Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Two dead wolves....

Here,here!!!!

Deer weren't introduced to the area against the wishes of the people who live there. Deer don't destroy the livestock they depend on for their financial bottom line. Deer aren't a threat to their pets. Deer aren't a threat to their children. Deer don't have a ridiculous level of protection from the government. They're allowed to hunt the deer and eat them. And if the deer become too populated in an area they can get predation tags and thin them out.

More importantly the government didn't waste countless millions of dollars putting deer out there and pissing everyone off by doing it.

And MOST importantly, deer weren't transplanted into an area where no one wants them at the request of whack job lefties who want hunting stopped and saw it as a way to try and accomplish that.

Brent D. Is the D for dork or dumbass?
Call someone a poacher who lives ther and has to deal with this overstepping of government and the liberal agenda they're following and you'd most assuredly deserve the punch you got in the mouth!

Plus, as has been stated so many times I think it'd soak in by now, the imports are different than the original population which BELONGED there and is now probably going to end up going extinct.

Course this thread is about the wolves in a different area of the country but the same principles apply. Introduced wolves need to be shot dead, all of them. And the ones where their was native population need to be carefully controlled to very small numbers. They're a dangerous animal. Liberals are an even more dangerous animal. It'd bother me none at all to see the majority of both of them shot.

Elk taste better.

Hey stupid..............why don't you do a little simple research before you run your dumbazz mouth off about people having black eyes on the Campfire..........

'It's a completely different predator'
by Brett French, Billings Gazette, Mar 18, 2008

TWO DOT, Mont. -- Her voice tinged with emotion and the video camera jiggling in her shaking hand, Tonya Martin filmed and narrated the scene she found behind her ranch home March 5 -- five sheep had been killed by a wolf and another five were wounded, three of them fatally. "In the end, it's hard to watch what your animals go through," said Martin, 36, while showing the location of the slaughter last week. "It makes me question what the future will be with them."

Martin was driving a tractor out to feed her cow-calf pairs around 8:30 a.m. March 5 when her mother-in-law, Katherine Martin, sighted the big black wolf. The wolf trotted out of the brush, crossed the county road, went under a barbed-wire fence and paused to look back. "We knew what it was right away," she said. "Our first instinct was to go after it."

At the time, Martin didn't know the wolf had killed five of her sheep. Had she known, the .222 rifle that always rides in the tractor could have been used to legally kill the wolf. It wasn't until the Martins investigated that they found the sheep flighty and hiding in the barren cottonwood trees along Big Elk Creek. Scattered around the drainage were five dead sheep and five others that were injured.

A veterinarian was called to patch up the five injured sheep, most of them with torn throats, but only two of those survived. "I've never seen anything like it," Martin said. "Some were hamstrung, their legs were broken and twisted. I'd never seen kills like it before. The sheep were scared to death." "It was a sad day, because I know he'll be back, and he'll be back with friends."

Tonya and her husband, Craig, are parents to the fifth generation of Martins on their ranch. The family's roots along the windy northeastern face of the Crazy Mountains reach back 114 years. This rural area has come full circle. The first sheep were herded into this part of the Musselshell Valley in 1876. By the early 1900s, it was estimated that rancher Charles Bair owned more than 300,000 head of sheep, making the area one of the top sheep-producing regions in the world. Sheep production has dropped precipitously across Montana and the United States since the 1920s, for a variety of reasons. But Martin likes having her nearly 400 head of sheep around as a way to control weeds without using pesticides. "They bring a lot more to the table," she said.

As sheep and settler numbers grew at the turn of the century, wolves were exterminated across the landscape. The hide and skull of one of the last wolves killed in the early 1900s in the Two Dot region hangs on the fireplace of Martin's neighbor, Mac White. His uncles used to hunt wolves with greyhounds and Irish wolfhounds. "They got rid of them for a reason," Martin said. But now wolves are back.

After being reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, wolves have recolonized old territories and now number more than 1,500 in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. As wolf populations have grown, roaming wolves are breaking off to seek new habitat, new food sources. "Wolves are firmly established and all of Montana is within the dispersal distance of wolves," said Carolyn Sime, wolf coordinator for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Adult wolves have been known to wander up to 500 miles, crossing interstate highways, big rivers and there's even anecdotal evidence they've swum reservoirs. Sixty to 80 miles is a more typical traveling distance, which puts the Crazy Mountains, an island range, within reach of four other known packs.

