RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

BRUTAL - Your an idiot!!! The problem w/ you is that you buy into all this govt. B.S. Our schools dont even teach true and proper sciece anymore, its all extreme environmentalism, which ISNT science, its a philosophy, good or bad still a philosophy. My son is in the fifth grade and just this year got some real factual science and of that environmental BS.Scientific my A$$. The people runing these studyies only hire, promote, people who already support/agree w/ their agenda. You also ramble on about statistics and numbers, well my friend your talking to someone w/ a degree in economic and I gaurantee those numbers are manipulated consciously on unconsciously to point to the conclusion the administrators want. You included. Wolves are getting to be a problem I was raised in Wyo and saw thousands of elk EVERY trip through Yellowstone. last year we went through and didn't see a single elk!! I know this was a fluke and there are some still there, but that is still a drastic change it would have been impossible before the reintroduction. If you go through Cooke City to beartooth pass and back or Crandal creek and back you might see a moose if your lucky. I hunted that area for @20yrs and it was common to see 6-7 moose/trip, sometimes 10+ , ALWAYS at least three and every cow had a calf. I just went through w/ my family and we saw one cow w/ no calf. Thats drastic my friend. I stopped to talk to an old friend who is in her 90s and used to ride horseback into cody just to attend dances(several days each way mind you). She has more outdoor experience than the entire govt staff in yellowstone put together, and she'll tell you the wolves are in need of culling. By the way she doesn't raise livestock .On this same trip I saw @350 head of elk, I saw 3 calfs. I also suppose you think that nature will reach a balance, well contrary to all these brain washed college idiots nature does not "balance it swings violently from one extreme to the other, when the predators become to numerous the prey will plumet , w/ the predator following suit by starvation. The prey then repopulates and the predators follow suit until the cycle starts again. I dont knock your oppinion on wolves or love for them, but to asertain that everyday people who aren't "trained" are imbiciles and of no value scientifically is arrogant as well as ignorant. With this: your uneducated/stupid/ignorant/unusefull because you aren't degreed(brainwashed) is only showing that you are the irrelivant one here. If the people who are living in the area are complaining then it is a problem. They are...It is.

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

I wish I could say you added something to the debate but you didn't. Just more fearmongering. I guess I'm not qualified to talk about what happens in wildilfe agencies because I work in one? Your logic is flawed.

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

BRUTAL - your reply says it all. I dont agree w/ you so that automatically makes me an uneducated/ignorant peasant and my opinion is completely unfounded fearmongering. Your reasoning is flawed my friend when you discount every opinion contrary to your own. Yuor opinion might change if a few of you would say hmmm... maybe that old rancher really does know a wolf from a coyote and looked into it to find the truth, not just support your conclusion that the old bastard dont know nothin, hes just a rancher.

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

See your missing a fundamental element here. If you were educated as you claim to be, you would realize this. The anit-wolf side has no data thus they have no scientifically viable conclusion that supports their view.

Data is defined as follows: 1. Factual information, especially information organized for analysis or used to reason or make decisions.
2. Numerical or other information represented in a form suitable for processing by computer. 3. Values derived from scientific experiments. ).

Opinions are not data, and they do not mathematically or statistically aid in decision making where wildilfe managers are concerned. Now that being said and understood, you can look at the data compiled by me in the various threads on this forum to conclude for yourself (with a reasonable confidence interval) that, in a mathematical sense (not an emotional sense) 1) wolves are having very little negative effect on the ranching industry, and 2) in the long term elk herds in most areas will be better off (all other variables like habitat being equal and adequate of course). Now this sounds like alot to swallow for someone who hasn't studied population dynamics and participated in real life research. This is what happens among the anti-wolf people.

So since it's not my job to teach everyone here scientific method, data analysis, and logic problem solving, I will say this: Opinions are not science, they are emotion which is influenced largly by personal experience. Are they worthless? Not at all. Are they objective? No. Should they be used in decision making? Absolutely not.

If someone you didn't know came up to you and said "Hi, the sky is green." Would you believe them? Even if he said he saw it with his own eyes? No, you would go look for yourself and make your own conclusions. It may just LOOK green to him.

The anti-wolf people have nothing going for them in terms of this statement which all natural resource managers live by:

We make decisions based on the best science available at the time.


The argument of the anti-wolf supporters is based on fear and anger. As much as you'd like to think different, math can't lie. 0=0 always.

