Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Wolf Problems....How bad is it?

Fubar,
Oh, I believe you...And, I believe what your are seeing and “not seeing” anymore is a result of an abundance of predatory animals in your hunting grounds.

It’s documented, wolves, cougars, bears will reduce large numbers of game animals in short order.

I’m curious what the timetable would look like for game animal recovery? In a natural ecosystem area, predators will leave after killing off the game. How many years would it take to reach quality game population numbers?

Timbermaster’s post was terrifying! 13,000 elk gone.

Yes, I read that old thread where some said you must suck at hunting...I just laughed. You can’t slay what’s not there.

😎

FB2 & Beav,

I've hunted that area the past two years and had no trouble finding elk, but don't know how it compares to years past. Lots of people, though.

I talked to a guy this year who swears there's wolves in the area. Never seen one myself, but have seen and heard a lot of coyotes. Saw one especially big one this year, carrying a chunk of elk hide from a hunter kill. For a second, I thought it was a wolf.

Jason

Wolf: primary excuse of lazy, crappy hunters.

4th point,

My friend is about 60 and has hunted there for many years, as tags allow. They are accustomed to finding the elk, but this year the entire party had no luck. They did find lots of bones.

I don’t consider Fred3 a lazy, crappy hunter nor anyone in his family. 😎

Wolf study video how it affects the cattle pretty interesting.

https://youtu.be/ZdEufIke4XE

Wolves have had a devastating effect on all game populations here, I was hunting a favored mule deer area I like and everyday I found at least 1 kill site, not too many bones left, just hair of moose and Mule deer. We would see several 4 point bucks everyday before the wolves took over, after that your lucky to see any good bucks around at all.

Cougars, if you only kill the Toms then you really haven't done anything to help the problem as the Toms take out other cougars that are competition to them. Female Cougars and female Bears need to be taken out if you want to help out ungulates.

The unit I hunt in has a 4% hunters success rate. I guess there are a whole lot of "lazy, crappy hunters" where I hunt. 96 out of 100 guys are lazy fu cks I guess...

I can not attest to it visually at present having not ventured West in three years. When I was last in Darby MT it was terrible.

I follow the issue very closely as I see such as a direct action stance against not only the hunting culture but against the 2nd amendment as the long game. From what I have seen the Wolf introduction is nothing more than the anti hunter organizations and USFW involved at upper levels in a money laundering scheme while crushing traditional wild game hunting culture and economics. The same is going on in other countries.

Here in the SE where I usually reside we are faced with a radical group that wants to introduce the Western Mountain Lion into our Eastern Forest lands.

There is a group on Face book called Oregon Wolf Education that follows the issue closely not only in our nation but in other countries faced with the same issues. Check it out they get it and present lots of evidence as to who the players are. For instance a NY politician is one of the biggest pushers of wolf introduction in the Western areas where they don't currently exist.

In essence the scheme is to spend the money to stock them, develop paid stewardship partners, research them, protect them and support them whilst wild game is decimated to such a point that citizen protest creates enough upheaval to then grant more money spent to eradicate or properly manage and then repeat.

There is currently a bill on the docket for wolf introduction currently in Colorado.

BTW per the newer Idaho research wolves kill only slightly less Elk than cougars. That study has been used as a blanket and certainly doesn't cover states with wolves where cougar density is low.

Good watch attached below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmWNvpQ1lXY&t=6s

Next up--start training wolves to eat yuppies.....

BuzzH will be along shortly....😂😂

All this wolf/cougar/bear talk - why don't people hunt them instead of applyingfor all the elk/deer/moose etc. etc. ?
Who on here is a trapper ? Moreless nobody ..

There are so few deer around here i don't try and hunt them - wouldn't shoot one if it walked out and stood in front of me .
But i set dozens of snares and have caught about 15-16 coyotes in the past 3 years . Plus i shoot them over bait when i or another lease member kills a hog - have killed a few that way .
Between killing every coyote i can and killing every coon-possum-skunk i see more deer and turkeys now .
Put some effort towards removing predators - give trapping a go even if it's only a week or two checking before and after work . It gets you outdoors a lot .
I'm starting in a few days - it finally cooled off here .

And stop mentioning the shovel - that's way too much work .

So you have wolves in Oregon to the point they’re affecting entire game populations, all within three years?

I’m all ears...

Strict9 ,

Yes you're corect - i've followed the programs and people behind the push to push big predators everywhere - . It's not a bunch of tree-hugging kids , it goes higher than any of us know - real mover and shakers with billions of dollars .

Sorry, have to cut and paste to get the PDF.

Current Montana elk populations:

chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://fwp.mt.gov/fwpDoc.html?id=93097

To be fair, this is what I'm seeing too. Very slowly happening though and the beginnings were devastating. Fish and Game does annual phone surveys and the past 8 years or so they always ask questions about seeing wolves while hunting. I haven't hunted up here for a few years due to a lack of game. Told the surveyor on the place I hunted I saw 85 mule deer in one afternoon. Same place following year I cut the tracks of 3 wolves, and saw exactly 3 deer...

Wish they had never been re-introduced...


and as someone else mentioned, lions take a real toll...

Mark, If someone were to look at Wyoming moose numbers pre wolf reintroduction vs. present .....the evidence is indisputable! Our elk numbers are down as well. The elk have changed their habitat patterns to survive. There are many more elk spending time in and around human habitation than what they did 20 to 30 years ago. Even sheep have been affected to a lesser degree! On thing that is helping us, a little, is the ability to kill wolves anytime outside their protected areas. memtb

We were never without wolves in northern MN, deer and moose seemed to do just fine.

Seem's to me the fish and game department's should take a clue from the predators. People don't want female's killed, they are needed to repopulate. Well sounds to me like wiping them out pretty much works better in the long run. I have thought for a long time there are just to many female deer and elk around. Lot of them are barren and the more animal's there are the less food there is. I have to admit I would shoot a wold on sight. Problem being all the hunting dog's that get killed by them. I am not offering my dog's up for wolf food! On the other hand I don't take my dog's where there are reported wolf sighting either. Kind of rules out hunting here as year before last I did see a wolf down by the John Day river. First one in 30yrs here. Talked to the rancher where I was and was told they are seeing them now and then around here. There is a reason wolves were wiped out many years ago. Beautiful animals but they are absolute killer's. I can remember when I was a kid in this state, Oregon, there was a bounty on Mountain Lion. Today you can't even use dogs and lions seem to be on the up swing. Several have been spotted here in town in the last several years. I've bumped into four over the years here. Lived in Montana about four years and spent a lot of time out in the woods. Have never seen one in Montana. I'm not sure hunting the way they do here will control lion populations or wolf population's. Hunter's buy lion tags just in case but seldom fill them!

It happens even faster than that.... I used to travel over Togatee pass once a month for several years, I would count the moose along the way , at times I could count up to a dozen.
Then the wolves were reintroduced and I never saw another moose.. all within a year... I believe my own eyes over some so called expert with an agenda and a paycheck attached to said agenda...
Where is BuzzH?