Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Wyo got shafted ...again...

ranch13,

They arent going to get the no lawsuit bill passed...whether stand alone or tied into an appropriations bill. Like I said, just give Enzi's, Barrasso, or Lummis' office a call...they'll tell you the same thing.

Theres a right time to strike and thats when the iron is hot...Wyoming didnt have an iron in the fire...and still doesnt.

Wyoming now really has 2 options, disregard the new plan in the State Legislature...or pass it and roll the dice yet again.

Wyoming is in a no win situation, and IMO, it will be a mistake to adopt the new plan. Adopt it without a no lawsuit clause and you open yourself to lawsuits from every wolf-hippie group in the world. Groups that are already fuming over having lost in ID and MT. They've (wolf hippies) have had plenty of time to circle the wagons and my guess is the lawsuits are already written.

Wyoming wanted to stand alone on this deal.

Oh, and Burns, wolves are increasing in number every year in Wyoming...in 2009 Wyomings wolf populations grew at 11% while MT's grew at less than 4%.

It would seem intuitively obvious, even to a casual observer, that hunting and trapping work...while WY's failed plan doesnt.

BTW, got an email from a friend that smoked a wolf in Montana yesterday. Its a real shame WY hunters are being denied the opportunity to hunt wolves because of the WWC and associated chronies.

For the state in this mess with the fewest number of wolves right now to "clean house" might not be the best plan.

If I was sitting in a state with almost twice as many wolves (MT) as WY I might reconsider who I supported and my course of action.

I guess it could be worse and you could have the same number of wolves as ID?

Political capital has been squandered in Wyoming with this issue...and there needs to be a house cleaning of epic proportions. No doubt about that.

BTW Burns, are you a member of SFW or BGF?

I'd say you are...sounds like you're swilling the kool-aid straight from Benson and Peays tap...

Pretty hard for me to whine about the state that has so far proven to be the most effective at moderating the damage from the reintroduction.

I have always been a result oriented type of guy.

When ID and MT have a better handle on the disaster, that you wanted and helped cause, I will change my opinion.

To date WY has simply handled a bad situation better than the other 2 states but I wish them well and would love for the state managed �trophy status� to work, I simply have my doubts.

Wyoming has way less wolves and we were supposed to be �Ground Zero� with most of Yellowstone here in Wyoming.

It is not an accident.

Not a member of SWF nor BGF. Never have been but I can read.

Wow, impressive - the state with the smallest wolf recovery area (WY) has fewer wolves than MT and ID. Yet, still does not have a season where their hunters/trappers can kill wolves. Fine manipulation of data there.

No season yet. Great leadership, for sure.

Next.



Yeah, given the wolf recovery area in MT is three times the size of the recovery area in WY, you would expect Montana to have three times the number of wolves as WY, not only double the numbers.

Next.

And, we are actually hunting wolves in MT and ID, rather than having government employees shoot them. How many hunters legally killed a wolf in WY this year? No need to answer, I know the number.

Very glad MT guys supported the course of action they did. Works for us, and when we start trapping them in a few years, it will really be fun.

Like I said, do what you want in WY. Your situation, so make of it what you want. Just glad to be disconnected from the WY deal and moving forward with our own plan. Keep blaming MT and ID for your plight. That seems to be making great progress.

Do you call whats happening to Moose in NW Wyoming effectively handling the damage? How about with elk there?

I dont think many are going to agree with you on the "effectiveness" of Wyomings plan in those areas.

Wow that�s funny as all three states have the same number of packs and wolves to comply with delisting.

If you don�t understand that concept then get out of the discussion until you educate yourself to a level to be able to carry on at an intelligent level.

Wonder why we have fewer numbers??? Wonder why Wyoming is so much closer to the minimum number of wolves to comply with delisting?? Wonder why Wyoming only has wolves in the Northwest corner of the state??

I don�t want a wolf season if it means more wolves. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I hope you guys have good luck with your plan and it proves to be more effective than Wyoming�s plan and we can jump on the bandwagon.

But, as for right now, you guys are getting shafted way worse than Wyoming and you have dragged Washington, Oregon and Utah into your mess.

Remember you wanted wolf reintroduction. I did not want reintroduction.

I wonder why wolves are increasing at nearly 3 times the rate in Wyoming than they are in Montana and Idaho?

Real effective managment...