The Martin ranch, located 10 miles south of Two Dot, has been no stranger to predators over the years. "We had a 350-pound bear killing sheep in the lambing shed three or four years ago," Martin said. The big bear eventually was shot by a Harlowton hunter, but Tonya said the situation was a bit too close for comfort. The family has also weathered its share of coyote kills in the 13 years that Martin has been raising sheep. But she sees the wolf that attacked her flock a bit differently. "They're vicious," she said. "It never ate a bite. It just killed for fun. It's a completely different predator."

Sime said sheep trigger some "hardwired" mechanism in wolves that makes them tend to kill more than just one, although she said there's no way to understand why the wolves do it. "I don't really know if a wolf thinks that's fun or not," Sime said. She also said a lone wolf will often kill and not return to the kill site, electing to move on in search of other wolves. "Wolves have a pretty big urge to move on because they're a pack animal," Sime said. "They're looking for other wolves."

When other predators such as coyotes, bears or mountain lions kill an animal, they usually return to feed, Martin said, and they don't typically return with many friends, if any. That's what concerns her most -- that the lone wolf may signal the start of a new pack in the area and more sheep losses.

Sime said that once nighttime temperatures get above freezing, a government trapper will be authorized to set leg-hold traps to try to catch the Two Dot-area wolf for collaring. When it's freezing, there's concern that the animal could lose its paw in a leg-hold trap. "That's a typical step for us when we have a wolf in a new area," Sime said. The state would like to know whether the wolf was a loner, or the mate of a breeding pair that may be looking to den and have pups this spring.

It's calving season, and the Martins are already putting in long hours tending their livestock. But since the wolf attack, they've been on high alert. Bellowing cows have them grabbing their coats, slipping on boots and rushing outside to make sure there's no problem.

Although the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife will pay livestock owners for confirmed wolf kills, Martin isn't so sure she'll apply. "Morally, it's kind of hard because they are funded with donations of people who wanted to put wolves here in the first place," she said.

It's a completely different predator. Billings Montana Gazette, Mar 18, 2008

Seems like he has a pretty level headed view of the wolf. He certainly admires them but understands the definite need to control their population.
Thanks for the link.

Looks like there was at least one person further up the chain than the wolfs.

I can understand that and appreciate you taking the time to let me know.

My dogs are very important to me. I'm sure I wouldn't take it very well at all if someone or something screwed with them.

Excellent post Archerhunter

Don't worry bud. I just want to hear it straight from fellas who know.

Sounds like some liberal college professor's walt disney induced BS pipe dream. Thinking things are more of cyclic in nature, you never achieve a "balanced" eco system.

rroae, there is a lady that comes in where my wife works. They have lost pets in the neighborhood and are afraid to let smaller children out at night. All this in a area where one should not need to worry. I used to live near there. It is rural, our dogs ran free. No one worried to let a 6 year old walk to the neighbors any time day or night.

The wolf problem runs deeper than less elk hunting opportunities and domestic stock losses. Both of which are happening.

I'm with you all the way rrroae, except I want to watch them and hunt them, not to the last one either, but not cause I'm askeered, they can't blow down brick houses anyway, and I am from the West too -- even from a ranch.

This is gonna sound very cold and callous but as I understand it, the collar is supposed to stay attached to the wolf as it limps far away from the point of impact.

Jacques, I'd be proud to name you an honorary Minnesotan, if you'd have it.

Athabascan belly ache. Gut shoot them and let them die somewhere else.

I don't think that anyone hates wolves. I happen live among brown bears and wolves I have respect for both, but unlike the wolf-worshipping eco-nazis I know and understand that their numbers have to be kept in close check. Otherwise they'll destroy all the prey species within their territory and move on to another an destroy it.

An average wolve pack traveling it's circuit will take down an adult moose or caribou about every 2-3 days. They are NOT carrion eaters. They are efficient predators that prefer fresh meat. We've had our caribou season shut down out here on the AKPEN for about three years now and there isn't any indication that the caribou herd is going to recover to huntable levels anytime soon. The main reason for the caribou decline is the wolf population. We are seeing them (and shooting them when we can) in populated areas. Never happened before in anyone's memory. Got one myself last spring.

No one wants to see them wiped out. They are an important income source and are necessary for a healthy predator/prey balance. But they do need to be thinned out considerably

That is what happens when the die too fast to run off.

Ive heard of them being attached to trucks at truck stops,headed for parts south.

As long as Idaho and British Columbia have a comon border.........there is no such thing as a "Canadian wolf." They have been moving up and down the flathead forever already.

I've heard of this. They can behave like a plague of giant, hairy locusts. Wipe out most or all of the food in an area and move on. Repeat.

Stevelyn,

To be picky, your post has nothing to do with poaching wolves in Minnesota. Wolves here have no overall effect on deer populations.