Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Wolves in Idaho.....

Here's an interesting link for everyone that is well worth watching.....


www.saveourelk.com

Wow.....

A report on the IDFG webpage today says that the USFWS is going to announce the wolf delisting to be affective Feb 29. It also says that there will be court challenges to it. That's a given. This'll be tied up in the courts until we have 5 times as many wolves as we have now and the elk will be down to unhuntable levels. That's exactly what the huggers' plan is - eliminate the elk to end hunting.
IDFG delisting

Dick

Unbelievable! I'm hunting in the Selway this year for elk...

No way its just nature at work I am kidding but wow a taste of HUSA and Peta I hope they view it and all their members.

Cool. I like the synopsis of Idaho's plan.

Rockchuck,
The Defenders Of Wildlife will certainly ask the court for an order to immediately suspend delisting until a final decision by the court, but the hunting seasons won't start until next fall. The burden will be on Defenders to demonstrate why a suspension of delisting is necessary. It is unlikely they will make their case.

Either way, chances are good there will be a final decision before fall. At least that's the current thinking anyway.


Casey

On the surface, the huggers don't appear to have a case. The original reintro plan called for maybe 150 wolves and we now have 800 or more. However, they can go judge shopping to find a hugger in a black robe who can keep it tied up for a long time.

Dick

As mentioned before, delisting was proposed in 2005, Wyoming's lawsuit put it on hold, Montana, Idaho, and USFWS worked a deal to go ahead with delisting, Wyoming's lawsuits lost in court, Wyoming and USFWS worked a deal--which delayed listing by 2+ years.

When one files a lawsuit in Federal District Court, you walk in, slap the filing down on the clerk's desk, pay the fee, and the clerk throws it on the pile of other civil lawsuits--whatever judge ends up with it is a fairly random process.

The law is on the side of the USFWS--they've done their homework--legally and biologically. Although a little bit surprised how much PR legs the Defender's lawsuit is generating, it is the usual politics of fear--on both sides.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the Defender's lawsuit is going to amount to much.

The often quoted number of proposed wolves is the minimum number of wolves in the reintroduction plan to maintain viable populations--the actual number was always going to be more.

I just got a chance to skim through Montana's proposed wolf management plan and it's wolf harvest model yesterday.

All three states have the same minimum requirements--10 Breeding Pairs. They WILL NOT be managed at minimum levels--they will be managed to provide a cushion ABOVE the minimum.

In all three states, less than 10 Breeding Pairs triggers "automatic emergency relisting and management by the USFWS". All three states mangement plans call for immediate halt to sport hunting and depredation removal if the population drops to 15 Breeding Pairs for each state. It appears Montana will manage for 20+ Breeding Pairs--I suspect Idaho and Wyoming will be very similar.

Once the states management goals have been met, plan on a minimum population of approximately 500-800 individuals with roughly 60 Breeding Pairs in the tri-state area, excluding Yellowstone.

I also predict within 3-4 years, the wolf harvest will have been significant enough to reduce the wolf population in each state to it's management goals, and the quotas will be significantly reduced. The Idaho and Montana mangement plans both are proposing quotas on a unit by unit basis. After 3-4 years, the quota will be reduced (triggering more rhetoric), and the quotas in each unit will probably be filled in the first weekend of the wolf season.

Based on their harvest model, a wild guess is Montana will set the total statewide quota between 75-120 wolves the first season to see how things go. Wolves will be unwary, densities will be good in some areas of the units, and folks will have a field day. Each year the wolf hunting will become a little more difficult.

Casey

re[orts here are that they will be taken off the endandered list with 1500+ wolves in the area. Also , a hunting season will be established in response to the increasing numbers. In BC we are allowed wolf most of the year and there numbers are on the rise as well, same with cougars and bears.

I have serious doubts about that. If 1 million hunters in pa cant put a dent in the states coyote population, what makes you think the western hunters are going to have any more luck with wolves in such a vast inaccessable area.

I would like to have someone explain this point as well. Even IF wolves are hunted our affect will be minimal. There's just too much country for the wolves to live in and it's not country that's accessable year round.

