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Articles : EnvironmentAlaska Overrules Voters, Reinstates Aerial Wolf Hunt
It’s late May in Alaska. A pack of wolves rises from its afternoon nap and heads out behind the alpha male on a hunt. The pups follow for a few hundred feet but soon realize their short legs cannot keep up and return to the den. A half-hour into the hunt the pack notices a pair of porcupine caribou: stragglers. Just then, a prop airplane swoops overhead. The passenger points his assault rifle out the window and easily drops two wolves. He fires again, wounding the alpha male. The plane turns around and lands near the injured leader. The shooter gets out and kills him with a final bullet.
Just over a year ago this sort of thing would be against the law in Alaska as voters had thought their votes had assured, but last summer Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski signed legislation that brought back aerial and what’s called “same-day airborne” wolf hunting1. Aerial hunting is when you fire directly from the aircraft. Same-day airborne hunting refers to the practice of using an aircraft to chase your prey until you exhaust them, then landing the helicopter or plane as close as you wish to the animal, putting one foot on the ground, and firing.
Over 100 wolves have been killed in the last year because of this legislation which anti-aerial hunting activists claim clearly violates the Federal Airborne Hunting Act. The law, passed in 1971, bans using an aircraft to “attempt to shoot for the purpose of capturing or killing any bird, fish, or other animal” or to “harass any bird, fish, or other animal.” A fine of $5000 or up to a year in jail, or both, are possible penalties.
Alaskan voters banned aerial hunting of wolves in 1996, and then again in 2000 after the state legislature reinstated it. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance notes that in a recent poll commissioned by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance but conducted by Dittman Research Corporation shows that 72% of Alaskans, including hunters, oppose aerial predator-control as a means to increase moose and caribou populations, and continues to state that in November 2000, 147,043 voters or 53.5% of Alaska’s population voted to reject the practice of same-day aerial wolf hunting2.
The return to aerial wolf hunts in Alaska is shocking if you consider the opposition by the clear majority of Alaska voters (and an even larger percentage of Americans, overall), the lack of legality those votes brought, the complete void of a legitimate reason for the aggression, and the unmitigated cowardliness of it all. Then again, this is entirely unsurprising if you consider this nation’s history of extremists getting elected to political office only to ignore public opinion and the law in the service of their own irrational views and/or campaign contributors’ wishes.
Persecution of our wild carnivores is hardly a new concept
The predator “war” began as soon as the Europeans arrived on the North American continent 500 years ago. While wars are by definition two sided, this conflict has been a rout by humans.
In Europe, plagues and wars had long devastated the continent. The carnage often left corpse-ridden fields and mass graves where wolves, being opportunistic hunters, developed a taste for human flesh. While the instances of wolves killing humans were greatly exaggerated and often the real man-killers were actually wolf/dog hybrids, wolves did kill humans – on occasion. This caused highly superstitious people to overreact. While most wolves were wiped out in Europe years before Columbus sailed, the hatred and fear still remained in the Europeans’ hearts and culture, and with their fear they brought the same devastation they had wrought on Europe’s natural predators. Over time old rationales were replaced by new justifications (livestock became the primary concern, hunting, and the old stalwart, fear), and the hunt rolled on.
The extermination effort that took centuries in the old world took only a fraction of that time here – fueled by technological advances: strychnine, assault rifles, helicopters and planes.
Teddy Roosevelt is often considered the pioneering conservation president. Barry Lopez writes in Of Wolves and Men about the time Teddy, hand on the Bible, spoke gravely of the dangers wolves posed to his North Dakotan ranch. He called the wolf “the beast of waste and desolation3.” For the Rough Rider, wolves represented the antithesis of progress, or civilization itself.
Since then, the war on predators has brought several American carnivores to the brink of extinction (and successfully wiped out jaguars; Mexican grey wolves, which have been reintroduced; and red wolves, which also have been returned to the wild) and reduced other’s ranges and populations to fractions of their former existence. Each of the large North American predators has been a victim in this one-sided war: the wolf, the bear, the cougar, as well as several other smaller carnivores. They have been killed for “safety,” for the livestock industry, for sports hunters, even “ecology” and “aesthetics,” but when each reason is thoroughly investigated each appears false or grossly overstated.
