wolves - your opinon?

[Odeen]

But that was the past. Not today in the U.S. Actually my state is overrun with mule deer that are even harming people so they're finally opening season even in the neighborhood.

If your area had a healthy population of wolves, I highly doubt mule deer would be an issue.

[Kleinkat]

They're actually making a come back. My cousin works for the DoW, and he's spotted some.
Also the coyotes and other predators are prime.

[Grimace]

But that was the past. Not today in the U.S. Actually my state is overrun with mule deer that are even harming people so they're finally opening season even in the neighborhood.

If your area had a healthy population of wolves, I highly doubt mule deer would be an issue.

I'm sure there would be no issues having wolf packs chasing deer through a neighborhood on a regular basis.

[PeachFuzz]

But that was the past. Not today in the U.S. Actually my state is overrun with mule deer that are even harming people so they're finally opening season even in the neighborhood.

If your area had a healthy population of wolves, I highly doubt mule deer would be an issue.

I'm sure there would be no issues having wolf packs chasing deer through a neighborhood on a regular basis.

Uh oh, wild deer rampaging the town... Hey, let's replace them with wild wolves rampaging the town! =D

[Kleinkat]

We already have coyotes, cougars, and the occasional bear. They actually live near our homes, in my rural community. I don't think we need wolves, we need ammo and tags.

[PeachFuzz]

If wolves are native to your state they have as much a right to be there as you. It's not about whether or not you need them.

If the current ecosystem doesn't need them, then no they don't belong. It doesn't matter if you think they have some sort of "right" to be there - if they're not needed, they're not needed, period.

[Kleinkat]

No. They are not, they're invasive as are most Yellowstone wolves. We don't need them in our neighbor hood and if they kill livestock. Ranchers have just as much right to kill.

[Nyxeva]

The wolves that were put there, or "reintroduced" were never actually a species that lived there before. They were Canadian Grey Wolves, a stronger subspecies than what was there before. This means they have more endurance, and are able to chase animals for far longer than the prey animals are used to. That's the main reason the wolves did so well, because the prey animals could not run long enough to get away from them.

In 1995 14 wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park and 15 in Idaho. The next year 17 more wolves were released in Yellowstone and 20 in Idaho. At that time my good friend and fellow outdoor writer, Jim Zumbo from Cody, Wyoming was clearly concerned. He feared that wolves would do serious harm to moose and elk populations.

Even before wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone, they had moved into Minnesota. From there, more and more wolves moved into the upper Midwest, and again farmers, wildlife managers, and others were concerned. But many citizens, most not living where the wolves were located, loved the idea of their reestablishment. Such a push to reestablish wolf numbers in the east continues today. Early this year a federal judge ordered the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service to do more to reestablish wolves in New York, Vermont and Maine.

During all this, wolf problems and predation have escalated in Alaska. I’ll get to the Alaska situation in a minute, but why are many wildlife biologists who work for state wildlife agencies concerned about wolves, and wolf reintroductions? Why aren’t they elated with the thought that wolves can again roam their states? The answer is that they know that once populations are established, management and control of those wolves will not be allowed and local wildlife populations will suffer. Agriculture interests always fight wolf reintroductions for the same reason. They know they will lose livestock and although there may be some financial compensation for those losses, the concern is still very real.

From a population perspective, one question is how are wolves doing? It seems they are doing well. In Idaho and Yellowstone from 1995-2005 populations increased by 10% per year with 166 in Montana, 525 in Idaho and 221 in Wyoming. Many Fish and Wildlife Service officials believe this is all the wolves that region can hold. Early on numbers of wolves in Minnesota sky-rocketed, but they have leveled off there. But problems continue to grow. Wolf numbers are also growing in Michigan and Wisconsin. Alaska has as many as 11,000 wolves.

Lots of people, private citizens, urban and suburbanites, like the idea of having wolves around. OK, not around them per se, but in the wilderness. In fact the wolf is a symbol of wild wilderness. I like them to, and hearing them howl on a recent Alberta black bear bowhunt, was a highlight of that trip. But I am a wildlife person, a biologist who believes in good sound wildlife management. The need for some control of wolf numbers is becoming more and more apparent.