Sure we humans are responsable for the way other animals dissapeared....look at the bison who numbered in the millions acording to Lewis and Clarks's journals. The wolf is not to be found easily enough and the short 'hunting season' and the number of hunters will, IMO, have no affect at all. Put a bounty on wolves and you may get some positive results as has been done in the past with other species. Learn from history and go from there. Just common sense.

I only wish the film that was made could get on TV.

Yeah, I think you've got yourself a pretty good point there, though there are very few dedicated coyote hunters here in PA. The PA Game Commission has something on their site I think that says to actually have an impact and make population decline, 70% of the coyotes would have to be killed off each year. You'd probably have to have a pretty liberal season on wolves, as I can see them being more like targets of opportunity for a lot of hunters. Another thing, nature tends to have its way of adapting and overcoming things like hunting in some instances.

Something from the PA Game Commission website, this is about coyotes but, I would think it would apply pretty similarly to wolves.

Bounties were placed on coyotes in western states for decades and they didn't lead to any significant population reduction. The main reason was that about 70 percent of a coyote population has to be removed annually in order to cause a population decline. Even then, coyotes - like many other species - have demonstrated an ability to offset population declines by increasing their litter size. It's spurred by a built-in biological mechanism that responds to population deficits.

Actually, private land is the most inaccessible part of hunting--there is a lot more accessability in the west where there is lots more public land. By fall and early winter, the wolves are where the elk are--in fairly accessible areas.


Wolves are not coyotes, different food requirements, lower densities, occur in packs that are easier to find, and much lower reproductive rates.



Casey

The three states will have quotas with long seasons--once the quota is filled, the season for that unit is closed. If you can find elk, you can find wolves........

Most sport harvest of wolves will be incidental to deer and elk hunting--watch.



Casey

Oh, I think there will be some folks that will start calling wolves, same as other predators. Some Alaska and Canada hunters are pretty successful with that method. There will be a learning curve, but it can be done. The problem is trying to do that during long elk seasons. Elk hunting really interferes with the success of calling predators.

Calling predators is a rush and is about as exciting as it gets in hunting.

One guide that uses predator calls

I dont know what part of the west you hunt, but in the selway where I hunt, is some of the most rugged inaccessable land there is, heck last time I camped back there, there wasent another camp set up within 6 miles and of all the miles Ive covered Ive seen a grand total of one hunter in the mountains. Once you start hunting these bad boys theyll get smart real quick and be darn tough to hunt. The way our ancesters did it was with poison, without scrytnine and 1080 there would have been no need to reintroduce them as theyd still be there. All of pa especially by western standards is super accessble, and like I said we dont even make a dent in the coyote population hunting or trapping them and we have an ARMY of hunters.

Yep but there sure do share alot of the same traits, super smart and cunning as all get out, from what Ive seen and read, the only differnce between a wolf and a coyote is about 100lbs.

Originally Posted by Rock Chuck

On the surface, the huggers don't appear to have a case. The original reintro plan called for maybe 150 wolves and we now have 800 or more. However, they can go judge shopping to find a hugger in a black robe who can keep it tied up for a long time.

Dick

Dick, you are 100% correct.

Everyone should remember that these left wing anti-hunting fascists -- just as with the anti-guns fascists -- never, ever, disengage. They have millions of $$$$ with which to fight, and they just keep coming at us from every direction.

L.W.

AND actually think they are accomplishing something in their pathetic lives.

You folks are invited to educate me concerning the use of predator calls. I have never tried one.

But I do know that electronic calls are not legal to use for any hunting purpose in Idaho. That pretty much rules out that fancy Foxpro that the boys from Alaska brag about.

While we are on the subject of the Foxpro and wolf hunting in general. It seems to me that Stick, and The Bros, and Steelhead, find wolves just a bit of a challenge. It seems they make a pretty big deal of it when they get one.

Color me a bit skeptical that hunters will have a real big or real fast impact on wolf populations. That is unless they are shooting from aircraft or snowmobiles. And remember that the Frank Church Wilderness is a huge area, by lower 48 standards anyway) and no mechanical means may be used to get you where the wolves are within that area.

I know enough about the history of predator control in the west to agree that no REintroduction would have been required (as was already stated) had pesticides not been available to eradicate those predators in earlier decades.

The Church is a good place for wolves. The problem is all the packs within 50 miles of Sun Valley and Boise.

Dick