Trad Gang

A not-so-rare and interesting story.  I hunt Elk very close to where this occured.  Man I feel for these ranchers.  Coincidentily, there will be a hearing this week to see if Montana and Idaho Fish and Game dept's get to go ahead and issue Wolf tags as planned for this years hunts.  A coalition of animal rights groups is contesting the hunt.
  http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_5ff01772-938f-11de-9aca-001cc4c03286.html

Ya know, for a long time I didn't have a very strong opinion either way on this issue as it didn't effect me personally.  Just kinda chalked up the reintroduction of wolves to another tree hugger  stunt.  

With one exception.  From the very first I wondered about the possible motive.  My first thought when hearing about predator reintroduction has always been something like "I wonder if the anti's are just trying to take away the argument that hunters are needed to control population numbers for game animals?  I mean, if they put back the natural predators, what is the point of hunting?  It'll all be just a hunky dory Disney world where the animals will just coexist and the 'nasty wasty baddy hunter man' won't be needed any more. But even to myself, my initial gut reaction rang of "conspiracy theory" and I didn't often mention it.  

I had always heard for most of my life that one of the strongest arguments FOR hunting was population control.  There are so many examples of animals being brought back from the brink of extinction by hunters efforts that it is, in my mind, one of the great truths of America.  Deer, turkey and elk are the first examples that come to mind.  I've read Don Thomas's remarks that he felt the surest way to maintain a healthy population of wolves would be to allow hunting for them and I completely agree.  From license fees, hunting guides, travel expenses, taxidermy fees or whatever else, there is a unarguable monetary benefit.  And from harvest data collected, observations made, specimens from animals harvested and hunter surveys, biologists can get a lot of hard data for future management decisions.  Not to mention that a hunting season would help instill a fear of man that recent encounters I've read seem to indicate isn't as common as one would think.  I've read recent accounts on several other sites that have first hand stories of some pretty horrific wolf attacks.  

In fact, here is the link to a thread that has several stories and links to other reports too.

http://shootersforum.com/showthread.htm?t=48656

Hopefully this judge does not mess up again after listening to a bunch of people who don't even live here!

At least the wolves have good timing.

Of course they attack the sheep.  You can easily imagine the pack leader saying to his clan "OK, who wants to go eat some fat, slow, stupid, but very tasty, sheep, and who wants to go see if we can find another bull elk like the one that stomped Uncle Fred into a tired puddle and then stomped the puddle dry last week?"  To a wolf, a sheep has to look like it comes with golden arches on its sides.

I think Dave is right - hunting will probably be required to maintain a health population of both wolves and their prey.  Nature tends to run in cycles - the predator population increases as the prey population does until the predator population is too large, then they mostly starve back down below healthy levels - the prey come back well beyond healthy levels - the predators start to rebound and for a brief shining moment every few years we actually have balance.  The only way to stay balanced is "outside", i.e., human management and intervention to dampen the population swings.

Wolves need management, and at least Montana and Idaho have some chance of getting that done, but in Wyoming, the feds still won't let Game and Fish bring wolves to 'trophy game' status. This summer, a rancher in the Bighorns lost over 60 sheep in a day to wolves; according to the wolf huggers, wolves aren't anywhere but around Yellowstone. They will continue to decimate livestock and wildlife until they can be managed like other predator species. Hope that we will have some elk left by the time USFW decides that some wolves need killing.

Randy, I am so sorry to hear this story and it's impact on your hunt and for the ranchers that lost a lot of sheep and the work it took to get there.  I guess we can dismiss "they only eat the weak and sickly" and "they only kill to eat" arguements. (some of us never believed that anyway     )

There is a very good thread over on the Hunting Legislation forum for anyone that hasn't read it.  

http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=93;t=000433

Many of us that live in the Canadian Wolf introduced impact areas believe that we should have predators and in Idaho we had wolves that were indigenous in our ecosystems.  These others are unmanaged interlopers!

Does everyone know Alaska has been fighting a losing battle with the wolf lovers for decades? I cannot believe there are actually hunters that think reintroduction is a good idea. I said long ago when this all started that come the day elk numbers were down and a predator numbers needed  thinned that the hunter would be the first to go. In my opinion, the only good wolf is a dead one.

Ya know, this wolf reintroduction is about like the otter reintroduction here in MO.  Everyone thinks otters are so cute right?  I mean, we've all seen footage of otters just sliding and gliding down mud or snow banks into rivers in obvious play and good humor haven't we?  They are just SOOOOOooooo cute and cuddly looking and funny too!  They were native to the Ozarks but nearly wiped out years ago.  Of course reintroduction of otters would be a good thing right?

I've heard at least three different MO conservation officers say that it was one of the worst mistakes ever made by the state of Missouri.  

When first reintroduced, they were heavily protected just like the wolves.  

As numbers grew and they spread far faster than expected, complaints started to come in from land owners.  Just like the wolves.

