Wolves and Rivers Video

[David Coulter]

#4535

Here’s an interesting video a friend sent. I’d love to see some corroboration to this, but it’s very interesting.

http://www.wimp.com/wolvesrivers/

thanks, david

[Dave Nash]

#31539

What a great video. Would love to see more scientific studies done, but fascinating none the less.

Thanks for sharing.

[Doc Nock]

#31594

🙂

Check out the verbiage used…

“Wolves kill SOME deer”

“Deer moved back into areas not easily predated“

Nothing about how wolf #’s exploded OUTSIDE the Jellystone… Nothing about how fast their reproduction became.

N0 stats on how much impact they had on other wildlife

When was it that fox and wolves coincided? Wolves kill off coyotes, interesting they tolerate fox…

Comments only about them taking “the weak” and benefiting the herd’s health— and yes, all newborn fawns, calves of elk and bison are “weak” but soon an age class is missing.

As hunters, we too could have done the same thing in much more controlled ways…and then it would end with a pen stroke… when balance was returned.

Little bit too “pat” for my tastes, but gorgeous videography

[Ralph]

#31609

Many elk left to enjoy the new abundance of river water?

[Doc Nock]

#31616

NOw Ralph, they said it straightened out the course of the rivers, cause trees could grow without ‘deer’ eating them before they grew… not that there was MORE WATER (did they?)

And, and, and…the songbirds came back to the new trees, and the ermine, and the fox…and a partridge in a pear tree…8)

[Ralph]

#31623

Sorry, elk it grass and not trees so much. Beggin’ ur pardon.:lol: Confusing ain’t it.:roll:

[Doc Nock]

#31633

Yes, R2, but I thought (?) it said “deer”…and scientifically, Elk, moose, whitetail and muledeer are all deer…

but at least whitetails browse buds and new shoots, ergo, we have clear cuts here that are so over browsed they look like a park…no sucker shoots on any stumps…till they fenced in a small enclosure with 12′ high chain link fence…where there ARE NO DEER (if you listen to the locals up there) and walla…in 3 yrs vegetation was 12′ high and DENSE… Explanation from locals? Rabbits were kept out!

Sometimes, we meet the enemy and it is we. Sometimes, it’s them what don’t like what we do…

my last rant on this topic: We all are told that habitat loss is the largest threat to our natural order. In large expanses like a huge federal controlled PARK, perhaps animals can…CAN move around to limit predation. Elsewhere, food and space are more limited and critters might have a hard time escaping predators by “moving” since habitat is shrinking. Alas, in beloved CA, Mt lions are snatching up Fido off the back porch so not sure wolves would not adapt to man if it meant finding a meal, but our ungulates seem a bit more challenged.

I’m out!:?

[David Coulter]

#31896

From local experience here, since us higher up predators were issued more doe permits, the herd was cut down some, except in developments. Since the herd is down, the deer are bigger and healthier looking and the browse is back in business. I expect to see more grouse, too. We definitely have a few more rabbits. The video makes a lot of sense for me.

[Bernie Clancey]

#32048

Well, I certainly can’t provide any corroborating evidence, but I do know that our forest is so heavily cut over that rivers rise rapidly with a small rainfall, then drop rapidly after a couple dry days. It seems like the forest can not hold any water back.

I do think there is something to be attributed to the comment about new growth and the resulting changes to the habitat. When cut overs are allowed to regenerate you quickly see a lot of species start to move back in and use these areas.

I hope their observations are correct and we learn something from them.

[Don Thomas]

#32129

The film is beautifully done but lacking in scientific data. I’m not saying that any of its message is wrong, but I would have to see some more evidence before concluding that its thesis is correct on all counts. It is one thing to make a film abut the beauty of Yellowstone and its wildlife, but taking a position on a controversial subject requires facts. I would be glad to look at them objectively. Don

[James Harvey]

#34616

I thought this sounded familiar. The audio is taken from a 15 minute TED talk by George Monbiot.

This video is apparently a montage from a variety of wildlife documentary films overlaid onto a clip of Monbiot’s audio.

The TED talk is worth a watch but offers just as much scientific reference as 4 minute film posted here.

Here’s the TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world.html

Here’s the video originator’s website with credits to original films and Monbiot:

http://sustainableman.org/how-wolves-change-rivers/

Just for y’all’s information 😉

Jim

[Charles Ek]

#34984

I thought this sounded familiar. 😉

The talk and the video draw on several scientific studies on the subject of riparian effects of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone.