Hypocrisy clouds this whole subject. Ranchers talk about how evil it is of these carnivorous animals to kill helpless animals, yet what carnivores do for survival, cattlemen do for profit.
How has the U.S. dealt with the other meateaters on this continent?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal Damage Control program (ADC) was created in 1886 to advise people on how to control damaging birds…there were no survivors4. OK, I am being facetious, but it is truer than most know. The last passenger pigeon, a bird that numbered nearly 5 billion individuals when Europeans arrived, died in captivity in 19145. At first the ADC simply researched the poisoning of house sparrows, but they would soon expand to include rodents and predators; by the end of the 20th century they had killed nearly 10 million coyotes6. After the government had exterminated the American bison from the plains it was almost unavoidable that the wild predators would supplement their natural diets with livestock which took their former prey’s place. After this happened, the ADC, ranchers, and bounty hunters went after the nation’s native carnivores with what could only be described as religious zeal.
It was understandable that the government would want to discourage predation on livestock, but they went a bit overboard. Rick Bass writes in The Ninemile Wolves7, “The wolves preyed on these new intruders, without question, but ranchers and the government overreacted just a tad. Until very recently, the score stood at Cows: 99,200,000; Wolves: 0.” Wolves used to be the most ubiquitous large mammal in North America next to man, but by the time the livestock industry and U.S government were done with them, perhaps two million wolves had been eradicated, and there were maybe a few hundred left in the lower forty eight (all in Minnesota). At this time, wolves received protection from the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Odd it happened like that, you’d almost think they meant to let wolves go extinct before protecting them.
Barry Lopez writes in Of Wolves and Men that during anti-wolf campaigns taking place in the U.S., “wolves were killed and thrown on the steps of the state legislature well into the 1970s to garner headlines and pressure lawmakers into instituting bounties8.”
The public’s perception of wolves has turned around from being considered earthly manifestations of evil (promoted by the Catholic Church), to being thought of as mascots for conservation, and more than that: an example of what careful conservation can do. Our attitudes toward coyotes have been more set in concrete. The public attitude towards coyotes has always been generally negative or apathetic. Luckily though, they are wily, and have an incredible ability to replenish their numbers: we have killed ten million in less than 80 years, and yet seven million still remain.
In Coyote, Catherine Reid relates a Maine representative’s argument for a coyote bounty, explaining “I know for a fact that [bounties] worked pretty well here in York County, when the British were paying $50 a pair for Indian ears9.”
Hanging on by a thread
About 1,000 grizzlies remain in the lower 48 states (reduced from an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 before our manifest destiny swept across the country like a plague10.
There are only about 40 (give or take) panthers left in Florida. The only western state that doesn’t allow the hunting of panthers is California (thanks to Proposition 117, passed in 1990). If you read California newspapers you are likely to hear about the rampant fear of cougars, but on the whole North American continent there have only been 14 fatal cougar attacks in the last 20 years, in contrast with the 85 fatal dog attacks in California alone in that time span11.
The red wolf reached the point of extinction in the wild before being protected (there were only a handful left in zoos). The attempt to breed enough in captivity and re-release them into the wild was the first of its kind with a carnivore. There were only 17 red wolves left in existence at the time: all in captivity. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared red wolves extinct in the wild in 1980. The Endangered Species Act goes further than simply protecting animals: if listed animals are forced into extinction in the wild, the ESA makes it clear that every effort must be taken to return the animals to their place in the wild and ensure as much of a recovery as is possible.
A sub-species of wolf called the Mexican grey wolf (also known as the lobo), is another animal that was forced into extinction in the wild before action was finally taken. Rick Bass writes in The New Wolves, “There is a plan currently in progress (as mandated by federal law) the Endangered Species Act, the closest thing we have to Noah’s mandate-to bring Mexican wolves back from their ‘functional extinction’ and to turn them back loose in the world12.”
Both the lobo and the red wolf are struggling to survive in a dwindling wilderness.
