Posted on 02/28/2010 11:21:15 PM PST by OneVike
When wolves were reintroduced into Idaho, Montana and Wyoming the agreement with the states, sportsmen, the Federal Government and the tree huggers was simple. 300 wolves. The prowolf people asked for 450 wolves with at least 150 and 15 breeding pairs in each state. This 50%margin, they reasoned was needed so the number wouldn’t fall below 300. It would take YEARS they argued, probably DECADES with a slow 5% population growth rate. The 450 would represent wolf repopulation recovery and then management would be returned to the states.
2010 Numbers
Idaho-850 + wolves
Montana-600 + wolves
Wyoming-300 + wolves
We are at 1200 wolves more than the 450 requested. Biologists agree that 1 wolf kills 20 elk each year. 2,000 wolves x 20 dead elk = 40,000 dead elk each year.
Tom Bergerud top wolf expert from British Columbia told the Idaho Department of Fish and Game the following:
“I predict that you´re going to have major impacts from wolves in this state,” (Idaho) he said. I predict a major elk decline.
He said that he saw wolves “repeatedly depress moose, caribou and elk populations while studying them throughout Canada and in some cases they wiped out local populations of caribou.”
“I’ve watched herd after herd (of caribou) go EXTINCT across Canada,” he said. The problem: wolves have no known predators to keep them in balance with the ecosystem..
The Idaho Fish and Game predator expert disagreed with Tom Bergerud
“We really don’t fear wolves or other predators are going to drive any populations of big game animals to extinction,” says Steve Nadeau, who heads the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s wolf, bear and mountain lion management effort at Boise.
“They will cause some level of predation within those populations that may or may not affect the status of that population.”
The department and tribe are monitoring elk and wolf populations. If it’s determined wolves are having too severe an impact on elk, he says, new rules proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service would allow some wolves to be removed. Steve Nadeau
So who was right, the guy who had seen it all, or the guy who thought he knew it all?
Here is the bottom line, the Lolo herd had 9,729 elk before wolves were reintroduced, that number is now down to 1,473. Of that number cow elk, the producers of the next generation, are down from 3,832 to 705. Calves are down from 669 to just 144. You need 25 calves per 100 elk just to sustain a population. In the Lolo unit, the number is below 10 percent. Simple math Folks, looks like Tom was right and Steve was wrong. Wolves are just as good as killing big game as was predicted.
Here is the news article from 2010 on the Elk Populations in the once mighty Lolo Herd.
February 25th, 2010
By Eric Barker of the Tribune
Lolo Zone also could see fewer hunters after notching a large decline in elk numbers
…Depressed numbers of elk in the Lolo Zone could lead to fewer tags being sold there. Tags are already capped in the zone.
“We are seeing continued declines of elk numbers in the Lolo Zone,” Crenshaw said. “Data is indicating a 50 percent decline from 2006.”
The total number of elk counted during recently completed aerial surveys dropped from.........
(Excerpt) Read more about the wolf problem in the northwest at The Great White Hunter
IMHO one of the reasons wolves were introduced was exactly this outcome.
When elk, deer, sheep, etc. populations dive low enough hunting will be banned.
A plus for the environmentalist.
Remember the ‘corridor’ proposed that runs from Colo. up through the Canadian Rockies that was to ban humans?
A ‘corridor’ for biodiversity.
A playground for the biologists w/ no other humans.
Wildlife “management”gone mad...
I know of one, us.
This wolf was found just out of Edson , Alberta .. Edson is just east of where
many of our Yellowstone wolves came ( not sure what ‘found’ means.)
Hi… I live in Buck lake Alberta Canada…. 20 min from Drayton Valley where the big wolf was shot… I found more photos of it and its said to weighed 197 pounds… The hunters were said to been baiting bear and the wolf chased off a large bear… we had a malamute husky that was this big.. as big as this wolf… the tracks are from a wolf that been eating our cows 2 or 3 a week… Im sure if we fed our husky a large calf every couple days he would of been larger than the wolf…
remember the camera angle can make things look bigger… like a hunter sitting behind a elk… makes the elk look bigger… believe it or not my brother who weighed 190 pounds grabbed my cousin who weighed 250 pounds and bench pressed him off the ceiling, he worked the service rigs… any man can easily lift a 200 pound wolf like these men are…
Ive seen the wolfs twice that have been taking down the cows and they look large to me… wolf hunter are welcome… happy hunting
Whaaaat?
That’s gotta be faked like ‘Pigzilla!’
We have a coyote hat which is pretty cool. Husband shot that one. I like to put it on and chase the young Lab around once in a while; though now that she's come nose-to-nose with a REAL coyote and chased it off, she stands her ground against me, LOL! Good Girl!
It’s real. Becoming more typical every year of the wolves that can feed at will without being hunted. Soon, when they devastated the elk, deer, and others animals, we will be their prey. How would you like to be fishing on one of those great Oregon rivers one day and find yourself surrounded by about 15 of these puppies that are hungry.
I don’t think you want to send it to the Peoples Republic of Califoristan. Had I known you wanted a Fox Stole I would have sent you the Rabid one I shot a couple of months ago...
Um...no thanks, LOL! :)
Knew a guy once who was an Army Sharpshooter and when he had a day off, he’d go huntin’.
He’d stop by my office on base with any number of things to show me; one day he had a gorgeous fox. I could not for the life of me find an entrance or an exit wound, so I teased him that it was roadkill.
He had shot the thing in one eye and out the other!
He was something else. And his last name was ‘Schacht.” LOL! (Silent ‘ch’ in his name.)
Note post 23. That's a very large animal.
Ping!
Open season on liberals, no limit? 0.5+ /sarc
Hiking in the mountains, oh, about 30 years ago, one early morning I found myself surrounded by a mere dog-pack of 20+ household pets on the loose and that was, um, discomfort enough. (I finally befriended the pit-bull leader and never had trouble after that, but lesson was learned.)
Holy mole! You could make a sleeping bag out of that thing!!!
Thanks for the ping!
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