Ask and ye shall receive, Dr. Thomas:

River channel dynamics following extirpation of wolves in northwestern Yellowstone National Park, USA

Trophic cascades in Yellowstone: The first 15 years after wolf reintroduction

Stream hydrology limits recovery of riparian ecosystems after wolf reintroduction

[Stephen Graf]

#35067

We spent 10 days in Yellowstone last year. We rented a cabin just north of the park and got an earful from the locals about wolves. While walking through the pastures around the cabin, I came across several wolf carcasses. While in the park and out, I saw no shortage of elk. They were everywhere.

It’s tough to balance a wolf’s right to exist with our perceived right to do what we want with the land. Just ask me after the coyote’s catch a few of my chickens 👿

For me the issue boils down to my belief that we don’t have a right to determine what animals get to live, and which don’t. This hubris will be our undoing.

So with that, I always plan on feeding the coyote’s. While a dozen chickens will provide all the eggs we could need, I start out with 20. After 2 years, I know I will have fed the coyote’s most of them, and it is time to get some more. Just the cost of doing business and sharing the world with my neighbors. A tax if you will.

And as far as the benefits to the park that the wolf’s have made. I think it is pretty irrefutable. Good data has been kept. The effect is undeniable. The correlation is irrefutable. Are wolf’s the cause? No other theory has been posited, that I know of anyway.

[Ralph]

#35089

“For me the issue boils down to my belief that we don’t have a right to determine what animals get to live, and which don’t. This hubris will be our undoing.”

I think that’s well put Steve.

We attempt to rid ourselves of the “chicken eaters” so that our “chickens” will multiply for our benefit, not theirs, and suddenly we have too many “chickens” and the problems that go with that.

We do what? We bring back the same old “chicken eaters”, or sometimes a substitute that ends up in a worse scourge, protect them and alas now we have more than before and what now? All was balanced in nature before we brought our “chickens”, and ourselves, into the picture. But we, as the smart ones of all the chicken eaters……

So what do we do? We, and others, enjoy our chickens as does Steve, replenish when necessary and quit jacking with Mother Nature.

She is so much smarter than we are.

When we’re messing with Mother Nature, it’s not a matter of survival of the fittest, it’s a matter of survival.

[David Petersen]

#35282

Another vote here for Steve’s “a part of nature, rather than apart from nature” outlook. My wife and friends and I were quite fortunate to bear eyewitness to the changes in Lamar Valley with the wolf re-intro. For years we’d gone there during elk calf birthing time to watch grizzlies hunt elk calves. It was easy pickings as the elk ganged in massive herds along the river there for the occasion. Somehow the bear pressure was never enough to break up the party. Coyotes had multiplied many times the norm in the absence of their primary enemy the wolf. And coyotes are really ugly and inefficient killers of big game. And they also hold down the population of small game and ground-nesting birds. When the wolves arrived the first thing they did was to clean out the coyotes, not eating them but just eliminating them with a territorial vengeance, rather as we did to the wolves there back in the 1920s. One morning we watched a pack of wolves attack a coyote den with pups, first killing the adults then dragging the pups out and killing them, usually by biting their heads. At one point a grizzly showed up, sat down and watched for a while, seemed to shake its head then walked away. By the next spring the grizzly watching was over as the wolves had scattered the big herds and forced the former couch-potato spoiled lazy elk to relearn the skill of hiding their infants and it took a lot of walking to find one. I don’t like how we, humans, handled the reintro, with every wolves and surviving coyote wearing a radio collar, like house-arrest prisoners with electronic ankle bracelets. But with amazing speed the Lamar Valley riparian corridor began to regenerate as did the small wildlife and bird populations. From an ecological pov view there is simply no argument that in a “natural” setting where humans can’t play the apex predator role, namely national parks, returning the system to balance means just that … balance, including all the machine’s original wheels and gears. Certainly there are political and social issues that come into play outside the park. But inside the park I’m an eye-witness to the fast turn-around of a badly drooping, overgrazed ecosystem filled with half-time petting-zoo elk. The wolves put the wild back in nature in that special place and I was blessed to watch it all play out.

[wahoo]

#35587

I really enjoyed the flick and the discussion . Thank you guys very much . The wolf is a hot topic and to be able to go to a site were we don’t have to call each other names and be rude to each other is refreshing .Salute

[David Coulter]

#42918

Steve, I appreciate your perspective and solution to dealing with the chicken “thieves.” I makes sense and makes peace.

