Wolves, caribou and moose - it's complicated

[Four Season Whitetail's]

I love the azzclowns that think yotes can't be controlled I can promise you that an area can be very much controlled of that vermin. A guy just has to use every means possible and not worry about some stupid law drawn up by a guy in a white shirt sitting behind a desk that has never stepped into the woods. Oh and it's so much easier if you hit them while the whole family is home!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And what do you fools think the vermin eat when all the game is gone in an area??? Oh that's right.. they self control themselves!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[left field]

"Noble death" is a little flowery, but to die pursuing your life's work is as good as any of us should expect. 

I too know a lot of working dogs, have worked dogs, have written about working dogs and have seen working dogs die. And when the tears or regret, the grim reality or the emptiness are past, most owners I know say, "he died well."

[Padre86]

This is interesting. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/science/moose-wolves-caribou.html?mabReward=ACTM7&recid=602d653c-3a6e-44d3-512c-38cdff78c593&recp=7

This is a pretty convoluted way of saying that if you take away, or decrease, the wolf's natural food sources, its population will decrease as well.

That's well and good in theory, but there are areas where an over abundance of predators is detrimental to fragile or recovering ungulate populations. These are areas where predator control is absolutely needed.

Case and point, a lot of people don't realize this but there is small and struggling caribou population in the Pacific Northwest of the us. Their numbers have had a hard time recovering as of late mainly because of the resurgent wolf population in that area.

.

Also, there are many areas of the western us where state game agencies have reintroduced and tried to recover big horn sheep...main threat facing some of those population groups is mountain lion.

I don't think apex predators like bear, cougar and wolf should be extirpated like they were in years past. But in order to accommodate multiple uses (ranching, sport and subsistence hunting, residences) on a shrinking landscape, there should be unbiased, scientifically-based predator management policies in place to keep the predator activity at a viable level. Animal activist groups try to argue that there are alternative methods to achieving this harmony and they wage unending legal battles every time a charismatic predator (wolf, grizzly) recovers and is viable enough to be delisted from the endangered species act.

This is a waste of money and effort IMO. They should spend their money instead on habitat acquisition and management. And everyone should be grateful that our conservation system has seen success with some of these Animals.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[slickrockpack]

3 hours ago, Padre86 said:

This is a pretty convoluted way of saying that if you take away, or decrease, the wolf's natural food sources, its population will decrease as well.

That's well and good in theory, but there are areas where an over abundance of predators is detrimental to fragile or recovering ungulate populations. These are areas where predator control is absolutely needed.

Case and point, a lot of people don't realize this but there is small and struggling caribou population in the Pacific Northwest of the us. Their numbers have had a hard time recovering as of late mainly because of the resurgent wolf population in that area.

.

Also, there are many areas of the western us where state game agencies have reintroduced and tried to recover big horn sheep...main threat facing some of those population groups is mountain lion.

I don't think apex predators like bear, cougar and wolf should be extirpated like they were in years past. But in order to accommodate multiple uses (ranching, sport and subsistence hunting, residences) on a shrinking landscape, there should be unbiased, scientifically-based predator management policies in place to keep the predator activity at a viable level. Animal activist groups try to argue that there are alternative methods to achieving this harmony and they wage unending legal battles every time a charismatic predator (wolf, grizzly) recovers and is viable enough to be delisted from the endangered species act.

This is a waste of money and effort IMO. They should spend their money instead on habitat acquisition and management. And everyone should be grateful that our conservation system has seen success with some of these Animals.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

actually selenium depletion due to pollution is the main factor affecting bighorn sheep, and everything else at high elevation..

30 years ago selenium blocks were put out to "fix" this problem and the concentrated feeding areas these false food plots created only concentrated the lions and increased predation. Not to mention increased disease spread in the sheep herds drawing them into what essentially became bait stations.

what is the solution?

Less pollution. good luck with that one. Easier to build a food plot, and humans like Easy.

///

wolves were reintroduced because the hippies that run YNP want to return it to pre-Columbian times, and they hoped to remove enough elk that hunting stopped being an option in the park. Period.

Wolves do not eat predominately cow elk by choice, there ARE predominantly cow elk in a herd, 90/10 cow to bull so odds are you will be eating a cow if you are a wolf, which is fine there were too many elk in there.

And while we enjoyed it as the incubation and breeding ground that Teddy R saw and loved, the problem we face today is of the current 1800 pairs of wolves that sprung from that reintroduction and the feeding frenzy that reduced the elk from 30,000 in the park to less than 1,200 the problem is the wolves have left the park now, less than 40 in the park this year spring survey, because lack of food is a self limiting factor.

In coyotes, wolves, beaver, deer and elk among others, food supply dictates birth rates and litter sizes as well as sex of offspring in many ungulates, deer and elk among them.

the social issue is the wolves find easy prey outside the park where there is an odd mix of citiots and die hard farmer.

The citiot who believe Dances with Wolves was a real thing and not a made up movie, and third generation farmer who insists on raising cattle and sheep, things that should not and could not be raised here and wouldn't without the massive bailouts by taxpayers.

it is a matter of natural selection, lack of intelligence, and adaptability, and I don't mean on the part of the animals.

I sat through a tedious report on beavers and how they are destroying the eastern brook trout in New England and throughout I could only think of how many millennia both beavers and brook trout had survived in tandem without the armchair biologist and self appointed nature lover and how happily they would be surviving still long after both were gone. I wondered then , as I do now , if the beaver, trout, elk or wolf even will have noticed the blip in their history where humans had control over them.

