naïve and blindingly trusting of the federal drivel we are fed on a daily business.
----------------------

Regarding your request,
IMHO, the only solution that is going to occur (viable or not) is the fed’s solution AND THAT is the part that concerns me. Those boys (and girls) like only to listen to themselves and follow only their own advice and they are expert at "papering over" their failures and recreating them as successes, often without the public ever catching on.

BTW, I kinda like you line about managing wolves, if you take it exactly as written, read close…(I assume you meant "that" not "than").....



At least at a subconsious level, I may be making some headway.

EKM

Almost. It's as close to the truth as we can get with the information available.


Of course it's not the gospel. I'm not telling anyone to believe or disbelieve anything. But at least know that the information is out there for you to see and make your own judgements. The feds don't do research on these things generally. They WILL tell you what they want you to hear. That is why you look at studies done by independent or university scientists. They almost always have no stake at all in swaying public opinion and they the review process is very rigorous. I am a scientists (sorry to say) and we have an elaborate and effective "checks and balances" system for auditing each others work. In other words, if it's not sound science, and your conclusions are not logical, using the best available information, your work goes in the ****ter until it's fixed.


I keep seeing the words "feds" and "government this" aka distrust.

That's fine, don't believe the government, no one is asking you to. No one is saying, "hey we are scientists so you should believe what we say".

They are saying " Hey we are scientists and we looked at alot of different things and we think you should believe what we say..now here is why, see if you come to the same conclusion."

The only person being naive is those of you who won't get out there, get the data that is available and make YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT as to what is going on. I've tried to make some of it available on here and it's met with some distrust, ignorance and negativity. The worst part is the attitude about "can't trust the feds". That isn't a judgement, that's an opinion, it's not even an informed opinion. It's an excuse for blowing off something that could potentially prove you wrong.

And no one in science is saying or predicting anything. The only thing they are doing or trying to do is explain what we have seen in the past, what is going on now, and what we are LIKELY and/or UNLIKELY to see happen in the future, based on what we know. Now I don't really need you telling me to look at that with skepticism, and I was assuming that the people here are smart enough to know that.

Most of these anti-wolf people are using any non-scientific argument they possibly can to try to sway people. That is a sure sign that they have no logical argument and they must resort to emotionally based arguments.

You can tell them: "Here is some information, it might show that wolves aren't as big of a problem as it seems."

Them: " No we won't believe that because the government might have something to do with it and therefore it's probably all bull ****. Plus my neighbor Cledus got 2 of his goats killed by wolves so I know everyone else in the state must just be getting slaughted by wolf predation."

You see the logic gap?

Please explain the "logic gap" between this statement and the subsequent posts by using the scientific method.

EKM

ok I can take a hint. No more from me.

Science continues to strive to make us believe that man evolved from apes!! Buy that if you want but my greatest of great grandadies wasn't an ape. Maybe you want to have an ape for an ancestor, I don't know, however you look at it, it is wrong! That is what science is doing for us. There was no problem with the wolf until science said there was a problem with the wolf.
Again I defer to outsiders thinking that a problem exists where they don't live and do what ever it takes to rectify their problem. Essentially science has created a problem to have to create a solution that affects only one community. Forcefully with zero options. If science doesn't like it then tuff S$(t.
Science has it's place don't get me wrong, We humans are the very heart and soul of "Mother Nature" We control it as best we know how, we have made mistakes and we have solved problems deemed unsolvable. In the case of the wolf science has created a problem not solved one. We humans are part and parcel to nature, we were created with that in mind along with the rest of nature. Do you honesty believe that you were created from primordial soup? Yes I am a creationist. I just can't cram enough scientific data into this small mind of mine to get me to believe I was a 1 in a gazilion (lack of scientific term) chance of occuring along with the rest of the millions of species on this planet.

We didn't miss the wolf when it wasn't seen and now we are being told that we did miss it. How the hell do you know that? Science? Get real! Take another survey, ask only PETA members, skew the facts scientifically and the result would be WE need to reintroduce the wolf. Friends of the earth are good at that. The Sierra club too. I know this as I was a member of both before I woke up. Your right if you say I am prejudiced, I have the right to be I was one of them. They are as radical as radical comes and are beginning to effect their ways upon us. The only solution to a problem is to first have a problem and then solve it to the benefit of all not just the scientists OPINION.

