Wolves in Idaho

royinidaho · #1 03-03-2006, 05:18 PM

Posted this in Elk, also........

GoodOlBoy · #2 03-03-2006, 05:27 PM

Not to mention defenders of the freakin wildlife aint havein to live and hunt there!

GoodOlBoy

hobbles · #3 03-03-2006, 06:29 PM

Wolfs can kill cattle but not elk, interestin,,,,

fabsroman · #4 03-03-2006, 06:44 PM

I think this is retarded. First off, who cares if the wolves kill the elk or hunters kill the elk, so long as there are still elk around. What do we expect wolves to do? Thing is that wolves don't buy hunting licenses, guns, ammo, etc. (i.e., they don't spend money). If the wolf population is getting too high, which I would highly doubt, then they should sell some wolf hunting permits at a decent price to generate some money to help the elk.

What really amazes me is that wolves and elk existed for so many years together without man's involvement. However, now we see fit to get involved. What ever happened to wildlife keeping a balance. When there aren't enough elk to feed the pack, some of them will die from starvation. Once the pack is cut back from starvation, then the elk herd will grow again. As the elk herd grows again, the wolf pack will also grow.

The only problem I can see is if the wolf pack moves somewhere else in search of food, especially if it happens to be an urban area.

skeet · #5 03-03-2006, 08:19 PM

Fabs for some reason it just ain't quite that easy. The amount of wolves in the area is increasing by leaps and bounds...and these are introduced wolves..not the type that were native to the area...at least according to what I have read locally. And the wolf pack will just go to eating what is abundant after the elk are gone..including cattle and continuing to increase their own population. Local hunter here in Wyoming said firing a rifle in the Shosone National forest is like ringing a dinner bell for the introduced grizzly bear population( the known nuisance bears live trapped from Yellowstone). We ought to leave well enough alone.

Skyline · #6 03-03-2006, 08:37 PM

I don't even know where to start with this one. I have lived with wolves around my whole life. I have seen entire moose populations wiped out in watersheds and then they hit everything else, elk, deer, sheep....until there is virtually nothing left.

Fabs contrary to what everyone wants us to believe.......full grown healthy elk and moose will be routinely taken by a pack of wolves. I've seen it.........many times. They have parts of the Yukon Territory where the wolves have knocked the hell out of the caribou herds so bad that the fish and wildlife branch actually stepped in and captured some caribou to put in a breeding pen to protect the local genetics.

Why does this happen...............well we are in the equation now. It is not like it was hundreds of years ago. In the old days hunters and trappers killed wolves.........they still do today up here and yet we do not have a shortage of them. When you protect them completely.....as your government boys are doing they can get out hand quickly.

You can leave it like that sure, and when the game population gets so low that the wolves have to start hitting cattle.......and actually they will do that anyways,even if there is lots of game......then you will force ranchers to break the law and shoot them........practice the 3 S's....shoot, shovel and shut up.

One other thing that you should consider is if the wolves decimate the elk and moose populations it means less opportunities for hunters. Is that what everyone wants......let the wolves run rampant and just cut the hunters off. Somehow I don't think that is what the majority will want.

I like wolves and firmly believe they have a place in the wilderness areas, but they need to be managed like all of the rest of the wildlife. Until you guys get your federal boys to hand the wolf management over to the states things will just get worse. Then you will need state wildlife officials with something between their legs as well...........cause when yo start killing a few the wolf lovers will go crazy.

royinidaho · #7 03-04-2006, 12:29 AM

fabs,

I only take a "little" issue with your comments.

Until I lived out here for about 40 years and my attitudes/feelings/knowledge shed the western PA lifestyle I most probably tho't the same as you. However...........

These wolves that have been imported are not the strain of wolves that the elk in this neck of the woods lived with way back when.

These ones are much larger and seem to have an easy go of it as indicated by their rate of increase in population.

Western folks are a complete different breed than the typical easterner. They (hopefully by now, we) think different.....

fabsroman · #8 03-04-2006, 02:00 AM

Okay, I see the problem with my logic, man and cattle. Back in the day, before man was around, the wolves and elk lived together and lived for many centuries together, with a balance being kept. When there wasn't enough food, there weren't as many wolves.

The problem now is that the wolves can decimate an entire elk herd and then move on to cattle or the neighbors dog.

It is kind of like how I worry about the foxes behind my townhouse when I let Nitro out. I have seen two of them running around in the protected "wetland" area and Nitro likes to go down there and do his business. If I wouldn't end up in jail, I would shoot both foxes.

I also agree with limiting predation on waterfowl and upland birds. For some reason, when man got thrown into the loop, we threw everything out of balance and we have to work hard to keep everything in balance.

So, yes I think some of the wolves should be thinned out, just like the whitetails are being thinned out in Maryland. I guess it is hard for me to understand because they used to be an endangered species. I had this same discussion in the Africa forum regarding an elephant hunt I saw on OLN. In the end, I was told that there are about 800,000 elephants in the world and that the hunting of old bulls allows game preserves/parks to stay open with the money they generate from these hunts.

At the end of the day, it is hard for me to grasp the problem without knowing everything about it. For instance, more auto accidents are caused in Montgomery County, Maryland by whitetail deer than by other motorists. However, the deer lovers are always up in arms when professional shooters are brought in to thin out herds in certain areas.