Which is the right way to manage an animal herd?

I don't know, why are there so many different kinds of beer?

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by slickrockpack
photo add

[left field]

You could have saved yourself a lot of typing and just said, "complicated issue, no easy answer, let's drink beer." 

[Rattler]

I believe it's a mistake to discuss wolves and coyotes as if they are the same type of predator, creating the same types of issues.  They are completely different and have to be managed differently.

[Rattler]

A majestic coyote if I ever saw one.

[ATbuckhunter]

A majestic coyote if I ever saw one.

That's a fox I think


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rattler]

You know, I think maybe you are right.

 

[Curmudgeon]

21 hours ago, Rattler said:

A majestic coyote if I ever saw one.

You would have us believe you are unbiased, and certainly not arrogant regarding the "purposes" wildife must serve  to justify its existence. However, this post speaks louder than any words you have written to support those claims.

The fox was probably catching mice exposed by the harvest. 

[Four Season Whitetail's]

22 minutes ago, Curmudgeon said:

You would have us believe you are unbiased, and certainly not arrogant regarding the "purposes" wildife must serve  to justify its existence. However, this post speaks louder than any words you have written to support those claims.

The fox was probably catching mice exposed by the harvest. 

Ya i am sure he was before he got shot.

[Rattler]

1 hour ago, Curmudgeon said:

You would have us believe you are unbiased, and certainly not arrogant regarding the "purposes" wildife must serve  to justify its existence. However, this post speaks louder than any words you have written to support those claims.

The fox was probably catching mice exposed by the harvest. 

If you like to read things into statements that aren't there, it probably does.

You need a sense of humor.  Nothing needs to "justify" it's existence.  Even parasites live without it.

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2017 by Rattler

[left field]

Are we hating on foxes now? What's next? Shrews? Garter snakes? Venus fly traps? 

 

[Curmudgeon]

21 hours ago, Rattler said:

You need a sense of humor. 

 

 

 

When I start finding wildlife sent through farm machinery funny, I'll change my user name.

[slickrockpack]

10 hours ago, Curmudgeon said:

When I start finding wildlife sent through farm machinery funny, I'll change my user name.

to what?  I wonder...

[slickrockpack]

On ‎9‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 1:42 PM, left field said:

You could have saved yourself a lot of typing and just said, "complicated issue, no easy answer, let's drink beer." 

that's what started this topic, and it wasn't enough, obviously.

speech to text, since 1999. who types??

[Rattler]

2 hours ago, slickrockpack said:

to what?  I wonder...

Congenial?

[Padre86]

On 9/2/2017 at 9:41 AM, slickrockpack said:

actually selenium depletion due to pollution is the main factor affecting bighorn sheep, and everything else at high elevation..

30 years ago selenium blocks were put out to "fix" this problem and the concentrated feeding areas these false food plots created only concentrated the lions and increased predation. Not to mention increased disease spread in the sheep herds drawing them into what essentially became bait stations.

what is the solution?

Less pollution. good luck with that one. Easier to build a food plot, and humans like Easy.

///

wolves were reintroduced because the hippies that run YNP want to return it to pre-Columbian times, and they hoped to remove enough elk that hunting stopped being an option in the park. Period.

Wolves do not eat predominately cow elk by choice, there ARE predominantly cow elk in a herd, 90/10 cow to bull so odds are you will be eating a cow if you are a wolf, which is fine there were too many elk in there.

And while we enjoyed it as the incubation and breeding ground that Teddy R saw and loved, the problem we face today is of the current 1800 pairs of wolves that sprung from that reintroduction and the feeding frenzy that reduced the elk from 30,000 in the park to less than 1,200 the problem is the wolves have left the park now, less than 40 in the park this year spring survey, because lack of food is a self limiting factor.

In coyotes, wolves, beaver, deer and elk among others, food supply dictates birth rates and litter sizes as well as sex of offspring in many ungulates, deer and elk among them.

the social issue is the wolves find easy prey outside the park where there is an odd mix of citiots and die hard farmer.

The citiot who believe Dances with Wolves was a real thing and not a made up movie, and third generation farmer who insists on raising cattle and sheep, things that should not and could not be raised here and wouldn't without the massive bailouts by taxpayers.

it is a matter of natural selection, lack of intelligence, and adaptability, and I don't mean on the part of the animals.

I sat through a tedious report on beavers and how they are destroying the eastern brook trout in New England and throughout I could only think of how many millennia both beavers and brook trout had survived in tandem without the armchair biologist and self appointed nature lover and how happily they would be surviving still long after both were gone. I wondered then , as I do now , if the beaver, trout, elk or wolf even will have noticed the blip in their history where humans had control over them.

Which is the right way to manage an animal herd?

I don't know, why are there so many different kinds of beer?

A bit too much hyperbole and rhetoric for my tastes.  But your comment in bold pretty much highlights my own point about predator management out west.  There is only so much habitat they can occupy without running into conflicts with other human activities.  The food sources in those lands do, to a large extent, influence the population #'s.  The problem is when the population #'s exceed what the food sources can support, the excess #'s move off into other lands in search of food...this is often when/where the conflict with humans occur.

Also, what did you mean by this statement: 

Quote

farmer who insists on raising cattle and sheep, things that should not and could not be raised here and wouldn't without the massive bailouts by taxpayers.