Fear has always dictated our actions in relation to the large carnivores: they’ll eat my baby; they’ll eat my dog; they’ll kill my livestock; they’ll eat my deer: my prey.
Are my children in danger, how about Toto?
“Bears are just big chickens…they’ve survived by running without question. The littlest hound can chase the biggest bear up a tree,” says Lynn Rogers, director of both the Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota13.
Black bears killed 25 people between 1900 and 1989. One in 35,000 grizzly bears has killed a human14, compared to 1 in 16,000 people who has done the same15. Between 1978 and 1992 in Yellowstone, 12 people were injured by bears, but 56 were injured by bison. Cougars have killed 17 Americans between 1890 and 2001. There is not a single case of a human getting killed by a healthy wild wolf or coyote on this continent16 (there have been a few kills by captive animals and rabid animals).
In the last century less than a hundred people have been killed by our large and fearsome North American carnivores (92, give or take). In the U.S. alone, 93 people are killed by lightning in any given year17. An estimated 200 people are killed each year in car wrecks with deer.
Wolf attacks on dogs aren’t entirely unheard of, though most are from when dogs stray away from their owners to investigate wolf dens or otherwise intrude on a wolf’s space. Usually, if the owner is able to keep an eye on his dog and stay on the trail in wolf country their dog will be fine. It comes down more to how attentive the owner can be than anything else. A lot of the arguments against allowing predators to remain where they belong are dependent on overprotective fears. The person who lets his dog free at night, or the mother who lets her eight-year-old go play out in the middle of the woods alone. Most dangers would evaporate if simply common sense were used and people were educated about the possible dangers. The most telling statistic is of the 36 fatal wolf attacks on dogs in Wisconsin from 1976 to 1998, 28 were killed while the dogs were being used to hunt predators18.
Human hunters will often oppose allowing the existence of the wild carnivores to continue unmolested because the wild animals eat the same animals the human “sportsmen” wish to kill for food or sport. Wild predators only kill a negligible amount of animals in a respective ecosystem (and enough for the prey to recover, for as biologists have known for nearly half a century, it is the prey animal which limit predator populations and not the other way around). They also tend to kill the old and weak, which keep herds strong and epidemics rare and short. The most ironic part of hunters having a problem with competing with a wolf (wolves will usually kill just enough to survive and only succeed on one in ten hunts) is that they call themselves “sportsmen.” You would think they would appreciate a little competition. If they truly want the hunt to be as easy as possible why don’t they put on a green beret, a bright orange vest, and combat boots, and hump down to their local butcher and take home their easily gotten trophy/supper?
Mary has a little lamb? No, she had a little lamb
Unquestionably, the largest and most effective argument for indiscriminate predator control is the effect of their teeth on necks of the rancher’s chattel. In the Lower 48, it is what drives the predator war (in Alaska there is very little livestock and hunters drive the debate). Unsurprisingly, it all comes down to money.
When judging the impact of predators on livestock the measuring stick most often used is the wolves in Minnesota. There are 1,500 wolves and 7,200 farms. Conflicts are inevitable. In Kill the Cowboy, Sharman Apt Russell explains that out of 7,200 farms only “nine to fifty-five farms annually reported verified wolf depredations.” She continues, “The highest cattle loss claimed by ranchers was in 1990, about 4.7 cows per 10,000 available victims. The highest sheep loss claimed was in 1981, 26.6 sheep lost per 10,000 sheep.”
Often those depredations blamed on wolves and other predators are not legitimate, either because the animal dropped dead of natural causes and the part-time scavenger took advantage or it was actually dogs that killed the rancher’s livestock.
The Fish and Wildlife Service outlines their plan: “Predator damage control will be directed toward individual predators causing the damage rather than the general population and will be limited to the specific area where losses due to predators have been verified19.”
While this may sound all fine and good, it in no way works in practice as cleanly as it is stated in the mission. Sharman Apt Russell writes in Kill the Cowboy, “In fiscal year 1990, in seventeen western states, ADC employees killed more than 809,000 animals. A partial list would include 91,158 coyotes, 8,144 skunks, 9363 beavers, 7,064 foxes (four species); 5,933 raccoons, 3,463 opossums, 1,083 porcupines, 1,028 bobcats, 265 muskrats, 250 mountain lions, 236 black bears, 25 river otters, various rats, mice, rabbits, squirrels, cats, and dogs; and more than one-half million birds, ranging from starlings to meadowlarks. Unintentionally, ADC killed 5,759 non target animals20.”