Even funnier is that you don't realize that 60% of the MT wolves came from natural migration out of Canada into the NW part of the state. A big number of wolves that were not part of the reintroduction in YNP. They were here, breeding for years, before a single wolf landed in WY as part of the YNP wolves.

If you don�t understand that concept then get out of the discussion until you educate yourself to a level to be able to carry on at an intelligent level. ........ Your words, might want to follow your own advice.

Rancher 13 and Burns forget one small part of the whole debate. Had Wyoming had a wolf plan similar to Montana, and Idaho, we all would have been off the list at least 4 years ago. With the Feds watching and making sure the management plans are adhered too for the first three years of delisting, they would have been out of the picture. Wyoming could have then, went to their holy Predator, and Trophy, duel status at this very moment in time. Totally cutting off your nose to spite your face. STUPID, plain and simple.

I know the SSS crowd meets every night at happy hour, and strategize how to kill wolves. Problem, it's coming from their bar stools, and you'd have to get off one to get a wolf.

If your not SFW/BGF members then your getting your info from your local pub.

Burns, Montana had wolves prior to the introduction. Our northern border is prime wolf habitat and we have many dispersal's from there. It's guessed that we would have had more wolves without the introduction, because of the experimental, non essential population status that the introduction afforded us.

I actually misspoke because Wyoming is committed to more wolves for recovery than either Idaho or Montana.

We have to have 15 breeding pairs and 150 Wolves in the state, while MT and ID only have the 10/100 deal as was originally proposed. Ah the joys of having the vast majority of Yellowstone in your state.

Yet Wyoming has barely half the wolves of MT and near 1/3 the wolves of Idaho.

Wyoming has undoubtedly had major impacts from this lower number of wolves but has unquestionably faired better than our northern neighbors.

Again I hope MT and ID get a handle on the wolf situation and it is so successful that it shows WY the way to perfect harmony.

But until that time it is really hard to condemn the path Wyoming is on considering how much better we have done than either ID or MT.

Simply having a �wolf season� is hardly a reason for celebration unless your real goal was reintroducing wolves to the west. If hunting wolves was my main goal then I would have been onboard with the reintroduction of the wolf from the getgo (as were Buzzy and Big Fin).




First of all you actually should provide some real evidence that your claim is true.

Second, who cares?? MT only has to have 10 pairs and 100 wolves. Wyoming is committed to 15 pairs and 150 wolves.

Which state is closer to minimum??? Keep thinking a hunting season is the end all be all but some who understand game management (also those with a 3rd grade education) get it that less wolves is better for elk hunting.

Wyoming has the fewest wolves of all three states yet has the greatest required number of wolves to delist.

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/annualrpt01/2001report.htm

Gray wolf populations (Canis lupus) were extirpated from the western U.S. by the 1930s. Subsequently, wolves from Canada occasionally dispersed south into Montana and Idaho but failed to survive long enough to reproduce. Public attitudes toward predators changed and wolves received legal protection with the passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973. Wolves began to successfully recolonize northwest Montana in the early 1980s. By 1995, 6 packs lived entirely in northwestern Montana. In 1995 and 1996, 66 wolves from southwestern Canada were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park (YNP) (31 wolves) and central Idaho (35 wolves).

The Nine mile pack was just west of Missoula Montana.

Not even close to true.

[/quote]

Wonder why Wyoming only has wolves in the Northwest corner of the state??

[/quote]

Do you understand what makes good wolf habitat?

This discussion is a perfect illustration of why MT and ID so badly wanted to be disconnected from the WY issue. Every state is going to have a different idea of how they want to do it. Which is how it should be.

When MT and ID were chained to the post, while WY and USFWS fought their battles, wolves were eating the hell out of our game in MT. We did something about it. And from comments on here, that seems to have ticked off a few WY guys.

Seems a few of the WY guys here think ID and MT were supposed to be the chips they could use to pay the ante in their game of poker with the Federal judges. Writing checks with other people's elk, and you wonder why the other people wanted out of the deal.

As stated early by Burns, ...If you don�t understand that concept then get out of the discussion until you educate yourself to a level to be able to carry on at an intelligent level.

Then, when WY doesn't get good results, the leaders of that failed strategy start blaming everyone else for their plight. Mostly blaming the MT and ID guys and the fact that we found a way to get our problem solved. Take another hit off the pipe, guys, it is getting you nowhere fast.

The other reason MT and WY are different is due to the wolf situation in each state that existed at the time the wolves were put in Yellowstone. Unlike WY, in by 1995, MT already had more wolves in our state than the entire Yellowstone Reintroduction numbers that Burns likes to talk about. The numbers 4100fps provided were just the documented wolves, not the total number of wolves in NW MT at that time.