Science has never flat out said man evolved from ape. Its only a theory by a few men based on science but there are "scientific" gaps in the thoery. Even though many choose to believe and many in the scientific field believe it, its never been proven. Theories are completely different that statistics. I also do not believe this theory. Taking a survey is only opinion. The science I'm talking about is the science that only reports facts, no opinions, no theories.

EKM - Thank you for pointing out my grammatical error, I in fact did mean "that." I do not agree with how the FED's are handling the wolf situation. I will tell you this, although I don't believe the wolf is different than any other predator I do think they are already over-populated in some areas and the FED's aren't telling us that to keep them listed. I don't understand why they won't de-list them. In some areas elk calf ratios are 5 per 100 cows, while an adjacent area has 45 per 100 cows but they only tell you the average of both and say see wolves aren't impacting the elk herds. The herds are at a healthy 30 per 100 cow ratio. I don't believe everything I see, but I don't think its a flat out lie. They just leave out important details to support thier agenda. Which is wrong by the way.

I just feel de-listing them and giving states the power to handle wolves as they choose is the answer.

This is jst a few of many articles I have.
My position on the whole wolf controversy is we had a viable population and was lied to in the beging. I do not want the wolf destroyed only mannaged by the states in question. It is figured by 2010 that we will have wovles in every county in Montana and without managment you think they will not exspand to other states.
If anyone thinks its not a great concern for the future of hunting you are dead wrong period.

With elk tag numbers declining so are hunter numbers, pay close attention because I feel the atnis new what they were doing.

__________________________________________________ ____


Elk numbers plummet; wildlife managers respond by regulating hunters

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer
LIVINGSTON -- Elk numbers continue to plummet in the northern Yellowstone elk herd, according to a report released late Tuesday.

The herd is now the smallest it's been since the 1970s.

A Dec. 18 flight by state and federal biologists found 8,355 elk despite "relatively good survey conditions," which means good weather and enough snow to make elk visible from the air.

That's a drop of at least 880 elk, or 9.5 percent, from last year's count of 9,215, when conditions were poor and biologists said they probably missed a lot of elk.

The herd has dropped by an average of 6 percent a year since 1994, when the herd had at least 19,359 elk. That timespan coincides with the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995.

"Wolves are certainly a primary mortality factor" for elk, said P.J. White, a Yellowstone wildlife biologist.

Another big factor is human predation, especially in the annual Gardiner-area late hunt. But unlike wolves, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act, hunter numbers can be restricted.

Regulating hunting numbers "is the only tool we have" in that area, said Tom Lemke, wildlife biologist in Livingston for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The late hunt that began last weekend has already been cut in half, and might be pared some more, Lemke said. This year, 1,400 permits were granted, compared to 2,880 in 1997.

Lemke said it's too soon to give any specific numbers, but "it's possible we will reduce them" further in coming years.

"When you have fewer elk, you harvest fewer," Lemke said.

White said the herd size probably will continue to shrink.

"I expect the population will continue to decrease in the near future," he said.

The effect of wolves on elk has become a big issue with some hunters and outfitters in the Gardiner area.

Fewer late-season hunters means fewer people renting rooms, buying meals and hiring guides in that parkside community, where the late hunt has become part of the winter economy.

"It's breaking us," said Bill Hoppe, a Jardine outfitter and a founder of the Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd.

He said he has 40 hunters booked this year.

"I used to take 100, sometimes 150," he said. "All the outfitters you talk to are way down."

With the cuts in permits, "that's 1,000 people who didn't come to town," Hoppe said, and most hunters bring a companion.

If each spent $100 in Gardiner, that means $200,000 in lost business, plus the $200 a day charged by guides.

Last year, guided hunters took almost 50 percent of the 718 elk harvested in the late hunt, according to an FWP report.

Hoppe last year predicted a significant drop in elk numbers and said they'll continue to fall.

"What'd I say last year? That we'd be down another 1,000 elk," he said. "Like I told you last year: I told you so."

So how many elk is appropriate for the northern range? People have argued about that for most of a century.

