Marlin 1895, .45-70 Government
I've gotta admit though, that a Remington 700 in .270 would fit very nicely into my arsenal.
Posted on 08/06/2003 3:48:20 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Wolves are being reintroduced to wildlands to drive people out, intentionally putting human life at risk for the sake of creating a UN biodiversity preserve.
Across the nation, particularly in western states, ranchers are feeling the bite of the so-called "wolf recovery" program, which began with reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Stemming from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), this program was followed three years later with the return of Mexican gray wolves in the Southwest, and similar initiatives are underway in the Midwest and Northeast.
As the resurgent wolf packs thrive, they are inflicting serious economic damage on dairy and beef ranchers. Notes the November 9th Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "[B]eef cattle ranchers in northwestern Wisconsin say nighttime wolf raids cost them 92 calves [in 2001] alone.... They’ve found calves with their hindquarters shredded, still alive and trying to suckle. They have stumbled upon a pregnant cow ripped open and her fetus torn out. They have seen calves with crushed throats — dead without losing a drop of blood. Killed, they believe, simply for the thrill." "There is a reason the farmers made [wolves] extinct before, and this is probably the reason," comments Cortney Fornengo, whose family runs a beef cattle ranch in Wisconsin.
According to the December 30th Salt Lake Tribune, the impact of wolf recovery on the ranching industry in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming is measured primarily by "an absence of calves coming home after herds graze [in] national forests." The family of Dick and Betty Baker, sixth-generation cattle ranchers in Salmon, Idaho, describe how wolves have literally intruded into their backyard to prey on cattle and sheep. Seeking to contain the predators, federal wildlife officials "got after them with rubber bullets and helicopters and spent a lot of money," Dick Baker recalled. Despite such cost-intensive efforts, "we [still] see wolves lay right up there on the bench watching the cattle and waiting for dark."
Jay Wiley owns a ranch located along Idaho’s Salmon River. He points out that since 1995, "The [wolf] population just exploded, and [federal wildlife officials] have lost control." Wiley also points out that the owner of a neighboring ranch lost $12,000 worth of calves in wolf attacks during 2001. And with the feds looking to add local species such as the sage grouse and bull trout to the endangered species list, Wiley and other ranchers may be driven to sell off their land.
Heartbreaking though it is to lose a family ranch, losing a family member is incomparably worse. If not for their dog’s protective instincts, the family of retired postal worker Richard Humphrey may have fallen prey to Mexican wolves during an April 1998 camping trip near Safford, Arizona. The family had set up camp in a well-known tourist location when their dog Buck discovered two Mexican wolves lurking nearby. The wolves backed off, and the family assumed that "the wolves were just passing through."
A little more than an hour later, Helen screamed for Richard to grab his rifle. A short distance from the camp Buck had become entangled in a life-and-death fight with several wolves. Armed with his rifle, Richard tried to chase the wolves away. One of them suddenly charged at the Humphreys, and Richard shot him down less than 50 feet from his family. The family gently gathered their seriously wounded dog and went to find a veterinarian. When they arrived at Safford, Richard — in compliance with federal law — reported the wolf shooting to an agent of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).
The terrifying wolf attack was just the beginning of the Humphrey family’s problems. Notes Range magazine, "Richard had accidentally become a political pawn and scapegoat." Eco-radical groups in Arizona demanded that the retired postal worker be slapped with a huge fine and sent to prison. After six weeks of relentless and invasive questioning by federal officials, no charges were filed against Humphrey, provoking eco-radical outrage.
"By refusing to prosecute Richard Humphrey … the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has sent a signal that killing wolves is not a serious crime," complained the Center for Biological Diversity. Bear in mind that the supposed crime committed by Humphrey was to defend himself, his wife, and two young daughters from a potentially lethal attack. It’s also important to recognize that it was the FWS that had created the conditions for this near tragedy. As Range magazine points out, "wolves were being fed road-kill twice per week by [the] FWS" in release pens less than a mile away from the campsite where the attack occurred. "FWS had guaranteed in public meetings that ‘Notice of general wolf locations will be publicized,’" reported the publication. "If they had followed through with their pledges to the public, the Humphreys’ calamitous situation would not have occurred."
But such situations are the predictable — indeed, the intended — result of the federal government’s wolf "re-colonization" effort. Renee Askins of the eco-radical Wolf Recovery Fund has admitted that "wolf recovery is not about wolves. [Instead] it is about control of the west."
Wildlife ecologist Dr. Charles F. Kay summarizes: "Simply put, environmentalists are using wolf recovery and the Endangered Species Act to run ranchers out of the country and to thwart multiple use of public lands.... Is this what Congress had in mind when it passed the Endangered Species Act?"
While Congress probably didn’t intend for the Endangered Species Act to drive humans off their land, that is the act’s inevitable effect. And this is entirely understandable considering that act’s pedigree. Dr. Michael S. Coffman, a forest biologist and author of Saviors of the Earth?, points out that the Endangered Species Act is adapted from the UN’s Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna.
The ESA’s decades-long assault on property rights thus has its origins in UN mandates. And the "rural cleansing" campaign is part of an even more grandiose UN program called the "Wildlands Project," under which half of the U.S. land area would be converted into a vast biodiversity preserve. One supporter of re-wilding western lands explained that reintroducing wolves and other large predators was intended to "bring back another element that has been vanishing from the Western back country. That ingredient is fear. Wolves are killers.... People will think twice before traipsing into the back country."
