"Kill All The Wolves" and invasive species?

Pretty shitty, fuck those assholes. Make them hunt them with their bare hands I say. Fair fight.
 
From my experience with my farmer friends when I was growing up, when you see a pest, you shoot it. There's not much more to it.
 
People are way overstating the amounts of depredation that happens. When people say wolves kill dogs, most of those dogs are being trained to hunt or are hunting bears and running through wolf habitat near breeding season.
Well there's not much of a better reason for a wolf to kill another canine other than in it's territory during breeding season.
I follow the WI wolf issue very closely because I spent years tracking and studying multiple packs in college. They have been trying to set up a hound season and luckily there's lots of backlash against it. They have also been successfully introducing elk back into the state of WI without them being wiped out by the wolves.

The only people who are strictly blaming the drop in elk populations on wolves are the same people who are advocating killing more wolves. There isn't a clear explanation as to the drop, the elk population will rebound. If you want clear predator prey dynamics using wolves and hoof stock look at Isle Royale. Granted they are moose but they are the main source of prey on the island. Populations fluctuate of both animals.
 
I have no idea if they need to be killing these wolves or not, but the fb page is gross. Reveling in killing these animals is foul.
 
A fish and game officer just got in trouble down in New Mexico for killing a Mexican Grey Wolf that is critically endangered.
 
sverre054 said:
I have done quite a bit of research on wolves, and wolf reintroduction in particular, for school since the late 90's. I also work in the hunting and fishing industry, and have a unique perspective.

The more an ecosystem is left untouched, or restored the better. The loss of those alpha predators devastates the environment. There is a ton of misinformation about the species, and a lot of it is fueled by big money lobbyist groups. THe Cattlemens and hunting groups don't like sharing the FREE land the Government allows them to use. It's a subject which both sides feel passionately about, and is honestly more suited to the War Room, and is plagued by bias statistics, and crazy political blog posts. I do support hunting, and even a well controlled wolf season in restored areas. That's not what's happening though. The entire population in WA last year was counted at 51 animals, yet hunters are demanding hunting and poaching has been out of control.

A great documentary is "Land of the lost Wolves" which documents the return of Wolves in WA State. It's gives perspective to both sides of the argument, and is a very informative. It's been shown on Discovery and BBC, and you can find it online. Here's a youtube link, but quality isn't great, so if you're interested you may want to look for the amazing HD version.

http://youtu.be/COiskamvoOY
Click to expand...
The farmers did away with most of the elk population in e. Wash years ago. Wolves re entering is nothing but trouble. I could truly give two shits about farmers but the
Wolves there gotta eat something.
 
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Zookeeper Gabe said:
People are way overstating the amounts of depredation that happens. When people say wolves kill dogs, most of those dogs are being trained to hunt or are hunting bears and running through wolf habitat near breeding season.
Well there's not much of a better reason for a wolf to kill another canine other than in it's territory during breeding season.
I follow the WI wolf issue very closely because I spent years tracking and studying multiple packs in college. They have been trying to set up a hound season and luckily there's lots of backlash against it. They have also been successfully introducing elk back into the state of WI without them being wiped out by the wolves.

The only people who are strictly blaming the drop in elk populations on wolves are the same people who are advocating killing more wolves. There isn't a clear explanation as to the drop, the elk population will rebound. If you want clear predator prey dynamics using wolves and hoof stock look at Isle Royale. Granted they are moose but they are the main source of prey on the island. Populations fluctuate of both animals.
Click to expand...
Dude. It can't be argued wolves have greatly affected elk populations. I know you love wolves but it simply can't be argued.

And what you fail to understand is states like Idaho and Montana greatly rely on revenue brought in from non resident tags and all the money they spend while there.

These states never asked for wolves to be brought in as far ad I know or at least to this extent. Montana has lost upwards of 5m in tags alone. You can triple that for businesses throughout Montana that have lost these customers.
 
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Cazadores said:
Dude. It can't be argued wolves have greatly affected elk populations. I know you love wolves but it simply can't be argued.

And what you fail to understand is states like Idaho and Montana greatly rely on revenue brought in from non resident tags and all the money they spend while there.

These states never asked for wolves to be brought in as far ad I know or at least to this extent. Montana has lost upwards of 5m in tags alone. You can triple that for businesses throughout Montana that have lost these customers.
Click to expand...