Some people ignored the law and shot them just because, some independent minded folks did it because they prefer to handle their own troubles and because the otters were cleaning out entire ponds of fish.  Others called to complain to the Cons. Dept. and went through the motions of having a state trapper come and remove/relocate a couple.  Just like wolves.

Biologists and "experts" all said that they were just doing what comes natural.  That people were exaggerating the destruction.  They are not that destructive really.  Just like wolves.

As more people complained and more data was collected, the experts started to grudgingly change their stance.  Even more people called in complaints or showed to meetings in person and instead of sending out animal control, permission was given to some land owners to kill animals.  But they had to report/turn in every animal.  Each case was examined for truth and justifiable killing.  Just like wolves.

Numbers continued to increase.  Calls became a nuisance and many land owners were told to "Just shoot the d@*n things."  NOT just like wolves.....yet.

As more impact studies were conducted, it was found that a family of otters could in fact nearly wipe out the population of say a smallish farm pond.  No big deal though as far as the state or the biologists were concerned but oh my....they also found that they could have an enormous impact on the population of some very rare strains of fish that were native to certain Ozark streams.  Some, in VERY limited stretches of very small streams.  They had a situation where there was a possibility that the otters could actually wipe out some very rare species that existed in specialized micro type ecosystems.

Wolves are predators just like otters are predators.  Except wolves kill big critters like deer, elk, mountain sheep, domestic animals and pets.  Sometimes just for the fun of it.  Like an owl in a chicken house.  A few animals can and will kill far more than just what they need to eat.

Oh, but wolves don't hurt people right?  At least not healthy ones... Oh, and they only prey on the sick, weak or injured animals right?  Go read the link I posted above and find the link in it about all the newspaper clippings form the late 1800's and early 1900's about wolf attacks.  Or the New York Times article on the farmer attacked in his own front yard who at the time of the article wasn't expected to survive.  (No idea how that ended.)  Or the Canadian man who was killed and eaten.  Oh right!  That the wolf lovers say that wasn't a wolf kill... There is a wolf expert who blamed that one on bears because there was a dump nearby saying that the wolves only ate on him after the bear killed him.  No matter that the official inquiry ruled it a wolf kill.  Oh, and it sounds like there were some bystanders who said they didn't see any bears around.

As the guys says on the radio...."WAKE UP AMERICA!!"

I'm certainly not for wiping wolves out to the point of extinction but there are obviously too many of them at least in some areas.  They have shown a real tendency to spread out far more than expected.  Make them a game animal.  Let the states take advantage of the revenue that would bring in.  Let them take advantage of the data that could be collected.  Let the wolves learn that humans are to be feared.  Let just enough of them live to enhance the wilderness experience.  I would love to hunt in the wilderness and hear a couple wolves howl.  But I don't want to read about peoples livestock being wiped out, or worse, maybe somebody being killed by wolves that were forced into inhabited areas.  I don't want to see deer or elk numbers plummet to the point where sport hunting has to be halted because it's impact on top of the wolf kill would be too severe.  A little common sense will go a long way with this one.

That would be like the Black Bear problem in New Jersey...closed the season 2 yrs ago, now we have numerous encounters in backyards, driveways, playgrounds...one poor guy had a large sow smack him while he was packing his trunk with food...she stole his Subway sandwhich, no lie...the guy ended up with a dislocated shoulder and many cuts and facial bruises.

The Jersey Fish and Game....nothing. Bear was doing what comes natural, searching out food. In a mans driveway, with the car trunk open. Its gonna take a young child to get badly mauled or possibly die before any action is taken. Like the wolves and otters, there needs to be some control. Just me ranting.......

"One poor guy had a large sow smack him while he was packing his trunk with food...she stole his Subway sandwich, no lie...the guy ended up with a dislocated shoulder and many cuts and facial bruises. "

Now that would be funny if it weren't true....

There is another reintroduced critter I forgot about...  the pine martin in Pennsylvania.  Got family back there and I'm starting to hear stories about them too though not nearly to the point of otters and wolves.  Sounds like they might be coming on pretty strong soon though.

Round up the activists and send them out with the wolves.

To add some perspective.  

I am a biologist and grew up in Pike County IL.  My Grandfather passed a decade ago.  Grandad was born, raised, educated, and lived his entire life on one farm and was very "traditional".  He remembers when the deer and turkeys were eliminated in the are in the 1930s (depression families were actually hunting for food, not sport).  He thought my Dad was lying when he saw three deer in the late 1950s when plowing a field.  Grandad was worried about the deer coming back and was mad when they (Dept. of Conservation) made it illegal to shoot them on-sight and had to have a license and limited the number that could be killed.  Corn eating vermin that spread disease to cattle.  And deer even killed some people in highway collisions.  Damn liberals, damn hunters who want to hunt them, damn tress-passing hunters, damn biologists who say the deer are just hungry and eat only acorns not corn.

newtradgreenwood,

Interesting point.  I know back in PA growing up in the '70s farmers constantly complained about too many deer eating their corn and soybeans and wanting to shoot them for crop damage.  Now that numbers are better under control, and there aren't does all over the place, people complain about the deer being wiped out.  Can't please everyone.