The U.S. government’s kill is peanuts compared to the other humans that kill predators. Sharman Apt Russell notes, “in Colorado in 1988, ADC killed 13 black bears. Legal hunters killed 600 black bears, poachers may have killed yet another 500, and property owners and livestock growers another 300-600 again. Similarly, the average annual kill of mountain lions by the ADC between 1979 and 1988 was 126; trappers and hunters alone killed over 1,180. ADC’s average kill of coyotes between these years was 67,852; in an extremely conservative estimate, other people killed five times that amount.”
Luckily there are several techniques and systems already in place to protect the livestock industry which make this war outdated and completely unnecessary.
The USDA already has a livestock guarding dog program. These animals have been extremely successful over the centuries in protecting their charges. This old dog profession is as effective as ever against depredation.
Ranchers who move their livestock around a lot using many fences and gates so the predators never get used to them in one area are extremely successful. It is usually the most removed ranchers that experience the most loss (which both makes sense and is usually the large scale ranchers who can afford to lose many).
There are also high frequency speakers which can be set up outside near the cattle or sheep herds which often work as a passive deterrent.
The U.S. government could just use the money it throws away on the predator war on something like the Defenders of Wildlife program in Minnesota where they reimburse ranchers for losses sustained from wolf attacks.
Keep nature wild
The opposition to predators is strong, well funded, and determined. The Anchorage Daily News reports that one Alaska resident gunned down 60 wolves from his private plane over a three-year period21. Even so, the pro-predator lobby and those who simply understand the necessity of all parts of the ecosystem to function healthily have them greatly outnumbered.
Rick Bass writes that in Montana, where wolves had been fervently eradicated years before, a 1990 poll showed that two thirds of Montanans believed that wolves should be reintroduced where they had previously been extirpated. This is just a microcosm of the majority of American’s attitudes towards predators. It seems if we let go of our dogmatic preconceptions about these keystone species and look simply at the reality of the situation, our fears all appear irrational and perhaps even respect for our carnivorous ex- competitors can be cultivated.
Footnotes:
1 Defenders of Wildlife press realease, “ DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE PETITIONS INTERIOR DEPARTMENT TO HALT ALASKA AERIAL WOLF KILLS”
2 The Alaska Wildlife Alliance
3 Lopez, Barry H., Of Wolves and Men, New Yirk:Touchstone, 1978. 142
5 “The Story of the Passenger Pigeon,” Clive Ponting, Eco Action
6 “Living in the House That Jack Built” Animal People Editorial, November 1997
7 Bass, Rick, The Ninemile Wolves, New York: Random House, 1992. 5.
8 Lopez, Barry H., Of Wolves and Men, New York: Touchstone, 1978. 150.
9 Reid, Catherine, Coyote, New York: Houghtin Mifflin, 2004. 16.
11 The Mountain Lion Foundation
12 Bass, Rick, The New Wolves, New York: The Lyons Press, 1998. 3.
13 What Prompted Deadly Bear Attack? AP(Associated Press) August 20, 2002
14 Jennifer Jones Whistler Bear Society
16 Our kids face a lot of dangers besides wolves Letter to the Bozeman Chronicle, Norman A. Bishop, May 23rd, 2002.
17 National Weather Service Forecast Office National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
18 Wolf Depredation, Wolf Trust
19 Fish and Wilflife Service Manual
20 Russell, Sharman Apt, Kill the Cowboy, page 79-80
21 Aerial wolf hunting flies again in Alaska, CNN, May 3, 2000.
Posted by fennec
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There it is. Thanks everyone for voting and comments. Ryz, eep, Anthony, and Tyler, especially: thanks for corrections and suggestions.
/me sets mode to +pillow
Nice Fen…is it possible that this edition of your article has a copy and paste error…paragraph 2 and 3 seem like different drafts of the same paragraph!?