Until 1968, rangers regularly killed hundreds of elk at at time inside the park, keeping the herd to about 3,500 animals, and critics still said the park was overgrazed.

After the National Park Service culling stopped, the herd grew quickly. And the number of hunting permits outside the park grew as well, with the goal of avoiding overgrazing outside the park.

Now, since the return of the wolf, the herd has seen a steady decline.

Nobody knows how it will end.

"We'll continue to monitor it closely," White said.

He noted that wolves aren't the only factor at play.

Preliminary reviews of data collected last summer show that grizzly bears are killing an increasing number of elk calves. Black bears and wolves also kill significant numbers. And weather is always a factor.

But of the three major factors affecting elk numbers -- predation, weather and hunting -- only hunting can be controlled.

White praised FWP for reducing the number of hunters.

I commend them for taking that step," he said.
_______________________________________________
Second A

Please dont take this article the wrong way and take time and read it then think about what is happening to a renewable resourse like deer and elk. There may be some harsh statments in this article but you have to live at ground level to see what is happening.

I think I can speak for most sports men and women that we do not want to eliminate any one species just control it so that we have a future in hunting and the outdoors as we seem to be the only managers of wildlife and our dollars go towards protecting and preserving there habitat and the animals.

I have long said that this has been an anti strategy and we will pay in the end by having are rights taken away from us.




By Sheriff Mike Cook

I have talked about the wolf problem before many times. Now I have some real proof that they are killing all our elk and deer. The sad thing is they are now attempting to protect the grizzly and spread it out across the western states also. These large predators will have to eat each other because all the other game except man will be gone and man is much easier prey than other predators.
I said proof and here goes. A friend of mine had a long conversation with me today. This last elk season an old friend of his invited him to go to Idaho into the central part of the state, hunting unit's 10 & 11 if I remember right, and hunt elk. It had been four years sense this person had hunted this area but he had hunted it for 18 years prior to that and had taken big bulls every year in that area and he was very familiar with this area. He also told my friend that there was a lot of elk in that area.

I might add these hunters are the type that get out and walk all day and hunt very hard. They spent three weeks in this area hunting hard and didn't even see an elk, alive that is, and no new elk tracks or sign. They did see about six old wolf kills. My friend said there was wolf tracks around each kill sight and that the elk and one moose had been eaten. He also said that the trails in the area showed that at one time there had been a lot of elk in the area. The trails are starting to grow back over and the only animal tracks were wolves.

This points out quit a story about what is going on, on the ground, in these areas where the wolf has been planted. Anyone who doesn't believe that the wolf will wipe out the elk and deer herd's is either stupid or just plain uninformed. All they need to do is get out in the woods and see it for themselves. This is not the way to balance nature as the lies from the pro-wolf people would have you believe. Another lie, they do not eat only the weak and tired.

The problem is that elk, deer, and moose have lived for generations without predation by the wolf so they don't know how to protect themselves from this big old gray wolf that isn't native to this part of the country any more. They are about a defenseless as a child on the streets alone in New York City without even a weapon. Even if we get this stupid law turned around and once more get ride of the wolf like we should be doing it will take years to help bring back the deer and elk herds. The animal rights people will have put a stop to hunting like they wanted in the first place.

In the January 2004 NRA magazine "American Hunter" there is a very fair article called (Wolf Troubles in the Rockies) that everyone should read. Our hunting and wildlife is very much in danger of being reduced to near extinction. It won't be long before the deer and elk are listed as endangered and the hunting seasons will be stopped. The sad thing is we allowed this to happen. Every hunter and rancher in America should have saddled up and rode into Washington DC and demanded a stop to this stupidity a long time ago. Anyone who supports any of these stupid ideas deserves to be thrown out of office and never voted for again.

We should have a law passed that makes it illegal for anyone to plant or protect a predator and put them in jail for a long time if they do. Until we stand up and demand the same common sense our ancestors had in the law and our rights we will loose this. It may be illegal for them to plant these wolves in the first place and that still needs to be decided.

I want to see a law that protects anyone who shoots a predator and see the bounty laws returned so that people will go out and hunt them down. It seems that if I remember history right the ranchers would pay hunters they called "Wolfers" to go out a rid the range of them to protect the livestock. That needs to be done again.

