Originally Posted by cayugad (Post 3648557)

Last bow season a friend of mine was sitting in a tree stand. He claims he saw more wolves then deer on two consecutive days. What does that tell you?

Another fellow up the road was out in the yard with his Labrador puppy. He looked up on the hillside about 200 yards across a hay field and spotted two wolves, just standing there watching. Were they waiting for him to go in the house and leave the puppy unattended? When he called the DNR to report the incident he was to that he should make sure to supervise his puppy when it was outside. So he asked them what if the kids are in the yard, playing with the puppy? They had no response for that.

What has to happen before anything gets done is some child or smaller person will be attacked or confronted, or someone important who owns a cute little doggy will have it snatched by a big nasty timber wolf. The the DNR will do something about it.

Now we have more and more wolf and bear sightings all over the State. My brother who lives in Verona was told there are numerous bear in the Verona area by a person that works for the DNR. Numerous?? What does that mean?

All these wolf reports does not surprise me. I am sure they will put out the pack report soon. You can sign up for it on the DNR web site. They will tell you where you should not walk your dogs, work your dogs, and if you live in the area... well good luck.

Originally Posted by macman99 (Post 3650144)

The reason Wyoming is "battling" is because when all the other states had viable management plans in place and the wolf was to be removed from the fed endangered species list and become state managed - Wyoming had virtually no plan at all. The federal government wasn't about to spend 30 years and millions of dollars to help a species recover, only to turn it over to a state with no management plan.

Wyoming's lack of a management plan is also one of the biggest reasons the enviromental groups sued to get the wolf temporarily put back on the list. They didn't focus on the states where there were more than enough wolves and where plans were set up and ready to go...they focused on the "one bad apple," as people and the media love to do.

As for taking the law into your own hands. Talk like this is like what makes us all look bad to the environmentalists, anti-and non-hunters, and people in urban areas who could care less about hunting: also known as the rest of America. This may be a news flash to some, but non-hunters outnumber us in this country by quite a bit, AND they vote. Even if hunters started routinely whacking wolves whenever they saw 'em, the damage done by the negative publicity would far outweigh any benefit in reducing the wolf population. People would focus on the "bad" hunters killing wolves and not the majority of us who follow the rules. You'd end up with more restrictions and more protection, for a lot longer period. It'd be like starting all over again.

And as far as gut-shooting ANY animal so it can crawl away and die a horrible, painful death, that's a great quote for some anti-hunter to copy off the net and take to their Congressman: "see what these whackos are talking about..."

Originally Posted by mr.mc54 (Post 3650173)

OOOOOOOOOO do I detect a wolf sypathiser? Maybe you should see what a wolf can do to your pets, hounds, calves, horses, sheep, fawns, deer, elk, get the picture?????? Now tell me again how the poor doggies, die a horrible death. There is a reason the wolf was almost extinct. The wolf is a killing machine, period! You go ahead and hug or coddle one. I am a farmer and I guess I have more at stake than you do. It's easy to blame the "bad hunters" as you call us. Walk a mile in our shoes BUD!!!!! I really don't care what an environmentalist or PETA has to say. Its time we take a stand for the deer, elk, pets, farm animals and maybe small children playing in their own yard.:s4::s4:

Originally Posted by macman99 (Post 3651661)

Well first off, having grown up in Alaska, lived a fair share of my life in Washington and Idaho (working on farms), and now living here in the midwest, I've probably seen more wolves AND more of what wolves can do than you ever will. So it might be wise to walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you insert your foot in your mouth and start ripping on them..."bud."

Take a deep breath and read some of this drivel you're parrotting...it's the same thing that everyone else spews with no fact behind it. "The sky is falling because I saw a wolf...kill 'em all...." It's usually passed from one person to the next with few people actually stopping to consider the veracity of what the hear.

"Stand for" your deer and elk? You mean "stand for" them so YOU can kill them, right? They're not "our" deer until we legally harvest them. Before that, they belong to the state. That's why we pay for the privelege of harvesting them. But they belong not just to you, but to everyone who is eligible to harvest them. My wife doesn't hunt, but she pays taxes and votes, so they're her deer just as much yours and mine. So spare me the "stand for 'our' deer" speech. Besides, I'm pretty sure cars kill more deer than wolves do.:rolleye0011: So when I see hunters out on I-35 blasting Hondas and Fords, then maybe you'll have a point on that one.

