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Full Roar, each of us have had our own experiences, and no one is totally wrong just like no one is totally right. True there may have been a small remnant population of wolves in that area, but they had been reduced to the point where they were not a major player when it came to having any real effect on wildlife or livestock numbers. Not sure where you think I stand on the issue, but I do not think wolves should have been introduced/re-introduced and definitely not in the numbers they were. As I said in my response that seems to have put a kink in your tail, from the late 1800's/early 1900's, until the introductions/re-introductions in that area, wolves had been nullified as a major predator in that region. One lone wolf with a radio collar does not pose a real threat to ANYTHING. I firmly believe that the only folks that should have had ANY say in the final decision concerning the introduction/re-introduction of wolves into that region are the citizens and the game and fish departments of the states that would be involved and effected first hand by such actions. The Federal government AKA U.S. Fish & Wildlife should not be allowed to arbitrarily force such a decision down peoples throats, especially decisions that enough research into the possible effects, both short and long term that such an action will have on the region on both animals and humans living in that region. As far as your comments about wolves in Texas, in case you are unaware of it, Texas is practically all private land. That means at least 2 things as far as wolves are concerned. 1. The Feds will not be pushing them down anyone's throat, and 2, any that do wander into the state will be treated the same way coyotes are, shot on sight and no one will say anything about it. Hell, down here mountain lions are not given anymore protection than coyotes. They are classified as varmints, and the only information TP&W is interested in is the general location where the animal was killed. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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Jesus! I have lived in wolf country all my life. I have had to take them into consideration as part of hunting whether it be deer or birds from the time I was old enough to hunt. Two things I know. First, in what I know as wolf country, the is no way in hell you will eliminate them just hunting/trapping. Not even with a bounty. Pressure, whether it is from hunting or trapping just makes smart wolves that are extremely people shy. That pressure makes better wolves. It eliminates the dumb (vulnerable) wolves and at the same time helps the smarter warier wolves by reducing their competition from the dumb wolves. You might push them out of marginal territory with a lot of pressure though. That's probably a good thing for us and the wolves. My personal opinion is that we could have an open season year 'round, 24/7 for hunting and trapping and probably wind up with a wolf population much more in line with what it can be maintained at over a longer term. It is a hard row to hoe to go out and hunt down a wolf in Minnesota after they've been hunted some. We had a manly run at trying to kill off every last one of them during the first half of the 20th century and couldn't manage it then with people living more remotely and being much, much closer to the land. Wolves that are not hunted/trapped are a very different animal than those which are. If we persist in hunting them as we are now, with limited seasons, and broad expanses of the year when they are not pressured we likely will continue to have higher than acceptable levels of adverse interaction between wolves and the activities of people. I have never seen an animal so man shy as a wolf that's been pressured. Absent that pressure, they can be as dumb as young of the year coyotes. I have hunted wolves that knew people were dangerous all day, every day. They're far and away the hardest thing to get a shot at I have ever seen. They also were not much interested in approaching stock or dogs no matter how hungry they got, something that could not be said about coyotes that were hunted, and coyotes are not known as dumb/easy pickings. IMO we have in Minnesota a lot more wolves than the "official numbers". They are more widely established in less than remote territory because our land use favors deer greatly more than it ever has in the past. I know they are established in some of what I consider pretty marginal wolf habitat where they bump up against human activities far too regularly with far to much impunity. If we are to have a good future for us and wolves perhaps the single best thing we can do for them is to return them to varmint status and encourage people to shoot them whenever possible. We would produce a more stable population of wolves in territory much more favorable to them with less animus from the people who live with them. In all probability, Minnesota would wind up with a substantially higher population than what we had at their lowest level in the early seventies. | |||
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Marginal wolf habitat to who a modern wolf scientist. Not to the wolf the idea the wolves well only live in a wilderness is wrongful thinking. Promoted by the pro wolf people who may have only studied them in the wild and a very limit area of Isle Royal NP. In Canada and AK where they were hunted pressured. Isle Royal very limited area and limited food supply. This gave these so called wolf experts the wrong results. That wolves were shy wilderness animals that limit their populations. They didn't take into account a very large prey base and almost unlimited territory to expand into. Wolves have bee found south into Indiana and Iowa. A rare "occurrence" but they keep happening. Wolf packs have established them self's into middle or southern Wis. Depends where you draw the line. With out pressure and control they well keep expanding into areas where they can. | |||
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The success of hunting efforts in both Minnesota and Wisconsin demonstrates that we have wolves who have not faced pressure and are not in habitat that favors them. Watch that success rate decline in the coming years and watch wolves disappear from areas they now are protected in as they adapt. | |||
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I'd like to see the 'disappear' from all areas they were 'reintroduced' in to. There was a reason they were removed the 1st time, too bad we need to learn the same lesson again! | |||
