Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Wolves Hurt Elk Numbers.....Who knew?

Idaho Fish & Game Commissioner states obvious but with numbers to back up what's been said here for some time now.

Idaho F&G Commissioner: Wolves Hurt Elk Numbers

Whattya say Brooks, Dpole, and Ton264?????

Well who would have thought they ate meat.
So if 16000 elk is a "devastating" number of elk lost, what word would describe the number of elk removed by hunters?
Doesn't sound like a word any scientist would use. They try to stay away from too much drama.
I'm sure they eat a lot of game but this number seems a bit high.

not according to the guys who live there

I can tell you right now from personal eyewitness accounts that that 16,000 number is understated.Wolves not only kill that many for food that doesn't take into account the ones they sport kill!No dorothy you are not in Kansas anymore and they don't just kill the old,sick,and weak.I have been with friends and come across 14 cow elk who have been killed and the calves taken from their bellies and the rest left to rot,as well as full grown bulls brought down and the whole thing left to rot!I personally will not stop hunting them year round until they howl no more!

Thats a funny average ratio, I take it the number of wolves that are actually there stopped eating everything but elk. I guess no one looked at the factor that there is 1000 wolves to 16000 elk in any case to be not normal? I guess it's only ok for us hunters to kill more than 16,000 elk a year, at least we don't actually need to hunt them to survive right? Kind of sounds like the idiots in our area that bitch when wolves kill their bear and coon hunting dogs. Maybe there hasn't been enough drama there either in a while on the subject, how about some facts for a change?

And you're the guy who calls people trolls.

Pretending that I didn't know wolves ate elk is quite a ploy.

Not a matter of opinion, just fact that its up to Idaho residents to decide how many wolves they want(above that federal number)...and how many elk they want....and how many......
Have you read the management plan? The temporary answer is there. Even I've read it.

You didn't read the article very well. Before you refer to people as idiots, perhaps you should know whereof you speak. Otherwise, it smacks of trollin'

All you guys who support the reintro of wolves are going to be in for a big supprise.

16000 elk dead in a year is not a bad thing that is a rough guess of what the hunters take in Idaho. The Idaho Dept of fish and game has it listed as about 8000 elk being taken but that is only half of the hunters reporting. It you want to be generous and say that the half that did not report killed the same ammount as the half that did report then 16000 in a fair number and the elk have been kept in check with a healthy population for years in Idaho. So it can be said that the proper ammount of elk to be taken each year is around 16000.

Now with the reintro of wolves they are also taking 16000 elk per year so now there are 32000 elk killed each year and elk numbers are droping off fast. There are 16000 to many elk being killed each year and what do you think they are going to do to put ballance back in order. They sure as hell are not going to kill off the wolves so they make it so you cant hunt them. After all the main reason we hunters hunt is to perserve the land and keep the herd health. with wolves there is no need for us because they do our management job.


I heard right from a wolf lovers mouth at my work that if they reintroduced wolves in washington the I would not have to hunt anymore.

So all you wolf supporters who are hunters I want to know when it ends up that you cannot hunt anymore because the wolves take care of the population and keep the herd healthy what will you say then when you have to sit at home all winter and pay out the ass for red meat what are you going to think. When you can not hunt and the libtards are smiling because they had this planned all along and you acctually bought there line of crap what will you think.

Please do tell.

I am not a wolf supporter by any means!

Not directed at you HW.

I know you are not Tom it is the guys that defend them on here like they are the cute cuddily animals. You know the ones that act like they were brain washed by liberals.

Yep

As far as the bear dogs comment I made I realize it was off topic, but people around here seem to think we need to kill as many wolves as we can despite them having very few numbers, when it's not true. Most seem to think they are over populating and kill every elk they can get their teeth on. I am far from a "wolf lover" as you might call it, but I do not support the idea of killing wolves like crazy to fix an issue we don't technically have to even be a part of. Hell, it turned out ok last time we did it though......

anyone that is foolish enough to think wolves are a good thing has something coming.... in fact wolves are intelligent, just open the season year round, no limit.. you'll never kill em all anyone, but keep em spooked is the ticket and keep em thinned.

I"m not on this earth to provide food for wolves, I want to hunt the elk they kill, and could frankly care less about providing food for wolves, yotes, cats and the like.

I personally think you could allow an open season, including trapping and aerial hunting and not control the ID/MT population. Only poison will do that. I have seen better than 50 of these things since they were let loose and of those, I'll bet I could have killed 2 maybe 3, and those were unhunted animals. They are very smart. The hunt held last year may have just caused nature to kick in and cause mammas to increase litter size. The hunt may have hurt things more than helped. I really have to wonder how high the pops will go before lack of resources bring it back down. God what a mess and stupid idea to begin with. Why anyone thinks something good can come of this is beyond me.

Alberta is the source of these super wolves everyone is complaining about. Alberta also has a healthy and increasing elk herd of about 26000 animals and still manages to support about 4200 wolves. By your math the wolves would have eaten 50000 elk each year.........more than twice the size of the actual herd.
Just call me a Troll I guess

You don't suppose your Alberta wolves could be eating alot of moose and deer along with the elk ??


Nawwww......couldn't be.........

Another issue that is not being addressed by the officials.
two thirds of Idaho wolves infected.

http://saveelk.com/index.html !!!!!!

--Wolves eat elk--that's not news.

--There are more wolves than originally intended--Randy Budge needs to talk to Wyoming about holding up delisting for 3+ years.

--Hunter numbers are down everywhere in the west--I guess the recession is the wolves fault too.............won't be long before 9/11 history will be rewritten as a wolf plot......

--I do recall just last year everything I was reading on the Campfire said opening up wolves to hunting was gonna make everybody happy.........just goes to prove you can't make everybody happy.

--Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, all had statewide elk populations above carrying capacity to begin with..........

--As elk continue to become more wolf smart, as elk populations decrease to a desirable level, and as sport hunging of wolves continues, the pickings won't be so easy for the wolves, and wolf success on elk won't continue at current levels and wolf reproduction will decrease.

--The states are feeling their way into sport hunting of wolves--as the states gain experience, they will be able to predict wolf hunting success and allocate licenses accordingly. Nobody said it would happen overnight.

--But in these previous oh-so-civil wolf threads ( ), I did mention sport hunting won't kill enough wolves to make the wolf haters happy.........



Casey