At that time, we had no way to manage those wolves coming from Canada, as they were completely protected under the ESA. When the YNP reintroduction was negotiated, Montana negotiated that we would get to manage both the YNP wolves and the Canadian immigrants as a"non-essential experimental population." A "non-esssential experimental population" that could be managed in a way not otherwise provided under the ESA umbrella.

In MT we had wolves coming in from the ID reintroduction, wolves already here from Canada, and then wolves coming from YNP. So, they bred like rabbits and have been eating the hell out of things the entire time that WY and USFWS were fighting. And Burns snickers about the wolf infestation in MT has been dealing with.

And people wonder why MT wanted disconnected from WY..... If you don�t understand that concept then get out of the discussion until you educate yourself to a level to be able to carry on at an intelligent level.

If WY wants to continue with their current path, knock yourself out. Given you now want to point blame at MT and ID, and you whine that our Congressional delegations are not bailing you out, I guess you are on your own.

Currently, Wildlife Services and WYG&F are spending a lot of money to kill wolves in WY. Wildlife Services are getting their budgets hacked hard. The ability of WS to continue fending off the expansion of WY wolves is going by the wayside, soon.

Wyoming will be left with two choices - 1) Fund that cost from their hunter license dollars, or 2) Don't fund it and let the wolves expand further and further. Right now, that subsidy helps WY keeps wolf densities lower than they otherwise would be, though Burns would have you believe it is because of their excellent political strategy.

Or maybe the wool growers will do in WY what they tried to do in MT. Come to the legislature and ask for $2 million of state license money to hire the Feds at Wildlife Services to kill predators (mostly coyotes) on private ground. A move that MT hunters blocked, as this diversion of license funds would have cost us another $6.5 million of Pitman-Robertson money.

Good luck to you WY guys. I hope you get control of wolves and can manage them as you damn well please. If you want to wipe them out completely, matters none to me.

The falasy you are continuing to operate under is that this is a science and legal battle. Hell, if that was the case, we would have solved this ten years ago. Think that all you want. It is a political battle.

In politics, you need a majority, or a lot of friends in places to help you as the minority. At this time, Wyoming has neither, as evidenced by the quote of the original post where the dude from Rhode Island supposedly "shafted" WY .... again. Pretty sad commentary of how isolated WY has become on this issue, when one dude from Rhode Island can block your plans.

Hopefully that all changes and you guys can move forward with your current plan, or you can follow Burns' plan to keep the status quo. Best of luck, whichever route you take.

Until then, I am going wolf hunting for Christmas. Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you. May your New Year be filled with health, happiness, and wolf pelts hanging from your rafters.

You know, after I sifted through some of the pi$$ing contest here, I really have learned a lot. Thank you to the guys who have taken the time to try and explain woof strategy from both WY and MT's perspective. I know writing long posts is tedious at times, but I, and I expect many others, have enjoyed reading this thread.

Now with woofs delisted in MN, they are talking about a fall hunting season here. I think that would really be fun to do. any tips on hunting them? I dont live in the woof range (barely though...we do have a few come around once in awhile).

+1 Has been pretty good reading.

Bigfin the predator control has been largely funded thru the legislature, the predator fee's collected from brand inspections, and the option landowners have when they turn in the landowner coupons to direct payment to the animal damage control board.
Even if the Game and Fish had to cough up money for control of the wolves, wolves are "wildlife" and that's what the Game and Fish department is charged with doing, managing all the "wildlife" in the state.

Can any of you wolf proponents and the criticizers of Wyomings dual classification tell me why you think wolves need to be afforded the protection of "trophy game" in these hills. Approximately 300 miles from the nearest boundry of the proposed "trophy game" area, less than 1% public land?

Well douche bag, to answer your question, I've killed a 200"+ typical mule deer, a 36"+ bull oryx, a beautiful black bear and an 89" antelope. I'm a trophy hunter Flinch, I enjoy hunting for a particular animal and am perfectly happy to eat a tag. I just enjoy being in the outdoors.

As for this mythical picture of me and 5 guys, I have no idea what picture you are referring to. Please post the picture.

You keep telling everybody that you're feeding them rope to hang themselves and the only person that hangs themselves and comes out looking like a freaking idiot is you. Thats a fact.

I hope Santa brings you a clue

Drummond