Hope I didn't offend you too much with my comments about biologists not admitting wolves or otters would be a problem.  Really should have said "experts" because not all "experts" quoted on line are biologists.  When I was finishing up high school back in the day, my goal was to go to college to become a biologist but my guidance counselor talked me out of it saying there was too much competition and not enough money in it.  Ended up in the Marines fixing planes instead.  So, basically, I'm certainly no biologist but I could probably play one on TV.... (Remember the commercials by the soap opera doctor saying something similar and tying to sell some sort of medicine?)  Never had the formal college or field training but I've always read all I could find and tried to learn on my own both from books and in the field so take my opinions with a grain of salt.  I still stand by them, but admit I may be less informed than I could be.  

From YOUR perspective, what do you think about predator reintroduction in general?  Just curious.  It'd be nice to get a more educated opinion.

QuoteOriginally posted by Dave Bulla:
 A little common sense will go a long way with this one.

Dave,

I agree with almost all of what you wrote, and especially your concluding line.  Unfortunately, I tend to despair because I think there is little, if any, likelihood that common sense will be allowed into the discussion.  There appear to be far too many zealots on each side - sort of like the rest of American public debate at the moment. I may be delusional but I think I remember a time when reasonable men could disagree, sometime vehemently, and still treat each other with respect. This time, however, doesn't seem to be it - if it ever existed.

I fully support wolf reintroduction.  I also fully support the right of ranchers, etc. to be compensated for stock they wouldn't have lost had the reintroduction not been done.  I also firmly believe that the people who determine what killed the livestock should err as much as is even reasonably honest, on the side of the ranchers, etc.  Farming/ranching is a hell of a lot of work and generally seems to earn enough to stay just shy of complete poverty.  

From what I've read and studied, not that I claim to be an expert, wolves generally don't kill more than they can eat, but that's only true if you see it from the wolf's perspective.  

They'll kill far more than they need right at that moment, but will continue to come back to the kill, assuming they're not pressured by humans and their kill hasn't been taken by bears, to eat for several days.  They will, of course, as will most dogs, happily eat meat that has decayed far beyond anything any human would touch - to them maggots are just more protein.  But in the end, everything they kill will be eaten, if not by them, then by other animals, all the way down the chain to bacteria.

The Plains Indians did essentially the same thing - they killed far more buffalo, for example, than they needed at the time, but cured the meat and saved it so that at least most of them would not starve during the coming winter.

It's also been reported that the reintroduction has had a beneficial effect on the northern Wyoming pronghorn herd, mostly because they've controlled the coyote population that was over-killing the fawns to the point that too few of them matured and that by pushing the deer and elk so that they can't just stand at stream beds and eat all day they've been responsible for the resurgence of willows and several other plants along Yellowstone streams.

I also believe that as a matter of "rights" the wolves have as much right to the game as we do.  We control our harvest with licenses, etc. - at least for those of us who don't poach - and to me poaching does not really include someone taking a deer, elk, etc. when the other choice is that his family will go hungry - it's the guys who don't need the meat, are going after out of seasons trophies and just generally don't give a damn about anything but themselves that I consider poachers.  

Now, given that there's no way to get wolves to buy licenses, tag their kills, etc. their populations have to be controlled at least in part as a matter of giving the prey a fighting chance at maintaining healthy levels.  I also believe that hunting is probably the best way to do that, because it will control the population to a reasonable extent, and reintroduce, where it's been lost, the wolves "normal" desire to avoid human contact.  

Part of what seems to get in the way of any rational discussion is competing views of wolves - they're either nature's noblemen or the devil's dogs.  In fact, they're neither.  There is no moral component to a wolf.  Discussion of good and evil are silly.  They impute human concepts to animals that have no idea what they mean and wouldn't be interested if they did.  They kill to eat, to teach their pups how to survive and to stay strong enough to continue to reproduce.  When they can't do that anymore, they die - and not in some peaceful rest home for old retired wolves, they die either slowly and painfully of disease and starvation or of injuries when, for example, they get too slow to get out of the way of the elk hoof or whatever defense mechanism their prey has.  Occasionally they get lucky are killed quickly.  And, of course, the same is true of their prey.  

Someone I read in Grays Sporting Journal once pointed out that compared to what wild animals face from nature and each other, even the best of us hunters is a minor nuisance in their lives.

Part of what we really need in this discussion is a realization that the Disney movies have made too many people think that animals are humans in furry suits.  

I think we need two things.  First, we need to get the imputed to animals morality out of the discussion and make management decisions based on what creates a reasonable balance between human needs and animal needs.  Second, we need to get past the notion that because we can, we have the right to wipe out a whole species.  We can't create them so in my opinion we don't have the right to eliminate them.

Thanks for listening/reading.