We don’t have all that much wilderness in America. Thus, wolf numbers cannot continue to grow. When numbers grow, without any management (meaning no control of numbers by human intervention), other wildlife suffers. A month or so ago I wrote about coyote predation not really affecting our deer numbers. That might be the situation for coyotes, but data shows this isn’t the case with wolves.

While it is true that wolf numbers have dropped this past year in Wyoming due to mange and competition for food, predation is a problem. According to a 2005 article in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, elk and moose populations are taking a big hit in Yellowstone. Those researchers looked at elk population data before and after wolves were introduced. There were 17,000 elk in 1995, down to 8,335 in 2004. A major hit.

Pregnancy rates for elk in 2000-2003, when there were wolves, was the same as pregnancy rates before wolves were introduced so that wasn’t the cause for the elk decrease. Wolves were the major culprit. Prime-aged female elk survival rates dropped from 0.99 to 0.85. With the decrease in elk came a decrease in elk hunting permits so you have loss of revenues there. In northern Yellowstone wolf elk predation exceeded hunter harvest.

But here is the kicker. "As the ratio of wolves to elk increased,"..."wolves maintained high kill rates and rapid population growth despite a 50% decrease in elk counts." In other words, even though elk numbers were decreasing, wolves still killed the same number. Of course that can’t continue, but since wildlife managers can’t kill wolves, the only thing they can do is lower the amount of legal hunting. The result of that will mean reduced money for state elk and wolf research and management since hunters pay most of those bills.

The conclusion of that study was "that elk numbers will continue to decrease." This is exactly what Jim Zumbo, my friend from Wyoming, predicted. Because of this problem Idaho has recently funded a $500,000 study to see what is happening to wildlife there as a result of an unmanaged wolf population.

Wyoming officials have shown that moose and elk populations were stable where there were no wolves, but decreasing where there were. Where you have wolves, elk calves are down 24-30 percent. Calf decrease is only down 10% where there are no wolves. This decrease is costing their game agency $225,000 a year and $2.9 million to rural economies from a loss of hunting. Moose numbers around Jackson Wyoming are down 40 percent. Yes, there is some habitat decline, but wolves are also part of the problem.

Another recent journal paper showed that wolves can hurt moose. In Scandinavia, where moose are very abundant, there studies on wolf predation led them to state that "estimates of wolf kill rates on moose may have been seriously underestimated in previous North American studies." In Minnesota, a 2005 journal article stated that even though overall wolf numbers were relatively stable, "the proportion of depredations occurring due to wolf range expansion increased from 30% in 1989 to 48% in 1998." All of this is happening with no real way to control wolves because they are listed as "endangered" species.

In Michigan and Wisconsin the wolf was down listed from "endangered" to "threatened" in 2003. That ruling was just recently thrown out by a federal judge in Oregon. In 2005 state wildlife officials in Michigan and Wisconsin asked the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permits to kill 34 wolves. They were after wolves that killed pets and livestock. The Service granted those permits, but the Humane Society of the United States and other organizations filed a law suit stating that the public didn’t have an opportunity to comment before the permits were issued. A federal judge halted the killing of those wolves. Its becoming the trend.

The main reason I chose this article to quote here is because it is written by someone who holds a doctorate in wildlife biology. While I realize that this article was written in 2005, I believe many of the points brought up are still valid.

[Nyxeva]

I myself am a bow hunter. As long as you aim correctly, the animal is dead before it has a chance to register pain.

Thank you for letting me know that my link is broken though!

[Nyxeva]

Let's see if it will cooperate this time
Click.

As for inexperienced hunters, an inexperienced hunter with a gun will do as much damage as one with a bow, if not more. For instance, using the wrong type of ammunition for the animal you're hunting. There's a lot more to hunting than just going out and killing something. I know when I got my hunting license for the first time, I had to go through a hunter's safety course. Not only did the course talk about keep ourselves safe, but it also talked about ethical hunting and where the money hunters spend on their licenses go.

It's actually because of my hunting background that I want to become a wildlife officer!