Statistics can be presented in a misleading context but if you read scientific papers that show their data (ie. not magazines, not websites, not TV etc) then you can look at it yourself to see if their conclusions are sound.

Now that being said and understood, I will say this: If you read the research (in scientific journals not Range magazine) you will conclude that the best science (or data if you will) supports the fact that wolves are not causing significant harm to the ranching industry as a whole and contribute to long term herd health of prey species.

Now I know what the fearmongers will say. They will say: "Wait you can't believe the evil scientists in ivory towers."

I don't understand statements like that. No one is asking you to take their word for it. Go look at their data! Use a little brainpower to see if they did it right! If you don't believe thier data than look at their methods to see how they got the data and decide if that seems ok with you.

But don't take my word for it go read up yourself.

Resistance to a change of the status quo is natural and expected.
I can't believe I'm having to explain this to someone who is educated.

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

Brutal,

I'm always amazed how you can dismiss someone who doesn't agree with you, even when they have "many" years of experience out in the bush viewing wolves, and have seen what they do and have done to the animials in that area.

You honestly believe if they didn't go to college they don't know a da*n thing about wolves, and the game population they lived with for years and years!

I'm sure glad i never got any kind of degree like you did, that would make me so short sighted like you are!!

I guess when those fish & game guys came to ask me questions about the wolves, and game populations in the area's i lived and hunted in, it was so they could go back to there offices and laugh at me behind my back!!! Hell, they didn't need my insight, i'm just some dumb hunter who never got a degree, so there's no way i could know anything about what i saw!!!

I believe i have just lost all respect in anything you have to say, as i never met a biologist ??? that looked down so, on knowlegable persons opinions like you do!!

Drilling Man

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

I'm not looking down on anyone. I believe it when a rancher comes to me with a problem or what have you regarding wolves. But I'm not about to extrapolate his experience to include all ranchers and all areas of the country.

But practical people like yourselves should realize that opinions are not facts nor are they the end all. There is a mathematical way of approaching these kinds of problems and having information that is skewed by the emotion inherent in opinions is of somewhat less value than objective information. Thats all I'm saying.

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

So, said rancher spends $150,000 to have a Ph D and his grad assistant run out and do a study and it supports the formerly "unsupported" opinion he brought to you earlier and suddenly he is going to hear a different tune from you? I don't think so.

I think you tipped your hand earlier when someone came up with "more than conversational information" and you responded with this quote which nicely reflects the "researchers/no money out of my pocket" approach to the so called "discussion".

So, now the bar has been raised to where one has to have 33 university studies (times $150,000 or so each) to be officially "worth listening to" regardless of whether one was "right" in the first place or not! It must be nice to have a government teat to nurse upon and the essenitially unlimited resources of the government to draw upon while engaging in such scholarly discourse. Those who actually make a living for themselves by means of their own enterprize have no such luxury; however, that fact alone does not put them in the wrong.

Similarly, it doesn't make the ones with the forklift report right either. You give me the thesis and let me judiciously "prepare the data for input" into the statisical model and we'll nail it just fine. Peer review? In an incestuous little community of greenie "scientific" forums, conferences, and publishing houses (Auk, Peregrine, Condor, etc --- notice a pattern/theme in the names?) uh huh, you scatch my back I'll scratch yours and we'll all keep applying for those grants -- gotta think about Christmas coming up.

Don't get me completely wrong, in the hard sciences the scientific method is pretty much gospel. In the softer sciences, sociology and game biology for example the conclusions are not near as "bullet proof". Some might roll over and accept it as the word from God, not me, I've seen too much of what goes on behind the scenes and inside that little community -- no thanks. Just try to track down the sources quoted and "oh he don't work here anymore, he is over at the US Fish and Game --- well isn't that cozy!

Good luck in sorting out the truth folks,

EKM

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

thinks wolves arent coming? Winsconsin is the next state they are moving to.

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

Turkey Fan,

They are already in Northern Wisconsin.

I don't think we should exterminate the wolves from the Northern Rockies, we done that alreay,
But they should be delisted as endangered, per E.S.P. The states should have control over them, like all other game animals. There should be a hunting/trapping season for them, and the packs that have moved onto private land should be either relocated to National Forest, Parks, Wilderness, or DESTROYED.

Here is a website that I found interesting www.natureswolves.com

RE: Still think wolves arent a problem in Wyoming?
 

neweboarhunter - you have caught the brass ring.