Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
12-16-2004, 09:13 PM
#11
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: a van down by the river
Posts: 8,939
RE: Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
ORIGINAL: Idaho hunter 58
Stupid... Just trying to justify wolves. Personally i value our big game, and our animal herds more that i do about some damn beavers and insects.
Stupid... Just trying to justify wolves. Personally i value our big game, and our animal herds more that i do about some damn beavers and insects.
I don't have anything against beavers, they make such nice hats.
12-16-2004, 11:19 PM
#12
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location:
Posts: 342
RE: Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
ORIGINAL: woody7
I think the red wolf is nearly extinct now.
I think the red wolf is nearly extinct now.
I would hate for this to happen to the other species of wolves, whether they are considered "pests" or not. They are starting to return to my home state, and I hope they will remain - even though I may be in the minority on the issue.
12-17-2004, 09:57 PM
#15
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 43
RE: Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
No wolves here in Jersey, but the fish and wildlife dept did let some north eastern yotes go that moved south through the state. Problem is that the eastern yote (unlike western) are a mix between a wolf and a yote and some are 60 lbs. + They were trying to control the states deer population. Nice going DNR! we now have a bunch of oversized yotes running around residential neighborhoods. I recently asked my neighbors if they have seen/heard them around and they looked at me like I was crazy! Until I shot one and showed them! One thing though, they don't taste very good?
12-18-2004, 12:50 PM
#17
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: fort mcmurray alberta canada
Posts: 5,667
RE: Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
They are trying hard to justify the wolf re-introduction.We shoot wloves on sight here in Alberta and it doesn't seem to effect the population at all.
12-18-2004, 05:01 PM
#18
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado
Posts: 1,964
RE: Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
Stubblejumper,
Now you're making me nervous, they are already starting to drastically reduce the elk in the places they roam while under the aegis of "federal protection" and now you're telling me you guys shoot them on sight and it don't faze them --- I got a B-A-D feeling about where this is headed, like NOW is the "good old days of elk hunting" that we are going to be looking back on and moaning about 10-20 years from now.
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A LITTLE NEWS FROM MONTANA, REGARDING THE HISTORIC AND LEGENDARY GARDINER ELK HUNT!!!
"....We shoot wloves on sight here in Alberta and it doesn't seem to effect the population at all...."
================
A LITTLE NEWS FROM MONTANA, REGARDING THE HISTORIC AND LEGENDARY GARDINER ELK HUNT!!!
By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer
HELENA -- The winter elk hunt in Gardiner will be cut from 1,180 hunters to 148 hunters, mirroring the steady downward spiral of the Northern Yellowstone elk herd, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission decided here Thursday.
The hunt is likely to be discontinued altogether in the future, said Kurt Alt, FWP regional wildlife manager.
"It's probably going to go away," he said.
He cited the heavy density of wolves in and near the park, coupled with other predation, as a reason for cutting the hunt by more than 90 percent by January, 2006.
The northern Yellowstone herd hit a peak of about 19,000 animals in 1994. The next year, wolves were reintroduced and elk have been on a steady decline ever since.
"It's just one more mouth to feed," Alt said of the wolves.
As recently as 2000, FWP offered more than 2,800 tags for the late hunt, which aimed to harvest mostly female elk that migrated out of Yellowstone National Park.
"We expect to observe less than 8,000 elk during this December's count," Alt said. "Wolf lovers will have a hard time accepting that wolves are having such an impact."
He noted that in 1968, when the National Park Service stopped culling elk inside the park, there were about 4,000 elk there. By 1975, the year the late hunt commenced, the number had climbed to 12,000. In those years, there were no wolves, about half as many grizzly bears as there are today, and a lot fewer lions, Alt noted.
He said that, with the abundance of predators in and near the park, he fears that "one bad winter" could drop the elk herd to the 1968 level and the smaller herd would then face all those predators.
Critics of wolf reintroduction have pointed to reduced elk numbers for years and blamed wolves for them.
Now it turns out they're right, at least partly.
Recent studies in Yellowstone have shown that 70 percent of elk calves die from predators by the end of September of their first year.
Bears, both black and grizzly, account for about 60 percent of the calves that die in the first few weeks of their lives in the jaws of predators. After the calves become more mobile, wolves begin killing more of them and bears kill fewer, the studies show.
Springtime counts over the last three years have shown that between 12 and 14 calves per hundred cows have remained alive through the first year of their life.