BILLY D. · #9 03-04-2006, 04:11 AM

fabs

a few years ago were bombarded with propaganda there were no mountain lions in the state by our f&g dept. this year they had a hunting season on them. they set a limit on them, allowing 5 to be bagged.

all this hullabalou after f&g said there were no lions. even though ranchers and farmers were reporting sightings and having animals killed and mauled by cats. one lady lost a beautiful horse that was mauled by a lion. i guess the lion had bitten off more than he could chew and left. the horse was so badly mauled it had to be destroyed, and this was only a 100 feet or so from the ranchers house.

wolves are another problem here and elsewhere. i read in another forum were the wolf problem is handeled by using the 3 s method. SHOOT, SHOVEL AND SHUT UP. the smart sob's that love wolves have installed chip transmitters in the wolves so they can trace them if somebody shoots one. the word is out here. if ya shoot one don't try hauling it anywhere.

our elk herd here is very small, a few on the canadian border in the northeast part of the state, some in the missouri basin and a few in the grasslands area in the roosevelt park area.

there is no doubt we will have a wolf problem here once those move from wyoming and idaho to here the same way the mountain lions did. they spread like std's.

when the world ends there will be four things left on the earth, mosquitoes, cockroaches, coyotes and wolves.

p.s. i don't think the fox would bother nitro too much, he'd probably tear them a new doo doo shute. that was the only bad habit my lab had. he despised fox and coyotes and would chase them for miles. i guess he thought those little son of a guns ain't gettin' my birds. lol

a man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

fabsroman · #10 03-04-2006, 12:05 PM

Billy,

So far, Nitro has surprised two foxes here and both times they took off running. What I am worried about is the one that might happen to have rabies or if he catches one, that it might have mange. Other than that, I am not too worried about them attacking Nitro because he is 100 lbs. Of course, he might think they are his play buddies. He surprised and caught up to a groundhog before it got to its hole, and he had no idea what to do. It was almost like he was trying to play with the groundhog.

My old English Springer Spaniel would have killed the foxes and the groundhog in a heart beat. Maybe that is why Nitro is a better house dog.

royinidaho · #11 03-04-2006, 12:33 PM

fabs,

More details. In the days of which you speak, before white man in the west......

The native wolf in Idaho was a much smaller animal than what was reintroduced (Canadian Grey Wolf, I believe)

They were, and "were" is accurate as the reintroduced wolf has made the native wolf extinct. Really.

I saw two myself (natives) about 26 years ago. Long before digital cameras

just 30 miles east of here.

One was cruising at about 35 mph along side of me before I slowed and it xrossed about 20 ft in front.

Take 50 or so pounds off of these reintroduced wolves and you have a whole new ecology. Maybe one we could live with. Until then (I was going to say SSS, but I won't)

Skyline · #12 03-04-2006, 01:03 PM

Roy.............you are bang on. The wolves were obtained in Alberta. They are big animals and guess what......their main prey species where they were caught was elk and moose? Big surprise, huh!

fabsroman · #13 03-04-2006, 02:00 PM

Yeah, that is kind of tough. Northern species are just bigger animals period. Take northern whitetails and compare them to the ones in Texas or Mexico. They are much bigger animals.

The northern prey animals (i.e., Moose, Elk, Whitetails, Mulies, Caribou) probably had to be bigger bodied animals to survive the elements. Hence, evolution probably only allowed the larger predators to survive and the runts were not able to live long enough to reproduce.

Introducing northern species into a southern climate can wreak havoc on the ecology, but leave it up to man to do something like this. We try to fix the ecology that we ruined in the first place.

Believe it or not, they introduced resident geese in several states several years ago, probably over a decade, and now they have one heck of a problem with them in Maryland. They are proposing a resident goose season that will open the first of August with a 15 bird limit and no requirement for plugs in the shotguns. Maryland has a resident goose population close to 90,000 and its target population is 30,000. I will not even get into the whitetail issue here. Of course, the abundance of these animals makes it great for sportsmen, but it is sometimes scary driving to the fields in the early morning worrying about hitting a deer on the interstate at 75 mph.

Skinny Shooter · #14 03-04-2006, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by fabsroman
So far, Nitro has surprised two foxes here and both times they took off running. Of course, he might think they are his play buddies. He surprised and caught up to a groundhog before it got to its hole, and he had no idea what to do. It was almost like he was trying to play with the groundhog.

Send that dog up to me for a bit and we'll have him adjusted correctly. Nitro will be the newest member of the red mist culture...

DaMadman · #15 03-08-2006, 03:31 PM

I am sorry but I agree with some of what you guys are saying and some of it is plain poo.

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, three states that are being affected by the reintroduction of the wolf are simply required to come up with a Federally approved management plan and as long as they can do that then the wolf population can be held into check.

Sure I would hate like hell to be in one of the areas that is affected and have wolves eating the Elk I planned on hunting but for God sake whether they are reintroduced or not the wolves were there first.

The wolves were descimated by man and I personally think now that they have been reintroduced they deserve at least a good managment plan before a state just opens a season on them.

I do agree that they need to be kept in check but without a plan to manage them it will just wind up like it did before, with the wolves descimated because people in general dislike preditors that compete with them for anything including Elk, Deer, Land ect.

BTW I own a small piece of property in Montana and have checked into this Wolf situation and Montana already and I believe Wyoming already have their Management plans passed and in place. As of 2 years ago Idaho was the one the was holding up the show.