Dave,

No offense taken.  And likewise, I mean no dis-respect to anyone.  Re-introducing any predator or any animal or plant for that matter is biologically complex, contoversial, and political.  There are no 100% correct or 100% wrong opinoins.  I respect that you were in the Marines & helped defend our country.  TradGang PowWow IMO is better than most other forums in being respectful even if we do not agree.  Discussion is good. Sometimes we find out we really do not disagree.  Sometimes we are enlightened & change our views a bit.    

I work in the environmental consulting field.  Help highway departments, military and private companies build build roads, ranges, ethanol plants, wind farms, etc.  Write reports and get permits for wetlands, endangered species, water quality, and other natural and cultural resources.  Have worked in more than 20 states in the mid-west, great plains, and southeast.  Am in the middle of clients who just want to build no matter what & build now & want to get the environmental "stuff" out of the way, environmentalist that just want to stop the project no matter what, and multiple state and federal regulatory agencies with different agendas. Laugh about it, but it is mostly true...if everyone is a little PO'd, but says OK let's do the project I did a perfect job.

My personnel opinoin is that predator re-introduction is OK & that hunting of sustainable populations of any animal including predators is also OK.  Believe that hunting of predators helps "educate" them that humans are dangerous and that they, their houses and livestock should be avoided.  Wolves and other predators are part of our heritage the same as the Liberty bell or great-Grandfather's picture on the wall, or five generations of military service.  Wolves are one of God's wonderful creatures the same as deer.  Wolves also sometimes eat livestock and deer eat crops and cause car accidents.  There are trade-offs, kinda like freedom.  Freedom is complex & isn't free.  Freedom needs soldiers and lawyers.  Freedom sometimes lets idiots have a voice and sometimes lets crimminals get away.  But IMO freedom is worth brave men's (& women's) blood & (gulp) even having lawyers around.    

IMO & as a general statement I think wolves and other predators are over-blamed for livestock kills.  Not saying it does not happen.  Feral dogs, abandoned pet wolves, and wild wolves visiting already dead animals are often reported as wolf "kills".  Sometimes it is one or two "bad apple" wolves & not the whole pack.    

From a biological perspective.  Wolves and predator more often than not go for the weak and sick.  That lyme disease carrying tick infested deer that wolves eat in August won't infect you or me.  That contagious blue-tongue infected deer is taken down before it can infect the rest of the deer population and cause a huge population crash.  

Also, contrary to popular belief, predator populations are controlled by prey populations - not the other way around. You can have deer with no wolves.  But, if you have no prey species you have no predators.  Habitat carrying capacity is what determines population levels.  If wolves and other predators killed everything there would have been no deer, elk, bison, pronghorns, etc. 100,000s of years before recorded history.  There are fewer game species today due to human activities.  

IMO anti-hunters can take a hike.  Come to the table when you have done as much for conservation as hunters.  Use your time to raise money & buy some land for preservation, plant some trees, go be a part of nature like hunters.

Take care,

Tom

I live an hours drive from where that incident took place.

I went to our local hardware store yesterday,as he is a hunting license agent and it was the last day to get a mountain lion liense.I noticed wolf regulations on the counter.I don't know when they came out but wolf licenses are available now so I got one of those too-$19.

If the hunt goes through,they plan on taking 75 wolves statewide and most areas would start Oct 25th which coincides with rifle season.A few areas start Sept 15th.

It will be interesting.

Got this one on a trail camera a couple years ago.First week of August.The funny thing is,50 minutes later,a coyote marched up the same trail,going the direction the wolf went.It's nose must have been stuffed up. (http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a140/jbrandenburg/MeadowTrough001.jpg)

newtradgreenwood

Yours is an outstanding addition to this discussion - and I say that having been a lawyer for 37 years (after spending '69 and '70 in the Army), until I retired this spring.

For the record, I'm proud of both things, but fortunately have enough of a sense of humor to be highly amused by your "(gulp) lawyers" comment.  Really funny.

Thanks.

dragon rider,

Thanks for the compliment.  Glad you took the lawyer joke as a joke.  Was serious when I said we need soldiers and lawyers to keep our freedoms.

Like my lawyer who this time last year helped me against a school district when I transfered my daughters out of their district to another.  Lawyer helped her maintain her Varsity basketball elgibility.  She made first team all conference & got some scholarship money for college.

SSS Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up!

It's like the biologist in Wyoming who while trying to explain to a group of disgruntled sheep ranchers at a town hall about how they were going to use rifles with the little hypodermic needles to inject wolves with birth control medicine- well one old rancher, who'd been listening very patiently for the better part of a half hour stood up and raised his hand-interrupting the biologist and said, " Son, I don't think you understand, these wolves ain't trying to mate with our sheep, they're KILLIN' EM!!!"

FYI, the judge ruled in our favor yesterday, we have our wolf season.  :clapper:    :clapper:    :clapper:

From a biological perspective. Wolves and predator more often than not go for the weak and sick. That lyme disease carrying tick infested deer that wolves eat in August won't infect you or me. That contagious blue-tongue infected deer is taken down before it can infect the rest of the deer population and cause a huge population crash.  