Dave, I appreciate a first hand account that backs up the video. The video makes sense to me, but I’m not out there. Thanks for posting. dwc

[David Fudala]

#43286

Ok, someone help me out on this, I have a good memory, it’s just short! Was it Leopold or Muir who wrote about this same exact thing about 70 years ago??? Something of a warning that the absence of wolves in an area would result in the deforestation by ungulates? Is it just me? This guy sounds quite excited about the fact that after we undid something we should have never done in the first place (erradicate a species from an area) that area returned to it’s natural state of balance? This IMO is not a scientific breakthrough that should be celebrated? It’s more of a “shoulda had a V8” moment where we need to stop, look back and wonder who else we should have listened to!?!?

Am I way off base here?

[David Coulter]

#43723

Dfudala,

Off base? Not really. On this forum you’ll find plenty of those who agree. I do think a video of this sort is important in the sense that a much larger portion of the population might have different priorities and a different scope of personal vision. Even among the folk who feel it important enough to see the elk herd in the the parks, how many of them understand the ramifications of over population or over grazing in the wild?

I agree that is should be obvious to us all, but that just isn’t the case. There are a lot of things that are not new at all, but require constant repetition. Thanks, dwc

[sinawalli]

#43812

I read a study on wolves on another local site by a fellow named Val Geist, not sure if I got his name right, apologies if I didn’t, but it was a really good read! Will post it if I can find it. It is about when wolves come into a habitated area ( people), how they work their way through the food sources, and eventually end up eating out of dumps, livestock and pets. A friend of mine who lives rurally in a neighboring province has noted just that, telling me she saw wolves eating a deer in front of her home! They have pets, livestock and kids.

[Fallguy]

#43824

[quote=Dfudala]Ok, someone help me out on this, I have a good memory, it’s just short! Was it Leopold or Muir who wrote about this same exact thing about 70 years ago???

It was Leopold in his SA “Thinking Like A Mountain” it is were he points out that nature with out predators to keep prey in check will eat themselves out of house and home, and the mountain well suffer. Unfortunately we still have not fully taken those words to heart. We blame the wolf for less elk in areas in the west. When in fact Humans are to blame, elk originally were animals of the plains but we plowed them up and the elk took refuge in the foot hills of mountains. Then we came to the foot hills and made cattle pastures out of them. The elk then were left with only the mountains for survival. We also eradicated the wolf from these areas for 90 years and the elk over populated their range and the mountains suffered. Then when the wolf was returned the elk numbers were reduced and dispersed and the mountains began to recover. But now we have business entities complaining that there profits are down because of the wolf and they want them eliminated again. We must some how get past the mind set that if there is no profit to be made from something it has no value.

[sinawalli]

#43828

This is the study I referred to.

http://www.outdoorhub.com/opinions/the-future-of-north-american-wolves-interview-with-dr-valerius-geist/

[David Coulter]

#43829

Sinawalli,

It’s not always easy to make these choices when our kids and to a lesser degree our pets are involved. As Fallguy pointed out, it’s been us, the human, who is always blaming the wildlife. If we didn’t want to live close to nature, we’d have less problems, perhaps. But even in New York City, there are problems with rats, problems with bugs, pigeon crap erodes bridges and squirrels cause power outages.

At a Cub Scout presentation our local wildlife rehabilitation expert answered a question. How do I get rid of the snakes that keep coming into my cellar? She said, they’re coming in for the mice. Get rid of the mice and you’ll get rid of the snakes. When I have a bear raid my garbage can, I know it’s because I was too lazy to compost something and the bear knew there was food in the garbage can. My fault to be sure. thanks, david

[Don Thomas]

#44029

Eldsvolling–Thank you very much for the references. In fact, that was exactly what I was suggesting that this discussion needed. (As everyone who reads TBM knows, I’ve been trying to establish a rational middle ground on this issue for years.) Point is, any good photographer can make a film supporting any position on wolf recovery, including both extremes. If the goal is management by science rather than emotion, data speak louder than pretty pictures. Also, please note that your third reference concludes, in essence, that it’s more complicated than that. It usually is. Don

[James Harvey]

#44045

Sinawalli,

Thanks for posting the interview with Geist. Geeze, reading the comments at the bottom of that page I can see why folks are grateful for the considered and civilized conversation on the subject here.