Other than people who already hate wolves saying they didn't get a deer last year because of wolves (:confused:), I have yet to see any real proof that wolves in MN/WI are doing so much damage to the deer herd that we need to take the law into our own hands (and I certainly don't see any reason to kill an animal inhumanely just for doing what nature bred it to do). And for every person who says the wolves are to blame for his empty freezer, there's another who still kills a deer and ain't complaining at all. But no one seems able to explain that little mystery...

It was the same out west. But now there's delisting, management and wolf hunts and the complaining is dying off - not because they're killing so many wolves and the so-called 'decimated herds' are miraculously rebounding, but because there's nothing more to complain about or to blame. Of course, no one ever thought about the other factors that affect a successful versus an unsuccessful hunt: weather, terrain, movement of the deer, bad timing, or just crappy luck. And they aren't talking about them now, either.

As for farm animals, you're compensated for that, are you not? The farmers out west were. And pretty fairly. But there are also those guys the DNR wardens are always talking about, getting compensated with taxpayer dollars for every other livestock fatality because you blame ALL of them on the wolves. A DNR guy told me about a common "farmer trick:" kill a wolf and use the severed paw to put wolf prints around every dead cow you find on your land. Easy money. That's called "fraud".... "bud".

No, I realize you're probably not like that and wouldn't do that, but my point here is that some farmers would and DO. Not to mention poisoning everything under the sun to deter wolves from roaming their land...or being the loudest critics of wolf protection while simultaneously using government land to graze their cattle on (western hypocrites).

I bring this up because using the "I'm-a-farmer" claim like it's some kind of moral high-ground in the argument for or against wolves isn't gonna fly with me; I've known, worked for, and and lived among enough farmers to know better.

Small children in the yard? Kinda reaching there, aren't you...there's been ONE proven wolf fatality in all of North America. One. And only just recently. That says it's time for management, not for knee-jerk paranoia and eradication.

I think it's funny that you assume that liking wolves or being a "sympathizer" is such an insulting thing, anyway: I'm a sportsman and I love wildlife, period: not just the species I can eat, legally kill, or which represent some tangible benefit to me.

I'm also smart enough to understand that advocating killing wolves and making the woods a giant game farm just for us hunters is never gonna happen, and the more we run our collective mouths about "SSS" and that crap, the more damage we're doing to our own cause. That was my only point in replying in this thread.

Do you want wolves to be protected for another 30 years? With the numbers to continue increasing from what they are now, with NO management? That's what's gonna happen. Some other environmental group just petitioned the feds recently to have wolves stay on the endangered species list until they can occupy the same range in ALL STATES that they once did. How long will THAT take? How many wolves do you think there will be in the midwest by the time we actually have a viable wolf pack in Florida???

I like wolves just like I like deer, bears, cats, etc. I feel fortunate to get a deer when I hunt (and I think I've been lucky in my life), but I also know there are other factors at play when I don't get one. I think wolves should be managed here and I know a lot of people who'd like to hunt them. That's cool with me, as long as it's legal. But whether we like it or not, this is not frontier America, anymore - where wolves were a constant threat to our very survival. The world has changed in the last 100 years, not only in that sense, but in the sense that the people who make and influence this nation's laws are mostly non-hunters: you SHOULD care what environmentalists say, because as loopy as some of them may be (like PETA), most of them are not running around the internet talking about taking the law into their own hands. The more credibility we take away from ourselves, the more ammo we give to them.I

Actually, I "get it" enough to know that simply seeing a wolf while walking my dog doesn't mean I need to jump on "kill-all-wolves" bandwagon that a lot of people are so content to ride, blissfully ignorant of what their negative message is doing for their argument

Originally Posted by macman99 (Post 3651661)

Well first off, having grown up in Alaska, lived a fair share of my life in Washington and Idaho (working on farms), and now living here in the midwest, I've probably seen more wolves AND more of what wolves can do than you ever will. So it might be wise to walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you insert your foot in your mouth and start ripping on them..."bud."

Take a deep breath and read some of this drivel you're parrotting...it's the same thing that everyone else spews with no fact behind it. "The sky is falling because I saw a wolf...kill 'em all...." It's usually passed from one person to the next with few people actually stopping to consider the veracity of what the hear.