Here in Oregon we need to demand the law to be changed to allow hunting with hounds and bait again. The deer and elk are being killed by predators and the ones they don't get suffer and die from disease. I look to see our hunting opportunities to be slowed way down here also. We will also have the wolf if we don't march on Salem and demand that they do away with Oregon's Endangered Species Law and to pass a law making it a crime not to shot any Wolf seen in Oregon.

Now I know that a bunch of you whacko Wolf lovers out there will get mad and send me all kinds of dumb e-mail's telling me how stupid my ideas are. To you I say don't even try because you not only don't know what you are talking about, you have nothing valuable to say about it. All you do is call me names and make nothing in the way of justification for your side of this argument. In short you don't have a clue so crawl back in you hole of stupidity and stay there.

To all you others who have a clue and want to do something to save our environment from destruction, not to mention our food supply, please get up and write and call your elected officials and let them know how you feel on this one. Demand the law to be changed now before it is to late.

God Bless America and God Bless our Troops still in harms way.


Michael E. Cook, Coos County Sheriff, Retired.

Thanks for the info buck59 will spread the word . I wonder if we can get the Rocky Mountian Elk Foundation to look into it.

buck59
Very well put. I have been trying to explain the same thing only to have some college educated nut call me ignorant and try and shove some goverment study down my gullet that I just don't believe and then say I am against all government studies and go off on a rant and to say it only effects the rancher and no one else.Bla Bla Bla
I hope it won't be long intill wolf hunting will be legal and hunted like we do Cats with a quota.

Yellowstone is the "epicenter" of the wolf reintrodution effort and has the oldest and most established populations. This is at least the second article with empirical data showing drastic hits to local big game populations. I am consistently amused how either everyone is silent about this stuff or it is poo-poo'd as just not relevant.

Amazing to me what a difference there is between being up in the "ivory tower" theorizing about what is happening with wolves and exercising scientific methodology in quest of a good publishable article (get published or perish),

versus,

Those locals who are simply on the ground, at the scene, and "in the trenches" and can just plain see what is happening to the wildlife populations.....

But wait, no, just seeing it/experencing it is just too simple and straight forward, we need to complicate it first and then use science to sort it out and come to some kind of "certified" conclusion.....

Reminds me of the 10 to 15 year period of research that it took to "prove" that cigarettes were killing people so it could be come "official". Everyone knew they were lethal, we all had friends/acquaintance smokers (all older) who had died from lung cancer, yet the scientists were so pleased with themselves when they announced they had actually "proved it" and it was now offical --- duh, now we have a warning label on the package, wow.
-------------------------------------

Colorado has always been the "safety valve" state for elk hunters. If you couldn't draw in another state or if your elk hunting plans got started too late in the year then you could always "head out to Colorado and get an over-the-counter bull tag". That's because Colorado has more elk than anyone else.... well boys, the future of all that may well all be "on the line". Seeing all that dwindle down to a mere shadow of its former glory, similar to the folks up by Yellowstone, doesn't sound like a really good bargain to me or for you folks that come from out-of-state to hunt. (Note: the best hunters I have met here in Colorado have been mostly from out of state, including my mentors from Michigan.)

All this so a family from D.C. can stop their tent camper in a mountain camp ground in the Rockies, maybe hear a wolf howl before bedtime, before driving on to sit on the beach in California the next day. I'm just not sure that is going to be a real desirable trade in the long run.... and I'm betting the D.C. family won't know a coyote's call from a wolf's howl anyhow.
------------------------------------

IMHO, delist them, get their managment out of the feds hands, let the states take over! The states like Ph D's and studies and reports too --- they are just a bit more "on the ground, at the scene, and in the trenches". The states also strive for a bit more balance between romantic wildlife ideas and those who have to actually live with those romantic wildlife ideas for 52 weeks a year (instead of 2 days or 2 weeks a year [max]). The states also have to deal with the consequences of revenue shortfalls when there's not enough elk/deer/(antelope?) tags to go around to fund the Department of Wildlife because of drastically reduced populations (a'la Yellowstone).

EKM