A good read is "Never Cry Wolf". It chronicles a few seasons a scientist spent in the arctic studying wolf pack's affect on caribou herds. The Canadian government sent him because like you, they thought the wolves were destroying the population and decimating the hunting economy.

He found wolves had a pretty minimal diet of caribou, and the ones they hunted were the old, weak, and sick of the herd which were worthless to man anyway. Other than that they ate more field rodents and such than anything.

It's silly for a state to get upset because it isn't maximizing the profits from out-of-towners coming in to shoot elk because there happens to be a natural predator present.
 
Slick_36 said:
I have a very simple solution for your economic dilemma. Legalize marijuana. Projected to earn billions for the states that have legalized it. Then you can earn more money than you do now, wolves don't have to go extinct there again, elk will eventually bounce back, and the hippies won't complain if you eventually do kill the wolves.
Click to expand...

Somebody Mod this man!
 
Cazadores said:
Dude. It can't be argued wolves have greatly affected elk populations. I know you love wolves but it simply can't be argued.

And what you fail to understand is states like Idaho and Montana greatly rely on revenue brought in from non resident tags and all the money they spend while there.

These states never asked for wolves to be brought in as far ad I know or at least to this extent. Montana has lost upwards of 5m in tags alone. You can triple that for businesses throughout Montana that have lost these customers.
Click to expand...

Wolves do affect them some but you are overstating this. There are multiple things affecting the elk populations.

Wolf elk relationship in Idaho.

http://m.magicvalley.com/news/local...5794-b5a0-62129c6f11ca.html?mobile_touch=true

Montana Elk population and wolves.
http://m.billingsgazette.com/news/s...5bae-8ab8-32b13318a612.html?mobile_touch=true
 
I'm fine with killing a wolf that is caught on your farm? But wipe out a whole species? No, that is crazy talk
 
Slick_36 said:
I have a very simple solution for your economic dilemma. Legalize marijuana. Projected to earn billions for the states that have legalized it. Then you can earn more money than you do now, wolves don't have to go extinct there again, elk will eventually bounce back, and the hippies won't complain if you eventually do kill the wolves.
Click to expand...

lol.

It's funny how "Legalize Marijuana" always seems to come up in threads where it clearly doesn't belong.

Overpopulation is a thing. Hunting the wolves keeps them from destroying the ecosystem. I don't have the interest in arguing with you, but I can promise that Marijuana isn't going to stop the Wolves from reproducing at a rapid rate and taking more than their species should.
 
BEER said:
lol.

It's funny how "Legalize Marijuana" always seems to come up in threads where it clearly doesn't belong.

Overpopulation is a thing. Hunting the wolves keeps them from destroying the ecosystem. I don't have the interest in arguing with you, but I can promise that Marijuana isn't going to stop the Wolves from reproducing at a rapid rate and taking more than their species should.
Click to expand...

The wolves are NOT overpopulating nor are they destroying their ecosystems.
 
BEER said:
lol.

It's funny how "Legalize Marijuana" always seems to come up in threads where it clearly doesn't belong.

Overpopulation is a thing. Hunting the wolves keeps them from destroying the ecosystem. I don't have the interest in arguing with you, but I can promise that Marijuana isn't going to stop the Wolves from reproducing at a rapid rate and taking more than their species should.
Click to expand...

Lmao this is not about overpopulation. So far, the only half feasible argument in here is the declining elk population costing states a few million dollars. That argument is moot when there is a commodity that would make many times the money they're losing, and they won't even think about adopting it.
 
Wolves don't kill for fun. Nor do they kill other species for social status. This is misinformation that is spread by people like those in the facebook page. What wolves are is opportunistic hunters, which means that if they have an opportunity for an uncontested kill, they'll kill more than they can eat in one go. Occasionally they'll kill much more than they need, but they've only done this when completely uncontested, and rarely even then. Herd dogs have worked wonders for this historically.

To put wolf kill numbers in perspective, they kill fewer cattle than vultures do. Birds kill more than wolves. Dogs kill twice as many as either. Coyote kill a lot, and are frequently the sources of the slaughters, since they don't eat as much as wolves.
And diseases due to the way cattle are fed and kept kill several times as many as all the predators combined.

A survey of the falling elk population found that the biggest things reducing the elk population was
1.) Adverse weather conditions
2.) Hunters. (Who then turn around and blame the wolves, so they have another set of things to shoot.)
 
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