Also, contrary to popular belief, predator populations are controlled by prey populations - not the other way around. You can have deer with no wolves. But, if you have no prey species you have no predators. Habitat carrying capacity is what determines population levels. If wolves and other predators killed everything there would have been no deer, elk, bison, pronghorns, etc. 100,000s of years before recorded history. There are fewer game species today due to human activities.

Those two paragraphs hit on a couple things that the argument seems to center around.  I kind of question the normal belief that predators always go for the weak and sickly.  I've known dogs to refuse to eat an animal that had died of illness and have heard the same of wolves.  I'm sure it depends on what the sickness was and how hungry the wolves are but I wonder about it.  I've also heard of first hand reports of wolves taking down mature healthy animals like a bull elk or moose.  Usually by hounding it for days until it is weakened by starvation and lack of rest.  There have been photo and video documentations of this practice.  I believe that wolves certainly take advantage of an animal that lags, limps or gives some sort of indication of being easier prey but I also believe that if all the animals in a herd being checked out by a pack are equally healthy and mature, they might still pick one out for some unknown reason and go through the "hound it till it weakens, maybe for days, hamstring it and take it down" process.

As for the predator population being controlled by the prey population, not the other way around, well that doesn't quite add up either.  It is true to the extent that if prey is common, predators will increase in numbers but as predators increase in numbers, they will have an impact on the prey population.  It's already being reported in places where wolves are dense that elk and deer numbers have dropped noticeably.  Same thing supposedly has happened to sheep due to mountain lions but it's only what I've heard not seen for myself.  And what really happens when prey numbers drop?  I expect animals like wolves would disperse to new areas before they just up and died of starvation.  

Well, enough for now.  Gotta help my daughter with some homework....

I'm glad I'm finding out all the deer in our area were weak and sick.  If the wolves hadn't been reintroduced I might have eaten one or two of them and become sick or weak myself.  Now all I have to do is wait for the natural process where these wolves die off of starvation and I can go back to hunting this land that's been in our family for the last 3 generations.

Waxing and waning of prey/predator relationships is governed by birth rates, not starvation of the excess. If there are more rabbits, the foxes have bigger litters, and vice versa. If there are fewer rabbits, they have bigger litters because there's more food available. Populations expand and contract based on availability of food. The lynx/snowshoe hare relationship is the classic example. Both populations wax and wane in concert.

My main concern in these matters is the loss of fear of humans in unhunted predator populations. All predators should be threatened by humans in an overt way, to keep them in their place in our shared world. It's the natural way, the way humans have interacted with other large predators since humans developed organized societies and banded together against the competition of other predator species. Mountain lions never attacked humans, for all practical purposes, until hunting them was banned by people who thought we could "live in peace" with them. Predators that fear humans will be less likely to come near human habitation and kill domestic animals (and humans!). Those that do are wiped out post-haste. They want our food, and we kill them to keep it for ourselves. What's complicated about that? Hunting the predators and the prey flattens out the peaks and valleys of normal population fluctuations, and stabilizes the populations of both by keeping either from overpopulating.

I like to hug bunnies, while carrying them to the frying pan.

2 confirmed kills here in Idaho yesterday

FYI.  Dialog is good.  All of the following is intended as a friendly discussion.  


Walt,

Good news about getting the wolf hunt.

Dave,

See that you are from KC.  So am I.  Maybe we can go shoot some time. I have a membership in a local club that has a 3D range.  

"Predators follow prey populations" .... Some things are true even if they don't seem to "add up".  For example.  If you use common sense the world is flat.  Round, spinning, and flying through space.  Yea right (according to common sense) !  It took a thousand years after Copernicus first came up with scientific proof that the world was spinning and rotating around the sun for politicians, religious leaders, layman, biologists, etc. accepted that the earth was round, spinning, and rotating around the sun.

Population dynamics like alot of biological study is a tough science.  Science tries to look at a single variable to make conclusions valid.  Relatively easy most of the time when dealing with physics & chemistry.  For the most part nearly impossible with population dynamics.  Animals are mobile & specific ranges from year to year are hard to define.  Animals are like people, there are variations from one place to another.  Disease, drought, & other macro-environment variables complicate things. Example -everyone knows about food chains: acorns - deer - wolves, in that order. No acorns no deer, no deer, no wolves (# of acorns actually determines potential # of wolves).  Food chain would be easy to study if it was that simple.  It's a food web in the real world.  Deer eat a variety of foods, wolves eat more than just deer, there can be predators other than wolves, etc.  

Here is my conceptual take on predator-prey populations dynamics (food chain example for explanation).  Isle Royale island in Lake Superior was studied by one of my professors.  Isolated by water, i.e. ranges and populations easier to define.  Little to no in/out migration.  Moose got to the island first.  Wolves came several years later.  The average size of the Isle Royale moose herd is about 900 animals.  The average over a couple of decades nearly the same with or without wolves.  

