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

Funny, I ran into said Senator last time I hunted out there. He wasn't very nice, even though his BLM access was paid for.

I think he just wanted to chew some ass, as he had no ground to stand on. We even had his permission in writing.

No schit.

Alpine, rather than go through the whole tiresome point by point thing, I'll let you do your own watching and reading.

Wolves kill 122 sheep in Montana

Save our elk

Feds kill 2 wolves in Oregon

Casey,

To your point, NW Minnesota has had plenty of controversy over the reintroduction of elk and crop damage.

It is too not to smart azz

funny how you gay boys always resort to insults when someone proves you wrong....have to say if you were to say that to my face, which you won't ...you would be picking up teeth.

Once again Brad, you come through with a truth--most of the larger "ranches" in the Rocky Mountains today are owned by the wealthy who want to play cowboy--and they take advantage of the taxpayer as much or more than the former ranch owners who were just trying to make a living off the land.

Honestly, I would MUCH rather see livestock than coal mines, gas wells, condominiums, ski areas and 10,000 sq ft "cabins" that cost a few million to build. Livestock are easier to manage, and good grazing techniques can minimize impacts to the land.


Casey

I agree with you on that Casey!

Jacques, interesting points. Glad you and Casey chimed in as I respect both your opinions.

I'm still guessing I'll never fully grasp this debate unless I was right there in the middle of it.

You are right--the restoration of large mammals have almost always created opposition and controversy. It's just that there is such a visceral over-reaction to predators, and so much intentional misinformation about wolves.

But how many folks on the Campfire will cheer an illegally killed elk?


Casey

I wouldn't cheer...shoot, shovel, and shut-up.

Or baste, barbecue, and be quiet.

Well, I would take the ranches over mines and ski resorts too, but I would take an all wild, wildlife approach over that, wolves included on public land. Ranchers on private land should shoot 'til their hearts content at them though, wolf populations should be managed on public land as well as all the other wild animals that belong up there.

I think the ironically part is that this comes from a guy from TX.

Conservation ethics are alive and well at the campfire.

If folks here figure they have a wolf problem in their backyard, well I'm not going to try to tell them they don't.

You Lee24 a page full of stats and accuse the campfire in general of lacking conservation ethics. The truth is there is an ever growing intolerance for a specific protected canine species here. This isn't a flash in the pan hollywood trend. This is real, people are upset, they have been for a long time.

You can choose to revert to your "stats" or you can ask yourself "why are these people so upset?"

The answer is somewhere in the middle.

Me personally, I hope & pray that more states will become envious over funds generated in Idaho & Montana on this years wolf tags.

Looking for a brown eye eehhh?

Maybe you should just leave then Brent. You hate everyone here and think that most of us are just [bleep] on your boots...
You contribute nothing but bad vibes... Adios mo-fo...

Wolves are scary smart. Built for killing. I've seen 2 while hunting but heard several dozen. I don't have a problem with the wolf really, but I have a problem with how they're managed and handled by the government.

I have no doubt that MN, WI, MI, and the other states can handle wolves, but they go unchecked, and then become a problem.

They absolutely devastate the deer population in an area, and then move out to the next.

In the 80's I worked on what was at the time the largest cougar study ever undertaken.

The study area had approximately 320,000 head of sheep that grazed on it all or part of the year (both public and private land).

On average, approximately 45 head of sheep were confirmed cougar kills (and of course, there were coyote, bear, and domestic dog kills too--and dogs probably kill more sheep than all the wild predators combined).

That works out to roughly 1/10,000 of 1 percent of the sheep population were confirmed as killed by cougars.

But, most of the sheep that were killed occurred in a relatively few number of incidents. But like Lays Potato Chips, the cougars couldn't eat just one. No, they usually had to kill 3, 4, and on occasion 10 ewes at a whack. Those relatively few incidents (aorund a dozen or so) made up the bulk of the 45 average head of sheep killed each year.

You wouldn't know that by the local newspapers scattered up and down the West Slope. When a cougar killed sheep it would make the front page of every newspaper. So on average once a month here would come a headline, reporting multiple sheep being killed.

It gave the impression that the domestic sheep population was being SLAUGHTERED by cougars. But it was only 45 head out of 330,000 sheep. If you think about it, the cougars were probably showing a heck of a lot of restraint--because cougars probably had the opportunity to kill THOUSANDS of sheep if they had a mind to.

Was the study controversial?--you bet! And some of the misinformation, and misunderstanding of the facts by the reporters (kind've like the anti-gun media) was mind boggling to me. I learned a lot how issues like this get out of hand and misinformation takes on a life of its own..........


Casey

I know plenty of guys here in NW MN where I live that would cheer an illegally killed elk. We call them farmers.



And I don't understand the term "reintroduction" in regards to the NW MN elk herd????


There are a few herds up here, the grygla herd has a hunt which is a lottery hunt, same with hallock. The DNR constructed a corral years ago & herded elk into said corral as best they could and attempted to "relocate them"

It was a disaster.

Survival rate was poor from the project & those that were actually trailered & transported seemed to find their way back.

My opinion, don't [bleep] with mother nature. don't try to move chit because you feel like playing god, don't put wolves here or elk there... just leave it alone & manage with laws, reasonable laws.

Stick to beer and football on TV Bart--you know, something you're good at.

For a guy that hasn't been around long....you're really starting to bore me.