Simply put, the "wolf recovery" program is a form of environmental terrorism. Thus while the U.S. government is working through the UN to fight a war against terrorism abroad, it is collaborating with UN-linked environmental radicals to wage an eco-terrorist campaign against rural property owners here at home.
When an article begins with inflammatory nonsense like that you know the rest is pure B.S.
I agree, let's keep them out in the wild.
You are both right. I'm biased, but, they are the most perfect family dog. They are huge, yet very agile and gentle. Love their family and would give their life defending it. I've owned over 30 of them. The only bad part of owning a huge dog like a Mastiff is their longevity. If you have a Mastiff live to 10 years old, you're lucky. These dogs are special so when they pass, it really hurts.
I suspect a Longhorn versus a wolfpack might be a little one-sided.
This is series, the problem is hugh. It's a recent phenomenon. I haven't lost anything only because the dogs are loose at night. Colleagues have had container, ball & burlap stock stolen, and several cases in California, where the varmits dug speciemen plants from the field. In one incident a Japanese Maple worth mega bucks was stolen from a display garden in the front nursery display.
"I suspect a Longhorn versus a wolfpack might be a little one-sided."
Me too. The cows are herd animals also. I really don't know if the other cows would stick around and duke it out, or act like their barnyard friend the jackass and run like girls when the going gets tough.
Board of Game to decide on aerial wolf control
The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Board of Game is taking up the issue of whether to allow wolves to be shot from airplanes.
The board is meeting Monday and Tuesday, and expected to take up the issue after it finishes its other business. If the board approves aerial control of wolves, it is certain to stir emotions in and outside of Alaska.
About 25 wolf advocates protested Monday morning about a block away from the Millennium Alaskan Hotel, where the board is meeting. The protesters — who were accompanied by three or four wolf-dog hybrids dressed in bulletproof vests — carried signs. One read, "We are howling mad," and another, "Board of Shame." An organizer using a megaphone led the protesters in a chant of "The whole world is watching," and "Hey, hey, ho, ho, wolf control has got to go."Isn't that original?
National protests, including a tourism boycott, are also possible, said Dorothy Keeler, a wildlife photographer and longtime vocal opponent of wolf control. A boycott in the early 1990s helped persuade former Gov. Wally Hickel to call off the last planned lethal wolf-control program.
Some members of the Game Board, however, said they believe other Alaskans, particularly hunters and rural residents, are ready for lethal wolf control to help boost populations of game animals.
The board is expected to consider a long-awaited predator control program in a small area around McGrath. The board also could consider similar measures for the Skwentna region and could lay the groundwork for programs elsewhere around the state.
"If the public is properly informed of the pluses and minuses, including the subsistence issues involved, I think this (program) will get off the ground," said Game Board member Ron Somerville of Juneau.
Wolf control has gone in and out of vogue since the 1900s, when bounties were paid and wolves were shot from airplanes, poisoned and trapped. In some areas, their numbers fell so low that moose and caribou herds exploded, then crashed after over-browsing the available food.
After statehood in 1959, support for widespread wolf control began to decline. Bounties were canceled and sport hunting from airplanes was made illegal in 1972, though the Alaska Department of Fish and Game continued its predator-control efforts. State biologists shot more than 1,000 wolves from airplanes and helicopters in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gov. Steve Cowper canceled the program in 1986 for budgetary reasons, although it was already the subject of public pressure. The next aerial wolf-control plan, in the early 1990s, was killed before it started, the victim of a successful national tourism boycott.
State wolf-control efforts then shifted to trapping, but the program near Fairbanks ended in 1994 when state snares intended to catch wolves captured large numbers of moose, caribou and even eagles, leading to widespread public condemnation.
In spite of the failures, regulations allowing state biologists to shoot wolves from the air remain on the books.
The Game Board this week is poised to resume the practice. But this time private citizens using their own aircraft would be allowed to shoot wolves from the air under a new law passed by the Alaska Legislature last spring.
Sen. Ralph Seekins, R-Fairbanks, drafted the bill after Gov. Frank Murkowski refused to allow state employees to shoot from helicopters in an experimental wolf-control program in hunting unit 19D East, near McGrath.
The board has been considering the McGrath-area predator-control program for nearly 10 years. Board chairman Mike Fleagle, who lives in McGrath, said he hopes the board can hammer out all the necessary details at this week's meeting.
Once the McGrath plan is finalized, the board could also design an aerial wolf-control plan for large portions of hunting unit 13, the Nelchina basin. Other areas could follow, including the Skwentna/Rainy Pass region, once the board approves individual intensive management plans for each area.
I've gotta admit though, that a Remington 700 in .270 would fit very nicely into my arsenal.
One of our local guys here on the Yukon is involved in many game issues. The wolf problem drives him nuts. He wrote a letter and had it submitted as a proposal to bring back the bounty system for wolves. He suggested a 500 dollar bounty and went into how it would provide employment for both natives & whites. Not all that many bush alaskans even trap anymore; have become too lazy with all the govt assistance, no joke. I personally know 10 people in my community that would start setting snares again if they made something at it.
This wouldn't be another wasteful program either. Our last governor spent 400,000 on a wolf sterilization program. That's right, dart wolves from planes then cut them so they couldn't produce more wolves. Anything to keep the lower 48 wolf lovers happy. Unreal ain't it. Of ya, the program was a failure as could be expected.
$400,000 to spend at $500 a wolve is 800 of those killing machines removed, a step in the right direction. More importantly it would get a few people off the dole and back to being constructive individuals.
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