You just can't believe people, especially with a politically charged issue like this and everyone blowing it out of proportion saying "ranchers are finished blah blah blah". You look at how much the general public is blowing things out of proportion and I don't doubt that a pro-rancher professor from the Range department would say whatever he felt he had to say, true or not. Aside from that he isn't qualified to make assumptions about the behavior of wild animals nor natural selection in wild populations. That would be the realm of the biologist in my opinion.


I can stand up in front of you all and say "the sky is green" all day long but your not going to believe me until I say "hey go look it's green see?". It's not that hard to comprehend. Basically he is saying something that is a bit of a stretch and he needs to back it up. When he proves that what he is saying is true then I will believe. It's no different than any member of the scientific community treats a new hypothesis.

Well even though you are right EKM, I would think with how "bad" the wolf situation is that even an average Joe like me would notice. So I'll let you all know if there are any elk left, seein as how they are all but wiped out in Yellowstone. I'm leaving here in a few hours and my wolf suit is almost ready. I just borrowed my cousins shark suit and beefed it up a little for the Yellowstone super predator.

Ratber,

I do sincerely wish that "average Joes" like us would be "allowed" to reach conclusions based on straight forward observation; however, unfortunately:

(1) One could find elk and moose crossing the roads in the thousands and not a single wolf seen or heard, OR....

(2) One could tour the entire park with out seeing a single wild game animal and observe hundreds of wolves crossing the roads....

and the scientific standard says our observations would be essentially meaningless as to whether there are "great" or "poor" populations of game in Yellowstone in either a balance or unbalanced state.

You see, one doesn't know what one sees, one only knows what he sees when a scientifc study proves that what you saw or experienced was indeed fact. What a way to go thru life....

It is a miracle that Lewis and Clark ever made it to the Pacific.... trusting the unverified non-scientific "knowledge" they gleaned from all those "ignorant savages" along the way as they did. If the Corps of Discovery relied on the scientifc method only, then they only would just about now be getting back to St. Louis after 200 years. It was a scientific/exploring expedition, but it was common sense, courage, and hunchs that got them there and back in a timely enough fashion for their new found knowledge to count. [A good plan today beats a perfect plan tomorrow.]

[BTW, Are you sure you are qualified to declare what you see is "officially and really" an elk, a moose, a wolf, or a bear? I hope you are taking someone along from the University of Scientology to officially verify any observations you might make, I wouldn't want to see you challenged on peer review. This scientific approach is great you can dismiss anyone with all number of convenient tools, I can see why people that work with it love it so.]


EKM

Just to set the record straight, i'm NOT a rancher, nor do i speak for them or "anyone else".

I base all my opinions of wolves, on my 25 years of experence of liveing around them in Alaska. I only know what I myself and my friends have seen and experenced!!!

I'd be willing to bet you i have spent more time around wolves in the bush, than 95% of those pencil pushers you think are the "last word" on the subject!!

No one paid me to sit around and find some answers for them, i did it because of my love of the bush, and the animials in it!! Shut your puter off, and put a few years out there seeing for "your self", and maybe you will get your eyes opened too!!!

Drilling Man

But DM you are just and average Joe. You are not qualified and you didn't follow the scientific method, therefore we must throw out you opinion. Sorry!

I can't expect you guys to understand.....I have to remember that.

Opinions are never worthless, however if your not trained to look at certain things then they aren't worth much. I'm not saying your woodsmanship is bad or worthless but if people aren't trained in science they tend to have tunnel vision when drawing conclusions from their own experiences. I'm not trying to be offensive.

Observations are not worthless. If I have made it sound that way I'm sorry that is not how I wanted it to sound.

Personal observations are good information always. But, the kicker is that those observations ONLY apply to that particular time, place, weather, and that entire set of circumstances. The problem with bad science is when people take a one or two time observation and try to apply that to a widespread area, like the state of Wyoming. Observations cannot replace random sampling. It's mathematically impossible to draw a reliable conclusion from a few observations.

So in effect you have a problem with the 90/10 rule. Where 10% of the bad incidents forms 90% of the opinion. Bad incidents like wolves killing livestock tend to breed fear and rumors and pretty soon everyones cousin Wally has had their baby eaten by wolves.

Also my personal opinion: watching a wolf eat an elk should not be classified as a 'problem incident'. We know and have known they do kill to eat. Now if it's attacking livestock that is another thing.

To really understand what is going on in a particular area you need to have a very large sample and it has to be totally random. Like the study that was done in Minnesota a few year back that I posted (there have been many more done in other areas).

They sampled a large number of farms and they did so randomly. This gives you a representative distribution. Instead of going out to the most remote farms in areas occupied by 3000 wolves and finding all sorts of problems.

Your conclusions will be false because essentially you only went looking for problems and you ignored the rest. So to say that wolves are a huge problem would be false because you don't know a) how big of a problem it is because you haven't looked anywhere else and b) it may only be a problem for 3% of the ranchers but you can't tell because that 3% of total ranchers was 100% of your sample.


To explain anymore in depth I would have to get into the principles of statistics and I don't really want to.




Also since you feel like attacking my personal experience: I live and work on a National forest that contains the biggest wilderness complex in the lower 48. I am lucky to still be young and unacademic enough to be able to work in the field 90% of the time. And we got wolves aplenty. I had a deer just about run into me when I was on a logging road and after it flew past two wolves came around the corner and just about knocked me over. They were pretty damn surpised. heh. I also have some friends fairly high up in Wildlife Services so I usually hear all about the wolf problems, sometimes before the public does.

Don't worry Brute there are some of us who believe you. Although I feel wolves should be de-listed and need to be managed I just do not believe they are killing every living thing in sight as some want to portray. Yes wolves are killing livestock, but the incidents are hardly enough to bring the cattle industry to its knees. The problems that wolves are causing are more than a little overstated in my mind. I was trying to be a little sarcastic about my trip to Yellowstone. Let me reassure everyone that the elk are alive and well in Yellowstone. Yes there are a few predators chasing them around and yes the numbers of elk may be down a little. But that doesn't mean wolves are going to wipe out the whole herd. (My opinion based on all the scientific stuff I've read. With a dash of common sense thrown in.)

However. All we end up doing is arguing so its pointless to some of us to keep trying to convince someone of something they just cannot believe regardless of how true or accurate it is. I think most of us just realize some can't see the forest throught the trees. All they know is whats right in front of them and the big picture just doesn't compute in thier head. So why argue anymore?

rather_be_hunting You should find elk around the Lamar valley. The Lamar valley is located between the North entrance & North East entrance.

Thanks Wolfy. I'll check it out. Well I'm off, enjoy yourselves and I'll see you all in about 6 days.

Yeah I guess I have to agree. It comes down to not being able to get past your personal beliefs in order to discover the truth. And that stems from not understanding science and objective reasoning.

So I call for all wolf topics to be dropped and no longer discussed. It's a waste of time at this point.