Jim

[Charles Ek]

#44080

It was indeed Aldo Leopold:

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

– Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

As it happens, there was a film released last year concerning what he wrote that you may be interested in:

Green Fire – Aldo Leopold And a Land Ethic for Our Time

[Charles Ek]

#44093

donthomas wrote: Also, please note that your third reference concludes, in essence, that it’s more complicated than that. It usually is. Don

Yes, I thought later about clarifying this point, because I could have worded it better. My listing of the three links should not be read as saying that the Monbiot talk and video were based on those three studies in particular.

I surmised that the talk and video were based on such studies, but I don’t have explicit evidence of that. I added the links for the benefit of those who wanted data from such studies.

Sorry for any lack of clarity on this point. Correct attribution to sources is a very big deal to me and has been since I participated in my first debate contest, back when Fred Bear was flinging arrows at polar bears. 😉

[Don Thomas]

#44105

That eloquent passage from Leopold has frequently been taken out of context to suggest that its author experienced an a-ha moment regarding hunting in general, which is certainly not the case as anyone familiar with Leopold knows. It’s not really clear just who first recorded the principles of the North American Model–Val Geist told me it was Jim Posewitz, and Jim told me it was Val. Anyway, I think Leopold merely anticipated one of its six core concepts: Wildlife should not be killed without a valid reason. Big difference. Don

[Fallguy]

#45109

Leopold was a avid hunter of grouse and deer. He was also a bowhunter and made his own self bows. His wife was a champion archer. One of the things he was most proud of was making the bow she used to win her archery medals. Hunting for food was a honorable pursuit in his view. Killing for the sake of killing was not. There always has been a uneasy balance between predators in nature because they are in pursuit of finite resources. But since we are not only the #1 predator we are the only ones that can see the error of our pass decisions. It is up to us to correct them and accept that we are not the masters of this rock. We are just one spoke in the wheel. When you destroy a spoke the wheel is out of balance if enough spokes are destroyed the wheel well collapse. All Hunter/Gather societies though out the world understood this concept. But because they had no written langue our ancestors deemed them ignorant and forced our beliefs on them. To our peril IMHO.

[David Coulter]

#45213

Hi Folks,

I had a chance to look over the links, including the river channel dynamics reports and Dr. Geist article. Clearly there’s at least two sides to this. The only thing I’m sure of is that it was all working out on it’s own before the smart ones decided it was time to meddle with it. Thanks, dwc

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#46758

A thought-provoking perspective on this story just happened to appear in the NYT today, by Arthur Middleton, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies:

[Charles Ek]

#47022

Thanks for the tip!

“The strongest explanation for why the wolves have made less of a difference than we expected comes from a long-term, experimental study by a research group at Colorado State University. This study, which focused on willows, showed that the decades without wolves changed Yellowstone too much to undo.”

Astute, data-craving readers of this thread know that already, of course. 😉

[David Coulter]

#47104

Smithy

Thanks for the link. It’s an excellent article. I’ll follow the link to the willow study. As was stated earlier in the thread, it not as simple as it might seem. Thanks for the added input. best, dwc

[Don Thomas]

#50075

Let’s think about this a little more, if anyone can stand it. Elk and wolves are both among the group of large North American mammals that evolved in the Old World and crossed the Bering Sea land bridge to get here. They were accompanied by another apex predator–the human being. Relationships among the three had developed over millennia prior to their arrival here.For reasons that were probably necessary, human hunters were eliminated from the process in Yellowstone about a hundred years ago. Next, consider the bison. Prior to European contact, they numbered somewhere between 20 and 40 million, only to be reduced to a handful in a corner of Yellowstone. Their survival as a species was miraculous and largely derived from efforts an earlier generation of American hunter-conservatinists. Interestingly, the historical year-around carrying capacity for bison in what is now Yellowstone was essentially zero. They utilized the high plateau as summer pasture, but were smart enough to move elsewhere during the winter. They didn’t stay there then until we made them, and the ecosystem wasn’t ready for the situation we created. The upshot is that our policies eliminated not one but two apex predators from the mix, at the same time we were artificially concentrating not one but two large ungulates in places they did not naturally occupy. No wonder rivers changed course. To think you can solve the problem by addressing one or two components of a highly complicated inter-relationship in isolation is naive. Just MHO.Don

[David Fudala]

#50161

I couldn’t agree more, Don. Wisconsin made a similar mistake when they reintroduced elk into the clam lake region. This was in the early 90’s. Their goal was to let the herd establish itself and reach and approximate number of roughly 1400 to 1500 animals. At that time they would begin a lottery for limited tags. Here it is, 2014 and the herd still has not reached those goals. Why? Because the state had no legal way to control the elks apex predator. The wolf. And this isn’t a bash at the wolves at all. Just another example of our arrogance to try and control nature. If anything, it has not been fair to the elk. Now that we have a legal hunt for wolves here it will be interesting to see how the elk fair in the next 10 years? The sad part is, after all is said and done, no matter how long it takes, if they EVER get to an legitimate elk season in Wisconsin, someone will still call it a success.

