Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Wolf Cull Started

I've been doing what I can with my rifle as the wolf population is out of control here in Ontario. I this province would start a cull on the wolves, but that is wishful thinking. The wolves are doing the same thing here running every logging road and packed snowmobile trail. In northern Ontario the moose population has crashed as well due to all the same reasons as BC.

So, take a year off from killing ungulates and hunt wolves instead. This will reduce the kill by humans and reduce wolf numbers as well. Win, win. I have also spent the last fifty years hunting in this province and have lived in areas where wolves were common. In every case, ungulate population declines followed liberal open seasons, increased access, and over-hunting. I'm not sayong wolves do not prey on big game, of course they do but we have to accept our responsibility for declining populations as well. In the case of the caribou herd, I agree that they need all the help they can get, including wolf population management, but I believe we, not natural predation, brought them to this level. GD

It is really only in the past few years that the predation on various ungulates in this particular region HAS been a major issue. During most of the period of civilized settlement here, these animals were always shot, poisoned, trapped and killed and hunted with hounds.

This, kept their numbers relatively low and game animals benefited accordingly. Then, we got the "greenies" who are anti hunting, consider Wolves and Grizzlies to be "iconic" and NOW very few actually kill them.

However, while I certainly concur with Bill on hunting them and they will show a person just how little he knows about "hunting", the numbers are now too great for hunter's kills to save the few remaining Caribou.

So, all in all, we really MUST cull predators, ban "non-resident" hunting south of Highway 16 AND cut resident harvests as well as protect far more habitat from csttle, ATVs, logging, mining and dam building, to restore BC's once fabulous wildlife heritage and good hunting for we citizens.

WILL, this actually happen.....I seriously doubt it, those huge profits and fat resource sector paycheques are just too tempting, the days of wild BC and easy available hunting with lots of game are gone and will never come again in our time.

Yeah, i live about 40 miles SW of some fuggin where too, as does most everyone.

Where are yall talking about, please? I mean, unlesd the law is after you.

What do you mean by liberal open seasons? Is 1 mule deer buck or 1 bull elk too liberal?? it wasn't 10-20 years ago.....
I dont blame the decline in game in general on the wolves alone, its really a decline in game because of many things.
If there were more fires that produce suitable habitat for game and limited road access then we wouldn't be having any issues with a depleted game pops in most if not all of southern BC.

With that said.... 1 wolf is known to kill 15 elk annually so...fingers can be pointed at them too I guess, but it is how they have adapted to hunting the network of roads that humans have created, we can never have an impact on the wolves if it were left up to hunters in bc to keep the pops in check,, just not gonna happen.

I too have hunted all over southern bc and the wolf thing isn't just a kootenay/caribou issue, its alot bigger than that,, as one of the area's I like to hunt has been really hit hard by wolves, no question, sure there are alot of hunters, natives, resident hunters, outfitters, its the surprising amount of game I find to have been killed by wolves, then at night they come and investigate my camp, howling all around you, then when you go have a look in the morning their tracks in the snow show they have circled all around the camp.

As usual, SNAP (Dewey) is bang on.

The term "balance" in nature causes misunderstanding. It doesn't mean a static situation, whereby numbers of game animals and predators remain fairly constant. What most often occurs are significant cycles, whereby game numbers increase greatly, followed by gradually increasing predation for a few years until the game population is diminished, resulting eventually in the decline in predators due to the lack of a food source. Then it starts all over again.

The problem, as Dewey and Greydog have pointed out, is that our influence (road-building, forest management, etc.) have exaggerated the cyclic point where game numbers are very low and predator numbers are particularly high, and without further efforts on our part to protect the caribou, the population will likely collapse completely. What the wolf huggers refuse to realize is that an absence of prey won't be particularly healthy for the wolf population either (but then their argument is primarily based on emotion rather than logic).

Before the wolf kill, the thinking of game managers was actually to keep the hunting regulations - particularly for moose - fairly liberal in the areas where mt. caribou were threatened, so that the moose numbers would decrease and the wolves might leave the area for happier hunting grounds. That has to go down as one of the stupider ideas in the history of modern game management, and I'm glad to see that the politicians are slowly changing the minds on that strategy.

Bottom line - first, a considerable number of wolves need to be removed, and second, we need to re-examine how we manage our forests and our game.