Like I said in my first post in this thread, there's so much misinformation and uncertainty out there that I can't make heads or tails of the whole situation.
I'm with T regarding this wolf "problem" and decreasing game numbers and such..
No one did stringent population determinations of wolves/elk/deer back in the "olden days" when wolves numbers started being reduced from historical numbers to where they were when re-introduced.
Perhaps the numbers of elk and other big game animals were artificially high during the heyday of elk hunting in the Rocky Mountain West.....due to large numbers of predators having been removed previously, not to mention wildland management practices (logging etc) that might have favored an artificially increased population of grazers/browsers.
Seems like 20+/- years or so ago I read an article/study about the numbers of abalone on the California coast having been inflated due to the removal of their top predator, the seas otter. So much so that folks could easily collect them wading out to rocks in the intertidal areas of Central and Northern Cali. After 50+ years of this, abalone numbers dropped, even in areas where no otters had been introduced. The introduction of a substitute predator, humans that is, likely dropped the population of abalone back to more historical levels and abalone again were subjected to predation only by diving predators, like humans in wet suits.
The uncertainty is certainly large when discussing elk/wolves and probably many other predator/prey situations.
I'm of the belief that the wolves would have returned to the Rockies "naturally", especially if given protection from hunting. And probably spread from there to OR and CA. Am I happy about them coming to my part of the world? Not necessarily, unless they can put a big dent in the feral horse population. Hard enough here to draw deer/elk tags and if the wolf arrival would mean lower game numbers it might make it nigh on impossible to draw in these NE Cali units.
Geno