Without wolves the moose population rapidly increases and keeps increasing until the carrying capacity was exceeded, habitat was significantly degraded, moose starved & became more suspectible to disease & population crashed.  Population of moose without predators would then rapidly recover to excessive levels, habitat would not have time to recover completely and be severely degraded & another big moose population crash.  Average population about 900 moose.  Population range over time about 900 to 2000 to 100 to 900 to 2000 to 100.... & over time the habitat could be degraded so badly that it would not support an average population of 900.  

Now we have wolves.  The moose herd is on it's growth phase.  Moose population increases slowly, then as more prey is available more wolf pups survive.  Size of moose herd increases first then wolf population increases (not the other way around).  Wolf population increases and slows down the growth rate of the moose herd. Eventually the wolf population catches up with the moose population and can actually cause it to decrease slowly (usually by killing moose babies to feed wolf babies). As the moose population decreases the wolf population decreases (a lag of year or two, but following the moose herd).  Population dynamics would be something like 900 to 1000 to 1100 to 1200 to 1100 to 1000 to 900 to 800 to 700 to 800 to 900...  Average about the same, but much smaller range of populations.  Severee habitat degradation less likely & crashes due to disease or starvation less likely & severee.  Wolves mediate population levels but do not control them.  Moose food and habitat control the moose population.                

Ray & Precurve,

I do not know any biologists that claim predators always go for the weak and sick.  Sometimes they go for the young, or stupid ones, or healthy & slow, or the ones at the wrong place & time.  Sometimes they go for healthy and adult deer just for fun.  Most of the time predators go for what is the easiest and least dangerous for them to take down.  Predator's often know things we do not.  Like dogs smelling cancer before anyone else knows anything is wrong.  

Biologists, like lawyers, have to learn how to get thick skin.  Biologist's like lawyers are a diverse group.  Same as hunters.  There was a hunter in IL about 35 years ago that brought a calf (domesticed cow calf) into the check station.  Another orange coated idiot to the local farmers.  All hunters are of course not idiots.  The professional biologists I know (& myself) think birth control for wolves or deer is a stupid idea (another good topic by itself).  

Precurve,

Not sure if you are joking around a little bit, being serious, or taking a saterical shot at me or biologists in general, or all of the above.  I'm a big boy & can deal with any of them.  Even use satire myself (ask the lawyer commenting on this string).

I don't remember using "all" or 100% or anything like that about anything we have talked about. The sick deer were just an example.  I still stand behind my opinoin that for the most part predators take young, weak, sick, injured.  If wolves are bad for taking healthy adult deer, what are we (humans) ?  Know any trophy hunters ?  70 lb. first year doe with a injured leg & 300 lb. 180 inches of headgear healthy whitetail buck standing side by side - which one would the majority of "meat hunters" shoot at ?  Most of the time, which one do you think a wolf would go for ?    

Doubt if all the wolves will die off due to starvation, maybe lead poisoning.  The wolves were surviving on your farmland a few hundred thousand years before any of your or anyone else's kin got there or anyplace else.    

I am a part owner of a family farm in IL.  Relatives buried on it that my Grandmother who died last year at 98 didn't remember.  Other side of the family is a farm that was in its second generation by the Civil War.  Kill every last wolf if you want on your land.  Kill every last deer, rabbit, squirrel, song bird, snake, etc. if you want on your land.  Don't shoot or hunt anything if you want on your land.

Old wisdom was that if you wanted to get rid of wolves, you killed rabbits...

Whether the wolves take sickly animals first or not is really moot when we are talking about a livestock population.  In the wild, predators kill the weak and sick first because that's the easy prey, and predators don't expend more energy in pursuit of calories than they have to.  In a tame population such as domestic sheep, every one of those sheep is easy prey and the predator is going to kill whichever one he can reach first.

Humans and wolves fill the same ecological niche.  Makes it darn hard to coexist.

Jeff, good point about domestic livestock all being easy.  Gets us back to letting predators know we are dangerous and should be avoided, i.e., hunt them.  Or shooting them all.

"Humans and wolves fill the same ecological niche. Makes it darn hard to coexist."

Another good point.  

Big difference is that we can wipe them off the face of the earth if we want.

Yup.  And I agree, the best solution is to keep the wolf wary of any human contact.

The reaction of a wolf crossing human scent should be to head for the next mountain.

QuoteOriginally posted by Precurve:
I'm glad I'm finding out all the deer in our area were weak and sick.  If the wolves hadn't been reintroduced I might have eaten one or two of them and become sick or weak myself.  Now all I have to do is wait for the natural process where these wolves die off of starvation and I can go back to hunting this land that's been in our family for the last 3 generations.

Three generations is a long time, probly settled it or maybee homesteaded it in the 1800s'. the animals, wolves and all others beat you there by centrys.
we should all think of things like this, my ancestors lived with the animals. and untill eastern civilization brought desease, guns and greed we were harmoniously, spiritually connected to the land. they all understood that without respect for nature there is no life.
all ecosystems existing outside of human control will reset them selvs. sorry guys, but Im on the wolves side for this one. If you want to help the elk and der numbers dont hunt where you are nat a resadent and speak out against people who come in to your state for a bigger, better animal. Im happy with the two deer I get every year, it feeds my family. and you will not catch me in Colorado,Wyoming,ect., nor will I ever pay a trophy fee.  we cannot own animals no more than we can own another person.
I think there are many things wrong with this discussion as well as many things right. such is free will. I only ask you hear my words and consider them.
thank you,
Larry

Not gonna touch that with a ten foot arra shaft...