[Ralph]

#50824

[url=Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?]Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?

[Ralph]

#50837

If that last post doesn’t work, it’s saying the beavers are eating up the willows that, by re-establishing the wolves and the wolves causing a decline in the number of elk either by eating them or running them off in fear, the elk would stop eating so much of.

So now we have too many beavers it seems.

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#50886

Another interesting factor R2, which contributes to Don’s thoughts above about the true complexity of the situation.

I did a fair bit of reading this winter about fur trapping in this area (I live not far from Yellowstone as the crow flies) and from what I could gather, historically there weren’t many beaver within the current boundaries of the park. Most of the trapping seemed to happen at lower elevations outside of the present-day park – Teton Valley, the Madison and Yellowstone Valleys, etc. Trappers explored the plateau, and used it when it was passable to cross from one trapping area to another, but they didn’t seem to spend much time trapping within it, and I’m sure they would have had there been good populations of beaver. I could be wrong on this, but that was my impression from the sources I read.

So beaver impacts within Yellowstone could be a more recent phenomena as well, or at least more widespread in parts of the park that didn’t used to support them.

We tend to think of Yellowstone as a vision of primal, intact wilderness, and while it may be compared to much of the rest of the lower 48, the reality is obviously more complicated than a mere “vision of the way it used to be.”

[Robin Conrads]

#50896

R2 wrote: [url=Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?]Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?

If you copy and paste the link in the thread it should work. If not, email me the link and I’ll get it posted so we can read the article.

[Ralph]

#50949

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/have-wolves-really-saved-yellowstone

[Ralph]

#50958

I think I maybe? I’m just sharing this I found. Interesting but factual? I remember avidly reading Popular Science when I was a lad.

[David Petersen]

#50968

I will eagerly drive to Montana, or fly to Alaska, in hope of seeing and hearing wolves and for the inimitable experience of camping in grizzly country. I wouldn’t do either for beavers or elk, which are abundant elsewhere. I guess, on a personal level, how we feel about predators and the costs we’re willing to pay to have them in our lives comes down to aesthetical supply and demand.

[David Coulter]

#51043

I suppose it there’s one thing we pretty much agree on, it’s that us top-shelf types really managed to kick the balance a good one. I think that true efforts to restore are worthy, but with the knowledge that it won’t ever be the same. There’s just too many of us and too much disagreement globally and even among a relatively close knit community such as we see here. We long for the howl of that wolf, or coyote for us Easterners, because when we hear it, it takes us back to a place we wish we were. That dream is a promise of sorts and it keeps us pushing in what we feel is the right direction. thanks, dwc

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#51054

Well said, David. And it’s worth remembering that Yellowstone, and our numerous other amazing national parks, are a beacon to much of the rest of the world, that have nothing remotely like it anymore.

As a side note, I had a wolf walk up right behind me one day in the elk woods last fall while I was eating lunch. We didn’t see each other until he was about 40ft. away. We stared at each other for a few moments, and then he turned and trotted off. I tried to follow him, but within seconds he utterly vanished. It was a memorable experience.

Personally, I don’t think they’re ‘sacred and untouchable’ any more than I think we should ‘smoke a pack a day’ – I think there’s a reasonable middle ground that doesn’t seem to get the airtime that the vocal extremes do, as with so many things.

[Don Thomas]

#51127

Smithhammer, I couldn’t agree more with your last two posts. The reasonable middle ground is getting drowned out on this issue, as with many others, by the shouting on either extreme. I have spent lots of time with both wolves and grizzly/brown bears and continue to respond emotionally to them. But I have to point out that you reasonably can’t fret about the apex of the pyramid without fretting about the base. There wouldn’t be any brown bears without red salmon. There wouldn’t be any red salmon without zooplankton at sea. But how many people are clamoring to save the zooplankton? Don

[Stephen Graf]

#51590

donthomas wrote: … But how many people are clamoring to save the zooplankton? Don

Not just the plankton, but also the krill. 80% decline from populations seen 30 years ago by some estimates. The ecology of the oceans is collapsing. When they go, it won’t matter how many wolves are in Yellowstone

We’ve converted the bounty of this planet into 7 billion hungry mouths, and little green pieces of paper. Hopefully we can learn to eat them at some point.

