Wolf populations are blamed for reduced numbers of all sorts of big game even where wolf populations are sparse. Today's hunters would never want to even consider that over-hunting, range degradation, excessive road building, or intrusion by motorized vehicles could ever be at fault in any way. The Selkirk caribou herd was considiered to be at risk forty years ago. GD
Forty years ago, you never saw Wolves in the area where these Caribou, live; there WAS some overhunting and that resulted in closure of all hunting for them years ago.
My cousin, a fifth-generation "Kootenay" is 55, a VERY keen and active hunter and VERY successful as the large pile of huge Elk racks in his shop at Bealby's Point at Nelson, will attest. He has the large trap lines covering much of the area where the Caribou live and has spent over 30 years in the bush there.
He told me last November, that he had just returned from an extensive trip all through there, then up the Duncan to the Glacier Park boundaries and saw almost NO ungulates OR tracks in the fresh snow. BUT, he saw Wolf sign everywhere and we NEVER saw this until the past few years.....
Simply put, here in BC, "apex" predators are at the highest population levels since anyone now living can recall, there is a major decline in ungulate numbers and culling MUST happen, along with a major cut to "non-resident alien" and even resident hunting to rebuild these stocks of gsme.
If, such measures do not happen and SOON, we face an end to our wildlife heritage as we have known it and I cannot accept that.