I don’t see it on the front page…am I gone blind or something? Where is it???
:’-(
Thanks hellcat. Methinks Anthony noticed you saying that, then he pulled it back to draft so I could fix it and pm’ed me. Meanwhile, I just woke up and corrected it. :-P It’s back up.
nice work Fen!
Thanks namaste.
This Article got me thinking about wolves where I live – Adirondack Mountains/ Champlain Valley in upstate New York. A few years ago there was a lot of support (and of course the opposite) to re-introduce gray wolves back into the region. This area used to have a thriving gray wolf population before European settlements entered the area. After that time, the wolf population here became extinct – the last wolf killed was believed to be around mid 1890’s.
What we do have now is a large population of coyotes, who some scientists believe interbred with the Canadian wolf when they made their trek eastward into our region. There are some unusally large coyotes here. Its been found that these coyotes possess varying amounts of wolf genes, some as much as 50 percent, others less than 10 percent.
After a re-introduction study a few years ago, its been rumored that the grey wolf has been reintroduced into the area. Although I have not found any local news items to confirm it. Hopefully you know more about this than I do, Fen. (And I live here! XP )
I did find some stuff on Google though.
Wolf Reintroduction Feasibility in the Adirondack Park
North Country coyote is clever, resourceful
Northeastern Gray Wolf Distinct Population Segment
Awesome! I don’t know much at all about wolves in the east. I know that they wiped out the wolves on the east coast much earlier than the rest of the country (like teh Indians). Interesting you should mention coyotes. The only thing that seems to keep down coyote populations besides possibly averse weather is wolves. Wolves don’t that often kill them but situation can almost be compared what would happen if you had one powerful pack and one small and unrelated pack of wolves in one region. The coyotes are always subordinate and as such they are always the ones to flee. Like I mentioned in the article we have killed 10 million coyotes and 7 million remain. It’s a simple matter of them being able to take anything we throw at them, but if you look at the populations of coyotes in areas with wolves to areas without there is a clear correlation, and coyotes can’t take anything the wolves throw at them. Reintroducing wolves in all of the areas they were exterminated in (at least in the places with enough wild left, and from what I know about upstate New York it fits that criteria) would do well to keep down the coyote population, deer populations (deer are by far the most expensive mammal to deal with in this country besides maybe rats, and quite deadly given all of the car-deer collisions each year). Simply returning the wolf would go far towards returning some necessary balance, but what a lot of nitwits don’t seem to get is that it would also be economically sensible.
I have read a lot about the wolves in Minnesota, Wisconson, Montana, Alaska, Yellowstone, and the rest of the southwest but not very much about the east or Eurasia for that matter. I will definitely look into the situation in New York, thanks.
fen – nice work! I will get back to this in a few days (next week) and will drop some links to other articles if people are interested. Thanks for the blarg link – I need to work on the links soon and will post where people can go to attack this (IDA, and Defenders I think). (/me considers pictures of my pack)
Thanks. Absolutely. Yeah, those links can be a resource.
Also, Defenders have been incredibly active in many types of environmental/wildlife activism for years. And, when it comes to wolves there is no more successful or dedicated organization. Not just the intraweb-activism but in lawsuits against corporations and the government in cases of environmental mis-treatment. If you have money to spare or are not averse to petty theft and/or armed robbery then I would suggest donating as much as you can to them…
heh, ok, while when my last article was republished I was laughing because the thought of anyone thinking anything I had written was newsworthy doubled me over in laughter, this time the source is what gave me teh chuckle.
Thats funnneh!
Where was your other article republished?
Please vote on my blog! It took me oh soo long to make it!
Btw.. your article was damn fine!
(gimme a 5) pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!
*Here* is where teh other one was republished.
Thanks.
Cool. I gladly give your blog a 5.
You can at least make pictures clickable from here by going like so(url with exclamation marks on both side then a colon then the url you want it to click to, no spaces)
!http:gnn.tv!: http:gnn.tv
Very impressive.
IMatter.. sounds pretty highbrow!
