idahoelkinstructor

Talking to another biologist in Salmon Idaho, he said they radio collard 90 elk calves last summer and only 5 of them are living now. I bet you can't guess what killed them. Humm let me think about that, hmmm again I don't know. Oh all right I'll just take a guess could it be WOLVES. Ding ding ding you and I are both winners! I do believe the day is comming that we will see a hunting season. But until then SSS all the way!

RandyA

The head nuts, Ed Bangs, says lions, bears, and the drought are all contibuting to the decline. He is full of doo doo. The whole state of Wyoming is in about year 7 of a prolonged drought, but in non-wolf areas elk numbers are increasing. And in heavey wolf areas where we used to run lion we can't even find a set of tracks. My son puts in about 40 days each winter hunting, mostly treeing and photgraphing cats, not killing, and so far this winter in the areas with high wolf populations, not a singel cat. Other oufitters are saying the same thing. I think the wolf has displaced them, or forced them to move to different areas, and maybe even killed many young cats.

RobinHood36

Might take a look at this webpage--

http://www.mtmultipleuse.org/wolf_pics.htm

RandyA

Everyone needs to read Robinhoods post of that thread.

idahoelkinstructor

RobinHood36, Good read and 100% the truth, to bad we couldn't show this to the hollywood green tree hugger type in real life with their own eyes. But even then they are so stupid they would come up with some excuse to defend the wolves.

Dirt2

Rather-be-hunting, I agree with you that wolves need to be managed. I really wanted to illustrate with this post a thing called "mass hysteria". My two stories illustrate it, and a general cruise of responses to my thread really highlights it. Unfortunately, these slobbering attitudes cost us in the real world with nonhunters.

One guy can't talk down a screaming horde, but a couple points. If the horror stories were representative of the general reality, then obviously the last game animal would have been extinct centuries before Columbus ever came onto the continent. Study and you'll find that the Indians, who relied on game meat, killed probably more animals nationwide than modern hunters do, and also let wolves have the run of the place. Yet, miraculously we still have game today.

A major case in point is the way elk and wolves are being reported here in Montana. I just saw a guy on another post saying don't bother to come to MT because the wolves have ruined the elk hunting. This opinion is just so wildly off the mark I'm still shaking my head.

The hunting media is feeding the hysteria. I recently read an article on elk in Montana in Rocky Mountain Hunting & Fishing News. It's entire theme was that wolves are ruining the elk hunt, and their case in point was the Gardiner hunt, where cow tags have been eliminated. Think about it, in a state like MT, you're bound to find a place where elk are down, wolves or not. In fact, any objective report on elk in MT should be glowing, because these are the good old days. Even that article had to eventually admit elk were booming all over, but they made the claim that this was only true in areas without wolves. Again, it's poppycock, one of the areas they tout is the Bitterroot (my home range), but they seem unaware that we have wolves coming out our ears. Yet, we have elk numbers 20% over objectives and calf:cow ratios of 35 to 45;100. Statewide, elk numbers are booming in probably 90% of the elk range, including areas in the wolf recovery area.

The biggest problem we face right now in MT is the danger that ranchers get tired of elk knocking over their fences and raiding their haystacks, and demand reductions in elk numbers. They have already begun trying to alter our statewide management plans to limit elk numbers to what public land can support, and that is a scary thought.

rather_be_huntin

Dirt2 it's human nature to have a knee jerk reaction and we are seeing it. Wolves have been gone for a while and rightly so people were concerned about the effects of reintroduction. It's change and change usually has both foretold and unforeseen consequences.

Remember the large number of elk that died in Wyoming, I believe it was in Wyoming, last year but they couldn't figure out what was killing them? Those elk lived for a short time while immobile. Imagine if an wolf pack came across that herd. The elk would have been finished off by the wolves but would have suffered death either way. However had the wolves finished off the elk extensive studies would never have been performed and we would have another "the wolves killed 170 some odd elk in Wyoming" headline.

In my state wolves do not have a real presence here yet. I watch deer and elk populations roller coaster in different units and again extensive studies are done to figure out the real reason. However if there were wolves in these areas I'm sure they would automatically be blamed. Again that is just human nature. To react first and then think later.