"Stand for" your deer and elk? You mean "stand for" them so YOU can kill them, right? They're not "our" deer until we legally harvest them. Before that, they belong to the state. That's why we pay for the privelege of harvesting them. But they belong not just to you, but to everyone who is eligible to harvest them. My wife doesn't hunt, but she pays taxes and votes, so they're her deer just as much yours and mine. So spare me the "stand for 'our' deer" speech. Besides, I'm pretty sure cars kill more deer than wolves do.:rolleye0011: So when I see hunters out on I-35 blasting Hondas and Fords, then maybe you'll have a point on that one.

Other than people who already hate wolves saying they didn't get a deer last year because of wolves (:confused:), I have yet to see any real proof that wolves in MN/WI are doing so much damage to the deer herd that we need to take the law into our own hands (and I certainly don't see any reason to kill an animal inhumanely just for doing what nature bred it to do). And for every person who says the wolves are to blame for his empty freezer, there's another who still kills a deer and ain't complaining at all. But no one seems able to explain that little mystery...

It was the same out west. But now there's delisting, management and wolf hunts and the complaining is dying off - not because they're killing so many wolves and the so-called 'decimated herds' are miraculously rebounding, but because there's nothing more to complain about or to blame. Of course, no one ever thought about the other factors that affect a successful versus an unsuccessful hunt: weather, terrain, movement of the deer, bad timing, or just crappy luck. And they aren't talking about them now, either.

As for farm animals, you're compensated for that, are you not? The farmers out west were. And pretty fairly. But there are also those guys the DNR wardens are always talking about, getting compensated with taxpayer dollars for every other livestock fatality because you blame ALL of them on the wolves. A DNR guy told me about a common "farmer trick:" kill a wolf and use the severed paw to put wolf prints around every dead cow you find on your land. Easy money. That's called "fraud".... "bud".

No, I realize you're probably not like that and wouldn't do that, but my point here is that some farmers would and DO. Not to mention poisoning everything under the sun to deter wolves from roaming their land...or being the loudest critics of wolf protection while simultaneously using government land to graze their cattle on (western hypocrites).

I bring this up because using the "I'm-a-farmer" claim like it's some kind of moral high-ground in the argument for or against wolves isn't gonna fly with me; I've known, worked for, and and lived among enough farmers to know better.

Small children in the yard? Kinda reaching there, aren't you...there's been ONE proven wolf fatality in all of North America. One. And only just recently. That says it's time for management, not for knee-jerk paranoia and eradication.

I think it's funny that you assume that liking wolves or being a "sympathizer" is such an insulting thing, anyway: I'm a sportsman and I love wildlife, period: not just the species I can eat, legally kill, or which represent some tangible benefit to me.

I'm also smart enough to understand that advocating killing wolves and making the woods a giant game farm just for us hunters is never gonna happen, and the more we run our collective mouths about "SSS" and that crap, the more damage we're doing to our own cause. That was my only point in replying in this thread.

Do you want wolves to be protected for another 30 years? With the numbers to continue increasing from what they are now, with NO management? That's what's gonna happen. Some other environmental group just petitioned the feds recently to have wolves stay on the endangered species list until they can occupy the same range in ALL STATES that they once did. How long will THAT take? How many wolves do you think there will be in the midwest by the time we actually have a viable wolf pack in Florida???

I like wolves just like I like deer, bears, cats, etc. I feel fortunate to get a deer when I hunt (and I think I've been lucky in my life), but I also know there are other factors at play when I don't get one. I think wolves should be managed here and I know a lot of people who'd like to hunt them. That's cool with me, as long as it's legal. But whether we like it or not, this is not frontier America, anymore - where wolves were a constant threat to our very survival. The world has changed in the last 100 years, not only in that sense, but in the sense that the people who make and influence this nation's laws are mostly non-hunters: you SHOULD care what environmentalists say, because as loopy as some of them may be (like PETA), most of them are not running around the internet talking about taking the law into their own hands. The more credibility we take away from ourselves, the more ammo we give to them.



Actually, I "get it" enough to know that simply seeing a wolf while walking my dog doesn't mean I need to jump on "kill-all-wolves" bandwagon that a lot of people are so content to ride, blissfully ignorant of what their negative message is doing for their argument