I was wondering how to make a pic clickable.. apparently on the textile website it’s a highly guarded secret.
Thanks for the 5!
Every pic will now be clickable.
No problem, yeah, judging from the other crap they have on there it aint too bad a site. Good to see you are using the new skill wisely. :-|
a bump for the wolves…
friends of animals
awesome article, well worthy of the front page… that’s awesome!
Thanks sis and alpine.
Most of these pics come from Alberta and my home province, British Colombia, where imbecilic Americans with small penises are lured by local businessmen to take out their suppressed rage on noble beasts ten times their better. Our supposedly “environmentally friendly”/“socialist” government goes along with it, of course, under the guise of “ecnomic growth”.
And just to show we don’t discriminate:
Wow.
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...where imbecilic Americans with small penises are lured by local businessmen to take out their suppressed rage on noble beasts ten times their better. |
Well said…I was encouraged (probably rightly so) to take that (red) part out of the final draft of the article. heh, glad someone said it.
For more pictures related to the killing of animals neither for food nor any other legitimate or logical reason see “_*Soulless*_“:http://fennec.gnn.tv/blogs/6468/Soulless
I’ve only ever seen a wolf in the wild once. I was about 6-7 years old trecking through the woods with my mother and aunt. It was a profound moment.
I will remember it forever.
It was standing in the path about 100m away watching us. It stood there for about a minute then ran off.
Awesome, Rasp, the second one you posted is especially cool.
Here is the full picture in the article, I especailly like end of the article that is shown in this picture. Click for the full picture.
The end of the ridiculous article in that picture:
one wolf may kill as many as 20 reindeer in a night. Imagine, then, the toll that ten bloodthirsty wolves could take.
When I clicked on our book distributor’s website this morning, they were featuring Living With Wolves by Jim & Jamie Dutcher ISBN: 1594850003 (Link is to publisher site, as ipage is subscriber-only.) The blurb opens with this: “Over the centuries, more than two million wolves have been exterminated by humans due to misconceptions that paint the wolf as a destructive, ruthless, random predator.” All Things Considered story and links. Discovery Channel documentary (no idea when this is on the schedule, but apparently the 2-hour documentary will be or has been on the Discovery Channel.)
From ipage “Through hundreds of photographs taken during the six years that the authors lived among a pack of wolves, Living with Wolves brings readers face to face with these impressive creatures, revealing them to be intelligent, social, family-oriented animals deserving of respect, admiration, and protection. The Dutchers celebrate the wolves’ fascinating lives, investigating what makes a wolf howl, travel in packs, and relegate one member to the lowly “omega” position? How are they different from the family dog?
Living with Wolves calls for preserving wild places with contiguous wildlife corridors that allow for a sustainable ecosystem for wolves—one that would preclude the clashes with ranchers and encroaching civilization that are threatening the wolf with rapid extinction.
• Bonus feature: a 60-minute audio CD of wolf vocalizations
Marketing
• 18-city radio tour this spring
• 6-city author tour in fall ’05
• Feature article in People
• Interview on NPR’s All Things Considered”
Awesome! Wolves at Our Door really is a great and moving documentary. The book of the same name is worth checking out because it puts everything in context.
I will definitely look out for Living with Wolves. Thanks.
This thread is awesome! I want the “favourite thread” feature back!
Ok, I got an email from someone who’d rather stay anonymous (because he’s a dick), so I will post it here anyway. I really couldn’t say it better myself.
One omission he said I should have included was The Alaska Outdoor Council
Here is the rest:
The AOC (and I hesitate to mention that several of my friends are AOC members) are the dickhead PAC that are actually in favor of the State sponsored predator control programs. Take a look at http://www.alaskaoutdoorcouncil.org/bodcomments.pdf from 2003.
The thing about Alaska is that it’s got a relatively small population, and a seriously fucked up social dynamic. You have approx 600K people, over half of which live in Anchorage and Fairbanks (the two largest urban areas)... from that, you have the urban vs the rural, natives vs whites, and the AOC vs anyone who dares suggest that limiting sport hunting and giving rural preference for subsistence hunting/fishing is a good
idea.