My point is it seems to me that much of the "wolf hysteria" is mostly a knee jerk reaction with only partial truths and reality mixed in. I do see a MAJOR problem with letting them live unmanaged. But a lot of the wolf hysteria seems to be much exaggerated. In time elk and other species will adapt to having an old predator in town with new tricks. Nature will find a way to balance and there will still be plenty of hunting opportunities for us all. BUT that is conditional on the fact that we can gets these things de-listed as I believe they have already over-populated in some areas.

HYDE

Dirt, Wolves are a problem and need to be controlled. How do you explain the decline of the yellowstone elk heard that was around 19,000 head a few years back, and now the current count is 9,000 head. Thats 10,000 elk dead with-in 4 years. Harsh winter? OR Wolves? Maybe a combination of both, but I doubt it. The wolves kill for fun, they do eat some of the meat but they kill for training and fun. Thats what happened to the yellowstone heard along with most of the elk in WY & ID. I was just at the elk refuge over the weekend and asked if they have much predation from wolves. There is 2 resident wolves that freequent the refuge. To date there have been 15 elk killed by these 2 wolves, fewer than half were eaten. The others were left and eventually picked over by a pack of coyotes. Why do you think Teddy Roosevelt (one of the pioneers of hunting/conservation in our country) wanted to eliminate the wolves back then, because they were a problem then and have become a problem again with the reintroduction. There is good reason the wolves were on the brink of extinction. They need to be controled in order to protect our wildlife for future generations of hunters. I talked to an outfitter in Gardnier, MT who told me a wolf story. He was on his back deck watching a heard of elk feed in a medow in the spring. All of a sudden a pack of wolves attacked the heard killing 13 calves leaving all of them without eating a single one. He told me he sees this happen more often than you would think, he restated that the wolves are killing machines and love to kill for fun. Just had to vent. We don't have to kill every one, but they need regulation and controling be it by issuing a drawing for tags and let the hunters hunt them or other means.

Hyde

121553

Dirt regarding your post #1, For one thing I live in area 100 in the Kootenai National Forest and I am well aware of the problems the wolves have caused in this area and our biologist will not admit that there is a problem. They do kill for the thrill to kill, a friend of mine lost one of his cat dogs to a wolve and just left it lay and made headlines news here and they said it was just an isolated case and such issues as this is how they just bury there head in the sand and hope that the problem goes away. Dirt the winter your talking about that was so severe that it killed off a lot of wildlife was back in 96-97 I believe and yes it was a servere winter. I live here along the Canadain border and on one side of the border its illegal to shoot a wolf but on the other side of the fence its legal. I do not believe in a full down right massacre of the specie but they do need to be kept in cheque, if you think there is a shortage of wolves around here then come out here, you'll hear them all night long and find lots and lots of animal parts in the vacinity. Once every couple weeks I go down to Kalispell to pick up supplies and at times I can see a wolf off in the distance feeding on a road kill and as we approach closer it goes back into the bush and as you pass and look back you can see that wolf come back to that carcass.
The wolves effect the areas that I hunt and some areas I just won't even venture into if I know that the wolves have been hunting prior to myself. I think they need to have a limited hunt such as they do with cougar hunting here and when they reach a certain quota, cut it off. Just my .05 cents worth. Bobby

Dirt2

Again, I completely agree that wolves need managed to keep their numbers within certain bounds. I monitor my own hunting areas very closely, and I assure you that if I see that wolves are depleting "my" elk herds, the words will be shoot, shovel, and shut up! I just hear so much of this doomsday talk that I can't sit silent anymore. Here in my neck of the woods, where it's an indisputable fact that elk numbers are going through the roof, you can walk into the local cafe any day of the week and hear three different guys talking about wolves and how they have destroyed the elk population.

In Yellowstone, the people running the program predicted that the elk population would be knocked back to 8 or 10 thousand by wolves. The 19 thousand level probably wasn't maintainable anyway, so it's kind of a false level of comparison.

I just want hunters to try to keep their heads a little bit on this issue. We can come off so crazy about wolves that people will just shut us out. We are really going to lose credibility in years to come if the doomsday prophecies don't come true.