Hmmm, looks like we're getting to the point in any discussion at which we're starting to come full circle, but of course that's not going to stop me from a couple of observations.

Wolves, when hunting, will generally take the easiest prey the can find.  If that's livestock, of course they'll take them - they're slow, fat and tasty.  If not, and whatever herd of deer, elk, etc. they're following has a weak member who falls behind they'll take that one.  If not, they'll run the herd until they create one if only from exhaustion.  Generally, only wolf pups do things for "fun" and then really as part of learning how to become real hunters.  Adult wolves hunt to eat and to feed their young.  It's not amusement, it's survival.  And of course, "fun" and "amusement" are human concepts that mean nothing to wolves.  They operate on their own rules, to which we attribute human characteristics.

Whether prey controls the predator population or predators control the prey population depends on where in the cycle you come in.  Both assertions are correct.  If prey is abundance, predator populations will increase.  If predators substantially outnumber prey, both populations will drop until the predator populations fall to the point that the prey begin to increase.  For both it's often a matter of survival of pups, calves, fawns, etc.  Without other forces, us among them, the predator and prey populations will oscillate back and forth around mutually sustainable levels.  

Personally, I'd love to see a few wolves or lions in Pennsylvania - maybe some of our forests would have some chance of still existing when my grand kids are old enough to hunt them.  We have far too many areas where anything that a whitetail can reach has been eaten.  If it continues, there'll be no forest in 50 years.  Now if we could only teach them to eat the deer, and not the livestock, pets, etc. we'd be on to something.

Sorry Dragon Rider but i have to disagree. These wolves are just another non-native species experiment gone wrong. They absolutely kill many animals that they never eat. Do a google search and you can find hundreds of photos of wolf kills left to feed the maggots. Ask the people that live in Idaho where the wolf has become much more than a nuisance. If they had their way they would reinstate the bounty. Thankfully someone has come to their senses to allow hunting them at the very least. Lets allow the residents of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana decide the proper course of action.

This has been a very interesting discussion some of it has gone aroundThis has been a very interesting discussion some of it has gone around 'what wolves DO' or are supposed to do. some has gone around the farmers losses and then there is the circular debate about predator/ prey relationships. Newtradgreenwood gave a good illustration of the difficulty of pinning down exact cause and effect with the difference between food chains and food webs.

The last post by onewhohasfun mentions a non-native species experiment. Is the timber wolf substantially different to the other native wolves that existed in North America orginally? I do not believe they are what has changed is that there are a whole lot more humans and domestic livestock there now than four hundred years ago.I guess the wolves might see the sheep as a massive bounty right now.

From a South African perspective we have hugely complex predator prey relationships and what is remarkable is the fluidity of those relatonships. Predators are by nature opportunistic and soon work out the easiest way to get their food. Then we have prides of lions that specialise in hunting hippo! There is another pride that takes juvenile elephant up in Moremi, it was well documented by Derek and Beverly Joubert and broadcast on National Geographic some years ago. This does not mean that lions as a species ALWAYS HUNT HIPPO OR ELEPHANT, just that certain prides have figured out a way to do so and thereby obtain maximum protein from their efforts. In the Kruger park in SA the same is evident, some prides take marginally more giraffe than the norm and others wildebeest or buffalo. Sadly there are also lions that make a habit of tracking down refugees that try to cross into SA from Mozambique, so do the Spotted Hyaena in that area. This opportunism was noticed during the civil war in Moz. What was interesting is that the field rangers and trails guides very quickly found that lions and hyaenas did not move off when they encounterd humans which is a normal behaviour in daylight, far from it, the lions challenged the trails groups and the hyaenas would dog their footsteps. This also is not PROOF that lions and hyaenas are by choice maneaters, just that they were quick to learn that those particular humans wandering about in the reserve were easy prey, they were too, most were women and small children, sick or starving and unarmed, I had some come into my camp one time, it was a pathetic and miserable sight.

To go back to the wolves the re-introduction of wolves in their original range is going to be problematic, wolves are cursorial hunters and like canids have the capacity to range as far as they need to eat and they will continue to do so as long as there is prey, no physical barriers like large water bodies such as moose or caribou swim across and no resistance from larger or more powerful enemies, such as hunters. African wild dogs are the same, the size of their 'home ranges' varies enormously depending on what's available. Now if there happens to be a sheep farm right next door, the wolves will happily move on over. This is one reason why  introductions of freeranging predators are so hard to predict and to control, it is not a political thing and shouldn't become one. However if the evidence shows it was a bad idea (from farming perspective) then hunting them needs to come into effect.

