Posted on 11/21/2013 11:48:46 AM PST by george76
Wildlife lovers clamoring to bring gray wolves to Colorado may want to pay attention to those wooden outhouse-style structures in rural Catron County, New Mexico. They’re called “kid cages,” and they’re built to protect children waiting at school bus stops–from wolves.
“The wolf issue is an example, especially with the kid cages, about how you’re putting the interest of wildlife over the interests of human beings,” said filmmaker David Spady. “Every American should be concerned about seeing kids in cages and wolves out wandering around freely.”
Spady’s remarks came during a Tuesday screening of his film, “Wolves in Government Clothing,” a documentary on the impact of the 1998 wolf reintroduction on those living in the rural West.
The film focuses on rural communities struggling to cope with the economic and safety issues that accompanied the wolves, including livestock depredations, reduced elk and moose herds, and fewer hunting opportunities, not to mention chilling close encounters with wolf packs.
...
The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to rule on the wolf proposals sometime after public hearings conclude Dec. 3.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecoloradoobserver.com ...
There has been exactly 1 attack by a wolf on a human in the lower 48 in recent history, and that was in Minnesota, and the wolf was brain damaged.
European Wolves prefer horse meat:
Wolves attack horses in French ski station
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3094021/posts
“In Wolves In Russia,” Will Graves reports on a long history of wolf attacks on people in Eurasia, especially Russia, Pakistan, India and Kazakhastan, including thousands of fatal ones
Way too many wolves have bred with feral dogs over many years, and lost their fear and avoidance of humans as a result-think guard dogs without a fence or master. It has happened with coyotes, too and is likely the result of dogs set loose and gone feral for years-animals revert to the wild faster than a lot of people realize. In normal circumstances, domestic animals don’t belong out in the wild without fences, and wild animals don’t belong inside of them...
The gangs on 16th Street mall are like wolf packs.
See the Urban game : Polar bear hunting ?
People also were killed by wolves in North America before the 20th century.
B.S.
My horse and I were attacked by wolves in the Gila Wilderness and the wolves wound up being brain-damaged, thanks to hooves, rifle and pistol.
I grew up reading hundreds of books but the only one that really stuck was Call of the Wild by Jack London. Each summer In recent years I have spent time on the Yukon River which is where Jack London’s fictional book was focused. So, basically, the sound of the wolves is truly, for me and many others, “a call of the wild” and therefore beautiful way out in the woods.
That said, the idea of wolves in populated areas is preposterous both for the wolf and man.
So you were the one. ;)
I was one of the ones.
Bears still maul and kill people, and anyone who isn’t afraid of the big, bad bear is a fool-there is also a season to hunt bears in states where there is a big, stable population of them.
Hunting wolves in Alaska is allowed and regulated, and they have many, many more wolves than the lower 48 could hope to anytime soon.
There aren’t enough mountain lions to have a season here where I am-they are protected-nor have there been attacks on humans, unlike in California-but I see tracks often and I’ve heard them vocalizing while I’m hiking, so I carry pepper spray and don’t go sneaking around quietly. If the mountain lions ever get really numerous and start attacking people like bears do, I imagine there will be a season for them, too.
3 months ago I heard a commotion from the raccoons on the front lawn- Ran outside and had my porch light on. I saw two big wolves standing there on the lawn 20 feet away growling at me - I shouted at them but they just growled louder-so I ran the hell back onto the porch, into the house and got my gun, ran back outside and fired a shot into the ground next to them to scare them off, coz they were just standing their ground. They finally took off after a second shot into the ground. I hadn`t seen a wolf here since 1957. They are back and unafraid of humans. They are very large dogs as their eyes are higher than my waist. This occurred near the NY-VT border. Luckily the racooons scampered up the oak tree. We have coydogs here sometimes but they run in packs and just chase the deer around the house- They don’t bother humans coz they are afraid of humans. But These big wolves are dangerous. A 22 won`t even bother them. Takes ` 30 or 44 to bring `em down.
You know, nothing quite exposes the silliness and the hypocrisy of the “independent westerner” like this issue. These folks don’t actually want to live in the rugged west. They want to live in some soft, tamed version of it where the mountain lions, and the bears and the wolves have been hunted to extinction to make room for their cows. They claim to fiercely independent, but they would all go belly up tomorrow if they couldn’t run their stock on public lands, or if the BLM or the forest service wasn’t allways bulldozing stock tanks for them. They hate the government, but they all hire on as volunteer firefighters every summer.
People like you claim to love places like the Gila Wilderness, just as long as it’s not TOO wild.
As most of know: the excessive killing by wolf packs of sled dogs, moose, and such in Alaska hurts the local & native populations as they depend on the above for transportation , food, etc.
Doubt many there would support out of control , rampaging wolf populations.
Here is the logic for wolf re-introduction. I was curious to find out the reasoning even if it might be wrong>>>>>>
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WIKIPEDIA
Indeed, local industry and environmental groups battled for decades over the Yellowstone and Idaho wolf reintroduction effort. The idea of wolf reintroduction was first brought to Congress in 1966 by biologists who were concerned with the critically high elk populations in Yellowstone and the ecological damages to the land from excessively large herds. Officially, 1926 was the year that the last wolves were killed within Yellowstone’s boundaries. When the wolves were eradicated and hunting eliminated, the elk population boomed. Over the succeeding decades, elk populations grew so large that they unbalanced the local ecosystem. The number of elk and other large prey animals increased to the point that they gathered in large herds along valley bottoms and meadows overgrazing new-growth vegetation. Because of overgrazing, deciduous woody plant species such as upland aspen and riparian cottonwood became seriously diminished. So, because the keystone predators, the wolves, had been removed from the Yellowstone-Idaho ecosystem, the ecosystem changed. This change affected other species as well. Coyotes filled in the niche left by wolves, but couldn’t control the large ungulate populations. Booming coyote numbers, furthermore, also had a negative effect on other species, particularly the red fox, pronghorn, and domestic sheep. Ranchers, though, remained steadfastly opposed to reintroducing a species of animal that they considered to be analogous to a plague, citing the hardships that would ensue with the potential loss of stock caused by wolves.[3]
Interesting. Glad you posted this from WIKI. It gives some context to the debate.
The large ungulate population could have easily been controlled by human hunters.
That was forbidden on the discredited theory that “nature” would be in balance if only humans were removed from it.
Fact: Nature is never in balance and is always changing. In the Americas, after the glaciers, the human population altered the ecosystem in many ways advantageous to them. Flux is the rule, balance an illusion.
Fire was an essential way to keep the ecosystem in the state that it was found by non-Indians. Preventing fires was another mistake from the basic assumption that “nature” was in balance.
“I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for Catron County welfare ranches.”
Wolves don’t actually eat the ranch - the rocky soil is rough on their dentition and GI tract.
However, given an opportunity, wolves happily kill (and often eat alive) the ranch animals, pets, even the rancher’s children.
Now you know.
“Actually wolves very rarely attack humans, they are so afraid of the human scent I wonder how they were domesticated into dogs in the first place.”
Wolves are not in the least afraid of human scent, per se.
They learn “fear of man” best when instructed by Mr. Gunpowder.
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