So far out in left field, his guy left the park.

B

BowHuntWithaRifle

Guest
Idaho seems set on killing wolves
by Jeff Hull


Last week, I was thrilled to find four sets of wolf tracks carved in the snow in our back pasture. Two nights previously, wolves killed a neighbor's black Lab within 200 yards of the owner's house. I feel bad about that dog. We have Labrador retrievers, too. When I let them out in the morning, I go with them into the cold 5 a.m. dark to make sure the coast is clear. It's a deal I make to enjoy the wolves' presence.

The wolves kill deer and elk, too. That's the way it should be ? except apparently, in Idaho. On Jan. 12, exactly seven days after Interior Secretary Gale Norton handed over wolf management to the state, the Department of Fish and Game announced a plan to kill 43 wolves in the "Lolo Zone," two game management units in northern Idaho. Dozens more wolves in that zone are slated to be killed over the next five years.

Idaho officials claim the timing of the proposal and the handover is entirely coincidental. "These two actions are absolutely not connected," said Jim Caswell, director of the state's Office of Species Conservation. "We talked about this publicly in {Fish and Game} commission meetings for the past year."

In fact, every Idaho official I spoke to swore up and down that such was exactly the case: In January 2005, the Bush administration altered a provision of the Endangered Species Act called the 10(j) rule, which allowed Idaho to propose lethal management options; within days, state game officials started combing the data, looking to justify the kind of wolf kill their client base ? Idaho's hunters and outfitters ? has been clamoring for since the reintroduction of wolves in 1995.

They chose carefully. The Lolo Zone, at first blush, seems just the place to rescue game populations. Elk numbers have dwindled far below the highs of the mid-1980s, when the area ranked among Idaho's most productive elk units. Idaho officials announced that an ambitious new study blamed wolves for preventing the herd's recovery.

According to figures from the study posted on the state's elk ecology Web site, eight radio-collared elk cows were killed by wolves in the Lolo zone in 2005 ? which, game officials stated, proves that wolves cause 32 percent of adult cow elk mortality in the zone. But such absurdly small data samples are statistically meaningless. For instance, using numbers generated by the same study, I could just as accurately "prove" that each year over 500 cow elk die in the Lolo zone by "accident."

Most scientists would cringe at justifying management decisions on such an immature study, but in Idaho, game management data spurts from the computer already smudged with political fingerprints.

Indeed, one Idaho biologist told me that the Lolo zone can no longer support the massive elk herd it once did. That temporary phenomena was a side effect of the 1910 fires, which cleared vast areas of the region's forest. For a historically brief period, the burned areas supported a great deal of elk browse. But by the late 1980s the steep slopes were already returning to the densely forested conditions in which Lewis and Clark nearly starved for lack of game.

The fact is, a decline in the Lolo zone's elk population declines was well under way ? steeply, rapidly under way ? years before wolves ever appeared in the area.

Eventually, research into Idaho's elk cow mortality will reveal interesting things about predator-prey dynamics, the kinds of data on which we can base realistic game management decisions. But right now, what the study reveals is that Idaho's game bureaucrats' thinking is as limited and immature as their data.

My perspective is this: I like wolves on the landscape. I also believe that some sort of management is necessary to keep them here.

Back in the early 1990s, I, like many people, felt it would be stupid and sad to recover wolf populations if local managers were simply going to shoot wolves the moment federal agents signaled a green light. Now comes Idaho, brandishing plans for aerial gunning and the medieval cruelty of leghold traps in the name of rescuing an elk herd that no longer exists. This makes all of us look, well, stupid and sad.

Meanwhile, anyone who would like to has until Feb. 17 to contact: IDFG Wolf Comments, P.O. Box 25, Boise ID 83707 or via email at [email protected].


Jeff Hull is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He lives in the Ninemile Valley of Montana.

*Reality check for Mr. Hull, the elk population during Lewis and Clarks expedition was devistatingly low due to wolves. Thats why the pioneers killed them all. Go get um Idaho.
 
thats OK to criticize this guy, but don't say dumb things yourself, it doesnt help. *Reality check there is no way Lewis and Clarks expedition could know the populations of wildlife in America, before settlers moved in populations of elk, antelope, and bighorn sheep were far higher than now, according to the first person to try counting wildlife populations, most the pioneers killed everything that competed with their domestic animals and they killed anything that moved for profit,it wasn't just wolves, pronghorn populations were down to 35 thousand. the few words you wrote are an example of why the pro wolf people win in court so often
 
The only good wolf is a dead wolf... especially if it starts killing off deomestic animals. As far as your morning outages with your pups, I'd be fore taken something out with me.. if you know what I mean.
 
Most hunters on this Site or anywhere for that matter Believe that The title to your post more closely resembles Your "California Yuppy attitude"

All things are not or wont be bright and cheery because we Re-introduce Wolves and allow them to breed and kill without putting them on the Sportsmans list for Managed hunts... Wolves kill aprox. 18 big game animals PER WOLF each year.... Do the math for a whole pack.... And Read some of the Actual books by Alaskan old timers .... Wolves do not Target the Weak and Old... and quite frequently Kill to kill never intending to eat what they've killed. These are facts Too.... some of your statements are facts and some of mine are ...

We've worked too hard as Sportsmen bringing back Deer and Elk with our Dollars.... we shouldn't have Wolves unless they themselves can be Added to the Big Game list and Properly managed.....
 
Trapper. Get a clue. A californicator yuppie attitude. WTF. Dont you ever call me a california yuppie. I don't give a rats ass if you like the title or not. You ain't got a dam clue as to of who or what I am about so dont act like you do. Did you not get that I did not write that article? Pay attention next time. I put the authors name down. Thats not me for godsakes.
 
No, you don't know What they Do to the Calves around the country.... To put them back at all with the ever growing human population is just plain stupid, and stupid is the Romantic thought in any form that they belong here Now....

didn't catch at first that you had transposed the article... I still catch that you are Wolfy IMHO
 
Maybe I shouldn't have deleted my saying at the end of my posts. It went something like this...
"I shoot at wolves, I don't dance with them." :)
Stands With A Fist
I don't support wolves, it was an article I stumbled upon to show the lop sided thinking some have to say wolves were a good reintroduction.
I'm all for killing every single one they reintroduced. While we're at it, why not reintroduce the Bison... I'd love to hunt one of them in the wild too. It will never happen with the Bison because of the diseases to cattle, which oddly gave it to the bison, but wouldn't that be more fun to look at in the wild than a dang wolf killing elk and deer.
 
Yup the perscription ran out thats for sure.
littlebeaver.jpg


Wildlife population control specialist
 
>I'm all for killing every single
>one they reintroduced. While we're
>at it, why not reintroduce
>the Bison... I'd love to
>hunt one of them in
>the wild too. It will
>never happen with the Bison
>because of the diseases to
>cattle, which oddly gave it
>to the bison, but wouldn't
>that be more fun to
>look at in the wild
>than a dang wolf killing
>elk and deer.

+1 Way to many wolves in Idaho


Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.
 

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