A calf/cow ratio of about 20 is needed for a herd to sustain itself, Alt told the commission.
FWP commission chairman Dan Walker asked him if he expected to see that level reached within the next 10 years. Alt said "no."
The commission also approved Montana's statewide elk plan, which focuses on ways for people to harvest more elk, if necessary. Unlike the area just north of the park, most elk hunting districts in the state contain more elk than guidelines call for, leading to landowner complaints.
It's possible that some districts could be limited to antlerless elk only, in efforts to reduce populations.
Alt said he is not concerned about wolves causing similar big drops in elk numbers in other parts of the state.
It hasn't happened in northwest Montana, he said, or along the Rocky Mountain Front, where wolves have lived for years.
Wolves will continue to spread out from the park, but a significant number will get get in trouble with livestock and likely will be killed, Alt said.
"Whether they are listed (by the Endangered Species Act) or not, wolves will be managed on landscapes where people live and work," he said.
FWP is taking over many wolf management duties from the federal government.
Once delisted -- a step that could be years away -- Montana hopes to install limited hunting and trapping seasons for wolves, he said.
HELENA -- The winter elk hunt in Gardiner will be cut from 1,180 hunters to 148 hunters, mirroring the steady downward spiral of the Northern Yellowstone elk herd, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission decided here Thursday.
The hunt is likely to be discontinued altogether in the future, said Kurt Alt, FWP regional wildlife manager.
"It's probably going to go away," he said.
He cited the heavy density of wolves in and near the park, coupled with other predation, as a reason for cutting the hunt by more than 90 percent by January, 2006.
The northern Yellowstone herd hit a peak of about 19,000 animals in 1994. The next year, wolves were reintroduced and elk have been on a steady decline ever since.
"It's just one more mouth to feed," Alt said of the wolves.
As recently as 2000, FWP offered more than 2,800 tags for the late hunt, which aimed to harvest mostly female elk that migrated out of Yellowstone National Park.
"We expect to observe less than 8,000 elk during this December's count," Alt said. "Wolf lovers will have a hard time accepting that wolves are having such an impact."
He noted that in 1968, when the National Park Service stopped culling elk inside the park, there were about 4,000 elk there. By 1975, the year the late hunt commenced, the number had climbed to 12,000. In those years, there were no wolves, about half as many grizzly bears as there are today, and a lot fewer lions, Alt noted.
He said that, with the abundance of predators in and near the park, he fears that "one bad winter" could drop the elk herd to the 1968 level and the smaller herd would then face all those predators.
Critics of wolf reintroduction have pointed to reduced elk numbers for years and blamed wolves for them.
Now it turns out they're right, at least partly.
Recent studies in Yellowstone have shown that 70 percent of elk calves die from predators by the end of September of their first year.
Bears, both black and grizzly, account for about 60 percent of the calves that die in the first few weeks of their lives in the jaws of predators. After the calves become more mobile, wolves begin killing more of them and bears kill fewer, the studies show.
Springtime counts over the last three years have shown that between 12 and 14 calves per hundred cows have remained alive through the first year of their life.
A calf/cow ratio of about 20 is needed for a herd to sustain itself, Alt told the commission.
FWP commission chairman Dan Walker asked him if he expected to see that level reached within the next 10 years. Alt said "no."
The commission also approved Montana's statewide elk plan, which focuses on ways for people to harvest more elk, if necessary. Unlike the area just north of the park, most elk hunting districts in the state contain more elk than guidelines call for, leading to landowner complaints.
It's possible that some districts could be limited to antlerless elk only, in efforts to reduce populations.
Alt said he is not concerned about wolves causing similar big drops in elk numbers in other parts of the state.
It hasn't happened in northwest Montana, he said, or along the Rocky Mountain Front, where wolves have lived for years.
Wolves will continue to spread out from the park, but a significant number will get get in trouble with livestock and likely will be killed, Alt said.
"Whether they are listed (by the Endangered Species Act) or not, wolves will be managed on landscapes where people live and work," he said.
FWP is taking over many wolf management duties from the federal government.
Once delisted -- a step that could be years away -- Montana hopes to install limited hunting and trapping seasons for wolves, he said.
12-18-2004, 05:18 PM
#19
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Montana
Posts: 586
RE: Killing Wolves Kills Other Animals Too
Thanks ElkKamp for that article, depressing as it is. My sons and I have all done the late Elk hunt, knowing it is going away. Thw wolf movement is both anti-gun and anti-hunting and must be stopped.