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That's not an uncommon sentiment. Usually it comes from people with little experience with wolves. Where I hunt deer is a place that did not have wolves in the fifties/sixties, and probably not since the early 1900s. At least not resident packs. At the same time, there were precious damn few deer in the 60s/70s. I hunt at the junction of three packs territories and there's lots of deer. I get to pick and choose which deer I want and frequently have half a dozen to choose from on a given day. Back when we had a bounty on them (wolves) and they were hunted without season or limit, you took any deer you had a chance to because if you didn't, you might not be eating venison that year. The biggest problem they pose for me is the threat they represent to my bird dogs. You do need to be careful about them and know if they are in the vicinity you want to hunt birds in. Even at that, it's not difficult to move the wolves out, and the more they get shot at the easier that will become. | |||
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From my observations and experience here in Texas and wolves have not been present for a long time and I did not kill my first deer until 1970. Things were as you described above, and that was the problem, not wolves or lack there of, but indiscriminant shooting of the available resource, in this case deer. If a person will think back/look back, do a little research, it wasn't really until the 1980's when real emphasis and effort was placed upon managing white tails due to the perceived economic impact that would be and has been realized thru hunting those animals in a selective manner with the attendant land usage/farming-ranching practices evolving to improve the habitat for deer production, that deer numbers really began to explode. When I was growing up in rural north Texas in the 50's and 60's, seeing a deer once a year was an event and many areas simply had no deer. The expansion and proliferation of white tail deer in the U.S. can be credited directly to the efforts of a few individuals creating a competitive attitude among hunters concerning the killing of these animals. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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No knock on you. My biggest complaint about the whole issue is the virtual lies that have been perpetuated about the wolf population in the Rockies in the 70's and 80's prior to introducing wolves captured in a entirely different habitat. Wolves existed, and in suitable numbers. I want to reiterate - perhaps you did not catch it the first time around. ONE wolf had a radio collar. It was captured and collared in 1981 if I remember correctly, outside of Salmon Idaho in the Sawtooth Mountains. It was not the only wolf captured, it was the only one they collared with a radio transmitter that worked. In the 1800's and early 1900's all game animals were on the verge of endangerment in the West, not just predators. I tried to point that out with the reference's to Bison. Thru game laws and game management and predator control, the fish and game representing the different states was able to correct this and re-establish huntable sustainable populations in most area's. The over zealous protection of Wild Horses, Grizzly Bears and now the introduced wolves have set those actions and hard work back decades. As I stated prior, I do not think that the moose population will ever recover at this point. The other argument I would like to see made: if we are to re-establish species that once roamed freely thru out the West, why hasn't Bison been re-introduced in their ancestral habitat and allowed to roam freely. And if the BLM and F&G are asked to remove feral/introduced species, why are wild horses not on that list. We continue to avoid the real issues as some of them are not PC to un-informed people. As miles58 put it, you cannot eliminate wolves, coyotes, fox, grizzly, etc. You can only manage their numbers and their attitudes by hunting and trapping them. An animal pursued is a cautious animal. The country is to big and to thick and to dark to effectively hunt all of them down. The areas I referred to in Wyoming are so thick you cannot even ride a horse thru much of it. Wolves were able to survive by staying away from areas that hunters and shooters could access. As far as Texas goes, perhaps you might be right. however, federal protection and the outcry of bunny huggers over wolves getting shot will change the perception of the general population and wolves will be there to stay. After all, wolves are cuddly little creatures, un-like vicious mountain lions | |||
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No Sir, that will never happen. Texas is 95 or more % Private Land. The Feds have no place to introduce them and any that migrate into the state, especially the western part, will be shot on sight with nothing said by anyone. Wolves, unlike coyotes, can be exterminated. It was done with great effectiveness all over America from the time Europeans first arrived in the New World up until the Ecological Enlightenment of the latter years of the 20th. century. Coyotes do not require a pack social structure to survive and proliferate, wolves do. Their whole social structure/breeding physiology is based upon the pack. True, there were accounts of famous lone wolves that had fantastic reputations as livestock killers. What so many folks either lose sight of or simply do not take into consideration, is that at the time wolves and other predators were being shot into oblivion, so were mule deer/elk/pronghorn and any other Game Species, species that humans depended upon for food. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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I've heard "That will never happen here" many times. It always does | |||
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Private Land Ownership and Private Land Owner Rights are too strong here. That however is beside the point of this discussion and really has nothing to do with the fact that the reintroduction of wolves was a bad idea. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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agreed!!! | |||
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The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Hunting American Big Game Hunting The Future of North American Wolves, Interview with Dr. Valerius Geist
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