Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Don Peay: The Man Who Would Be King...Baron

I am not sure how to respond to the hunter and fisherman first comment. I suspect that I am a little like Aldo Leopold in that my passion for both has diminished as my age has increased and my energy decreased. How much of that is a function of time, location and opportunity I am not sure. When I was with Defenders in DC I had a hunting camp on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and was either hunting or fishing most weekends and tended to spend my vacations there or hunting on my uncle's place in South Carolina. Moving and working a lot tend to cut into one's recreation, but I am off today to get a new set of chest waders for a steelhead adventure next week so I guess I am not totally out of the game.

As to the Idaho situation, yes the same forces are at work (i.e, drought, vegetative succession following clearcuts, and density dependence interactions). I would also throw disease in here too as natural predation--particularly performed by coursing predators like wolves--tends to have a cleansing effect on diseases like chronic wasting disease which hunting cannot address (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21269999).

Bob, do you live in any of the areas you pushed for wolves?

I am not arguing that predator is not making this situation worse , but it is hard to sort out the additive versus compensatory predation in this happenstance. Moreover, I believe based upon what I have read, studies and experience that this will sort itself out for the better and may involve an eventual and natural wolf crash as well. My suspicious is that if we rush that eventual outcome by randomly killing wolves in an effort to maintain an elk population at an artificially high level for habitat conditions the end result will be worse for elk than would occur otherwise.

I have lived and worked in four states with wolves and frequently visit wild areas in all western states and Alaska that have wolves.

I guess my question was kinda vague. Are you from or have direct ties to anywhere you pushed for wolves?

The reason I ask is I'm from a small community that was devastated by the original endangered species, the spotted owl. I remember clearly going to town hall meetings and such and the people pushing the hardest to preserve the "possible" habitat were from mostly California and the East Coast. It's funny that after the injunctions to stop all logging and the immediate financial hardship none of these people were around to see it.

Wildlife Services is a notorious program in the scientific community. Studies repeatedly bring their methods and results into question. See here: http://www.mammalsociety.org/uploads/committee_files/ASM-Federal%20wildlife%20control%20letter_0.pdf

Article after article in the scientific and popular literature have called for investigations of Wildlife Services from ethics and safety reviews to science and fiscal audits. They have resisted all because they are buried within a program at USDA.

Devastated or saved? The spotted owl was basically used as a tool to stop an unsustainable harvest pattern that was created by a series of ill-advised federal policies that should have recognized that the resources were not infinite and over-harvesting of timber not only impacted the spotted owl but steelhead and salmon too. This unrealistic expectation led to an overbuilding of timber mills and so on and hence the economic impact when the house of cards fell apart. Ironically I met yesterday with two of the architects of the Northwest Forest Plan to look at ways to cut more timber and create more jobs without causing damage--thinning and ecological forestry versus clearcutting--the former creating jobs and the latter creating industry profits which are not really the same thing. As to people in California and the East having a say--absolutely--these are federal public lands and your community as well as a most rural areas in the West receive more in the way of federal revenues that they pay in taxes--in essence folks in richer states and more populated areas subsidize rural lifestyles. I am glad they do but it is unreasonable then to not think that those people should have a voice in those areas they pay for.

Saved??? How about you come down and I will personally take you through the community and introduce you to people and let them know who you are,and what you stand for. You can make an attempt to persuade them all that they were saved. I'm sure everyone will understand better after you explain it to them.

For the record, there was no clear cutting, steelhead or salmon and ONE mill.

Where are we talking about then? Coastal Oregon? Washington?

New Mexico.

Ok, you are talking about Mexican spotted owl versus Northern Spotted owl. This near the Gila National Forest? Yes the issues there are different in some particulars but similar in consequences and solutions. The debate and the solutions involve the same issues and a switch from logging mature forests to thinning/restoration logging that speeds the process towards creating a larger inventory of mature forests to support the owls which area sensitive species--need large patches of older trees to survive. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/0...n-calls-for-ex-24176.html?pagewanted=all

Northern NM.

Either way,I have no use for you,spotted owls, or your kind.

I can't believe you'd say that about 4100fps's Hero, SLM!

Don't make me agree with you on something.

Your an idiot!

It's "you're", you dope!

Ha!

OK, You're an idiot! Doesn't change the meaning does it?

It does.
But, just like "your" thread, "you're" too dense to know it!

4100fps! The gift that keeps on giving!

You believe in Don Peay, Enough said. Laffin!!!