And to your earlier point on whether Leopold’s quote about seeing the green fire leave the wolf’s eye’s was about wildlife in general… There are too many other references in SA to the loss of predators and the effects on the land to conclude that he was talking about wildlife in general. I think he was speaking specifically about wolfs (or predators in general). Too bad we can’t ask him what he meant.

[Fallguy]

#52176

IMHO the big picture is “you can never go home again. I know I plagiarized that from someone “Melville?” Help Dave P. But you can surely do your best to right your wrongs. We “humans” have surely altered our world and not for the better in most cases. Do wolves kill elk? Yes. And so do humans so why do we (humans) despise the wolf? There are many reasons why Elk do not flourish? Why is it always the wolves fault? Yes WI.elk population has not exploded as hoped but is that really good habitat? WI. has 300-500 wolves. MN. has 2000-2500 wolves. The elk in MN live on the edge of the forest zone not in the middle. We had a population of 3000 wolves in 96-97 after some of the harshest winters on record our deer dropped to its lowest point in 50 years. Yet in 5 years we had record numbers of whitetail deer. We need to accept that nothing is perfect and we only can do so much. We also need to accept that there are limited resources on this rock and if we take them all for our selves others that we claim to love and respect will suffer. When we blame others for our poor judgment we only cheat our selves and our descendants. I can only imagine what it looked like to see 20,000,000 buffalo on the prairies or see the sun blocked out by the Carrier pigeon. Those things will never be again no matter what we do. We have a chance to make amends with the wolf if we choose, but it will take sacrifice and acceptance that we are only a spoke in the wheel and not the axle.

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#52199

An observation that I’ll throw out there, that I find endlessly fascinating:

I don’t know of any other predator that polarizes people to such extremes the way wolves do.

Think about it – mountain lions, grizzly bears…no other predator species seems to have the same intense emotional effects on us. I don’t know exactly why that is, but love them or hate them, I sometimes wonder if the answers lie uncomfortably close to home.

[Don Thomas]

#54035

As a point of info, “You Can’t Go Home Again” is the title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe. He was right. Read Lewis and Clark’s Journals, and then go look at the same habitat a mere 200 years later. Wildlife just can’t adapt that quickly to so much change. That’s why rational management is required. Too bad the “rational” modifier is so frequently overlooked. Don

[Fallguy]

#54402

Thanks Don, apparently my English teacher in high school was right “I need to pay more attention”. I also agree that “reason” is needed to make wise decisions. I just get very frustrated listening to the deer hunters in my state blame there lack of hunting success on wolves. I mean it surely could not be that ATV parked under there stand that gave them away.

[SteveMcD]

#58724

I thought it was a good honest video. Nothing like a little Biodiversity. Most know my feelings, I admire the Wolf greatly. And I believe to this day a very misunderstood animal. I know, I’m just another darn Easterner meddling in Western affairs. But from the studies and what I see, I don’t see the wolf as the scourge of the West ( I’d be more worried about local governments giving preferential tag treatment to outfitters over the general public hunter). I was watching “Own Your Own Adventures” one day, one of the very few hunting shows worth watching, and they hunted for 5 days in Idaho and covered hundreds of miles before they finally came across one lone wolf to shoot. Sorry I don’t buy the wolf as the criminal of the West or anywhere else for that matter.

[Col Mike]

#59953

Steve

Well said I couldn’t agree more. My time in AK and Canada without the howl would have been diminished.

As Fallguy said–well your ATV under the tree may be why the deer avoid you.

Hunting here in the east is, I think ,somewhat diminished because the only competition we have out there is a coyote (when they are not relentlessly destroyed) an occasional black bear, and rumor has it a cougar or so.

javascript:addSmiley(‘:wink:’);

Of course everyone has their opinion, I think habitat protection is first priority and then let nature take it’s obvious wonderful steps. But human war on predators is not it.

What is wild without creatures that kill and eat as we do

sans the supermarket?

Mike

[James Harvey]

#31164

I didn’t think the following deserved it’s own thread but might be of interest to those interested in wolves…

A wolf was caught by a trail cam in Bohemia (Czech Rep.). The first confirmed wolf in that part of the world since the 19th century. They reckon it was probably a visitor from Germany or Poland, both of which apparently have ‘strong’ wolf populations.

Here’s the article (in English):

http://radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/photo-confirms-return-of-wolves-to-bohemia-after-over-century?fb_action_ids=10152359767504328&fb_action_types=og.likes

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