Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Solving The Wolf Problem

I'm not smart enough to understand all that bullchit...go figure.

Are bears running around all Winter chasing elk?

Are stressed elk more likely to sluff a calf?

Are stressed elk less likely to breed back?

Ol' Brent the wolf hugger is just trying to divert our attention away from the problem - wolf. During his childhood he dreamed of hunting wolves and a wolf hide on his wall. Most likely he has a cow hide on his wall.

The wolf lovers are sold on a concept.

They think it would be cool if we could return nature to how it was before man entered the picture. Problem is man is here along with interstate highways and subdivisions eating up Wintering grounds.

Elk and deer have enough problems to deal with and why anyone thinks wolves are a good idea in this day and age is beyond me.

[quote=BrentD]I don't have a the slightest problem saying that.

Consider that the deer herds in Minnesota for example, increased several fold while wolf populations exploded.
[qoute]

BrentD quick question for you,,, where and when was the last time you hunted in northern MN??.. So you know last year pretty much all of northern MN was on lottery right.. The reason our deer herd took off was cause of 5 yrs of mild winters.. Yes our great DNR gave out to many tags over years add 3000 wolves spells disaster.. If you do hunt every year in northern MN for deer you would hear guys saying just not seeing the deer like we use to but we see and hear wolves now more then ever... I have seen first hand what to many wolves can do to an area....

And there no wolves south of the twin cities like up north they have mild winters and farm land.. There pop exploded more then up north.. Numbers get mixed in looks good overall but there is definitely a line drawn...

Everytime some fool spouts off crap like that "...well...in 'x' state, the deer numbers and hunter success rates are UP since the wolf re-intro..." I wanna puke. It takes 10 minutes to goggle up the info to show that most every area that has wolves in you fellas neck of the woods has been on the decline since the wolves have had free reign.

It's really pathetic.

5 year old data -
No accounting for cow mortality from active predators during winter.
You can try and skew the data to suit your position, but, elk herds are declining at a rapid rate, and were expanding before wolf introduction.

Too many wolfs............. get biggest muskie hooks you can find , anchor to good tree branch about 4.5' off the ground with nice chunk meat firmly hooked.........
Cisco

Didn't Tom Clancy write a book about that? I think the title was Rainbow Six.

bear, mt lion, and game herds have reached a balance to the point where successful management of their numbers is possible.

the wolves (despite the official govt. line), it will NOT be possible to manage them successfully,(using methods the public would feel comfortable with) and that's why they were removed in the first place.

Brent,

Interesting that you should bring up Alaska and Canada as examples of places with lots of game and wolves. In both Alaska and in most of Canada wolves there are open hunting seasons on wolves, along with trapping seasons.

There are also major upswings and downswings of big game populations, particularly caribou and moose, due both to weather and wolf predation. I hunted the Mulchatna area of Alaska in 1996 for caribou and moose and there were plenty of each. These days there are very few in the same area, to the point where some outfitters don't even offer caribou hunts, though they will allow clients on other hunts (bear, sheep, moose) to buy a caribou tag just in case they see a good bull.

Major parts of the Northwest Territories shut down the caribou season completely due to low populations. I have hunted caribou in the NWT off and on since the early 1990's, most recently five years ago, and there were always great populations. Now, caribou populations go up and down, for various reasons, but they don't thrive when there are lots wolves.

The big difference, however, between the northern Rockies and Alaska and Canada is that they hunt and trap their wolves. We can't--and even if the states get their right to open wolf seasons returned, the only way to control wolf populations in the long run is trapping, because they learn very quickly to avoid hunters.

Any proposal to trap wolves will create an even more incredible schidtstorm than anything we've seen so far, along with years and years of lawsuits.

plattski, I asked a simple question. Your responce answered any others I might have had. mtmuley

Dang that science anyway--anybody who has ever winged a bullet at a critter knows more than scientists.......

But JB, nobody is suggesting wolves don't need to be hunted or trapped--not even Brent.




Yes, and suggestions of poisoning programs even more so......


I'm just hoping there is an a appeal to the 10th Circuit......

Except for the Sierra Club.

Aren't you a member?

And put out lots of pans of anti-freeze so they can quench their thirst. I hear that they really like that stuff.

Brent, you have to stop posting wildlife research monographs because they distract people from their heartfelt opinions.

I'm sorry plattski. I couldn't help myself. Even though the same pattern is manifest anywhere bears and wolves and ungulates exist, it is always the wolves that catch the heat and the bears that get off scot-free for some reason. That's okay. I like bears too.

But you can relax easy; you see, they all managed to continue onward with their "feelings of the heart". It really doesn't matter what the facts are anyway. This is all about religion now. And no one ever convinced anyone anything about religion.

These boys gots it, and they gots it baaaad!

Time to go polish my cow skull trophy....

Historically, black bears have been the primary predators on whitetails in the U.P. And the predation has taken place almost exclusively while does are dropping fawns. I'm wondering, however, if that's still true with our rapidly growing wolf populations.

Losing pets, especially dogs, raises hackles around here. One of my biologist friends dreads the stories and pics depicting what's left of Fido after El Lobo had him for lunch because of the public blowback. Pets carry lots of emotional clout. Lately I've heard more stories of encounters in my county in which wolves seem to be uping the ante with people. If someone gets hurt or worse, the effluent will really hit the impeller and may even move the needle of national opinion.

Another biologist friend of mine observed that historically, there were probably few wolves in the U.P. because there were few prey animals. Old growth forests were pretty sterile. The advent of logging opened up huge food resources promoting growth in whitetail populations (which, of course, brings its own set of issues).

Interesting that trapping comes up in this conversation. A friend of mine has been trapping coyotes this winter. Recently, he found a wolf in his trap. He had some exciting moments getting the varmint out of his trap, but once freed, the wolf decided he wanted to be elsewhere.

PC

I don't expect to change anybodies position on this issue for as you say, it's damn near a religous issue.

your position based on old data that was collected before most of the wolf packs expanded in area and size, seems as smug and elitist as any other opinion in this thread.

It's hard to convey an opinion in a hostile crowd without some hard words being tossed around, but you don't come off any better than the people you ridicule.
All that aside, its time to pass the legislation that will put control of the wolves back in the states hands.

Peter,

If a person is serious injured or killed by wolves, I kinda expect that wolves will disappear from that area, in a hurry. The feds had better think twice before they take the side of the wolves in that situation, too.