African lions 'normally' have territories that are fiercely defended but it was shown by Mark and Delia Owens that in times of drought and stress all those territories fall away and the lions range hundreds of kilometres after food. Food is the bottom line determinant. Rain for grass and thus herbivores. Their numbers will determine predator numbers, if there is an abundance of food you don't get fat predators - you get more of them. In Africa there is also a variety of large predators that compete directly and indirectly for prey, thus complicating it further. It is a food web and the myriad variables make it a fascinating study. The Ilse Royale story was well documented far back as the late sixties if memory serves, it is a rare phenomenon becasue of it's linear nature the one to one relationship between large predator and large prey species.
One thing though: Just because science cannot provide a perfect answer on demand does not make science wrong or inaccurate. Opinions are just that but good science allows for variation until further, better evidence comes along. This does not open the door for people to hold onto dogmatic ideas to explain a puzzle in the absence of new 'proof'. We know the world is not flat despite what it looks like from where you're at!
sorry for long post,
Chrisg

Thanks for sharing Chris.

Impressed that you know about Isle Royale.  Did you live in the U.S. before South Africa ?  

You indicated that some lions learned to hunt humans & were not afraid of groups of people during the day.  Have you observed the opposite ?  Does hunting make it more unlikely that the lions would take down humans and their livestock ?

well i would have to agree with most people about the wolf even though i like em there has to be some sort of control and thats comming from someone who's spirit animal is the wolf.

Hi there my mom was a Canadian, and told me about it first when I was in high school!I was born in SA. National Geographic has had a few articles over the years and I have been lucky to have seen them. No I have not lived in US but have visited couple of times and naturally Canada too.

Lions and their unsavoury habits. They are marvellously varied, some are bold and some are cowards, some are plain sneaky. The Reserve I worked in was to the west of the Kruger it borders the Kruger but during midwinter -July- the landowners hunt, there are other hunts either side of that time too. The lion in Klaserie are not too habituated to humans en masse like in Kruger and their contacts are sometimes unfriendly, i.e. there is hunting there. Not a lot an not enough to make them run off at first sight, I bumped a few and aside from a grunt or snarl they never contested the field, One of my colleagues had a rather scary bluff charge in the evening gloom when they were camping out, it turned out there were also cubs around. In the Kruger it was a different, lions living in areas that refugees passed through hunted them. The Kruger lions were used to humans in cars and their noise and smell and used to being left alone so they largely were not too purturbed by humans, IN GENERAL. Stevenson Hamilton noted the same in the years after predator control was stopped, the lions that had been actively supressed to allow other game to increase became bolder when hunting stopped.  In the nineteen nineties once starving and dieing humans appeared in their areas the lions took a closer look and soon killed some people. It was a tragic time and the trails guides still dislike lion contacts as they are rather more inquisitive than in the past. The same happened in former years. The Tsavo maneaters at Voi in Kenya were notorious, centuries of starving and discarded, dieing slaves passing through meant more easy prey. The lions there grew aggressive and actively checked out human activities. The cubs learning from their parents. Conversely Lion in stock farming areas of Botswana are actively hunted as vermin and are most wary of humans as a result. True wild lions, but they are not scared of humans just cautious. They make a canned lion look like a tabby cat. A mild and regular hunting pressure of freeroaming lions seems to keep a cautious distance between lion and humans.
chrisg

Strubberg's comment about it being hard for wolves and man to coexist bears consideration.  Some folks live in a fairy-tale world where they'd like to turn back the clock to the way things were in the west when Lewis and Clark came through.  Heck, I'd like to as well.  But let's be realistic, it ain't happening.  That said, how can we keep some lands wild and still live nearby and/or enjoy them for hunting, fishing, hiking, whatever?

When some folks want to say the wolves were here first, and we shouldn't be making decisions about what species thrive and which ones don't, they are more than likely being hypocritical to some extent.  We make these decisions every day.  Do you want rattlesnakes in your yard?  Lots of folks do; others have little children and won't take that chance.  Do you want mice in your house?  Ants?  Spiders?  Mosquitoes?  Scorpions?  Wildlife is wildlife, and we all make these choices.

For me, I greatly respect the wolf but if it comes to letting wolves run rampant in the west I vote for elk and deer.  Is that selfish?  Maybe, but not wanting to share your house or yard or neighborhood with certain animals could be labeled selfish too.

I recall two observations from '94 on a trip to MB where I lucked into and killed a wolf with my longbow while hunting bear.  1) A local rural resident told the story of how his German shepard was in the yard, and tracks in the snow showed where a single wolf came in, and killed the big dog without so much as a struggle.  2) A local turkey farm used a propane cannon to fire loud bangs at regular intervals, 24/7, to keep wolves from destroying his enterprise.  

There is no one to do that to protect moose fawns, or adult ungulates of most any species.  Wolves are like grizzlies...they should fear man.  Only difference is that it appears wolves have for more capacity to destroy mammal populations (and even go on thrill killing sprees) when compared to the bear which is much more of an omnivore.

Shoot...shovel...shut up....