As a subsistence hunter/fisher who loves the unspoiled outdoors, I’m consistently at odds with the AOC (who favor sport hunting), I’m at odds with the state (who institute predator control programs, and fail to institute rural preference for subsistence game harvests), and I’m at odds with those who tell me to eat tofu. The AOC, their ilk, and their membership are interested in only one thing. Bagging the big one. Anything that they think will help that happen is a “Good Thing”, and anything they think impedes that is wrong.
I just finished reading the David Mech book, The Wolf. In it there is a picture of a dead deer, 16 wolves and a lynx surrounding it. They are all sitting, standing, or laying down, frozen. Their faces are all contorted. They are all dead. The deer carcass had been poisoned, and it seems like they killed a whole large pack (or maybe multiple packs). It is one of the most fucked up photos I’ve ever seen.
The beginning of Rick Basses 92 book, The Ninemile Wolves:
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They say not to anthropomorphize-not to think of them as having feelings, not to think of them as being able to think-but late at night I like to imagine they are killing: that another deer has gone down in a tangle of legs, tackled in deep snow; and that, once again, the wolves are feeding. That they have saved themselves, once again. That the deer or moose calf, or young dumb elk is still warm (steam rising from the belly as that part which contains the entrails is opened first), is now dead, or dying. _wolf_ They eat everything, when they kill, even the snow that soaks up the blood. |
The last couple paragraphs of David Mech’s brilliant book, The Wolf, written in 1970:
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Unfortunately there still exists in certain segments of human society an attitude that any animal [except man] that kills another is a murderer. To these people, the wolf is a most undesirable creature. Once blinded emotionally by such hate, the anti-wolf people fail to see that the wolf has no choice about the way it lives; that it cannot thrive on grass or twigs any more than man can. To them the wolf pack is a cowardly assemblage of wanton slayers, the animal’s howl a bloodcurdling condemnation of all the innocent big game in the country. _wolf_ These people cannot be changed. If the wolf is to survive, the wolf haters must be outnumbered. They must be outshouted, outfinanced, and outvoted. Their narrow and biased attitude must be outweighed by an attitude based on an understanding of natural processes. Finally, their hate must be outdone by a love for the whole of nature, for the unspoiled wilderness, and for the wolf as a beautiful, interesting, and integral part of both. |
Cool, just found a great page of wolf photos by Mech.
just read this article and figured this was as good as any place to post it:
Loss of Wolves Changes Canadian Ecosystem
August 02, 2005 — By Maggie Fox, Reuters
WASHINGTON — The loss of once-plentiful wolves in a part of Canada’s west allowed the elk population to mushroom, pushing out beavers and songbirds and showing the importance of top predators, Canadian researchers said Monday.
Although scientists have long noted that the loss of even one species can have profound effects, the report is one of the first large-scale studies to show clearly the widespread consequences of losing a predator at the top of the food chain.
Mark Hebblewhite of the University of Alberta, and colleagues studied what happened in “a serendipitous natural experiment” when wolves returned to part of the Bow Valley of Banff National Park in Alberta.
Wolves were driven out in the 1960s “because that’s what we did then,” Hebblewhite said.
“The first wolf pack recolonized the Bow Valley of Banff National Park in 1986. High human activity partially excluded wolves from one area of the Bow Valley, whereas wolves made full use of an adjacent area,” the researchers wrote in their report, published in the journal Ecology.
Willow trees, river-loving birds called willow warblers and American redstarts, and beaver dams once were common in Bow Valley and surrounding areas. But in the areas where wolves remained scarce and elk populations mushroomed, these plants and animals were less common.
The wolves clearly had a major effect on elk. Elk populations were 10 times as high in areas where there were no wolves, Hebblewhite’s team found.
This meant that elk could be found in suburban backyards, and sometimes on hiking trails. “Seven people are sent to hospitals every year on average by getting into a fight with an elk,” he said. “They are 250 kg (550 pounds) on average so you don’t want to get into a fight with one. But being a park they couldn’t just go willy-nilly shooting elk and as a society we have advanced beyond wildlife management by just shooting things.”
The elk browsed on tender young willows, leaving little for beavers and willow-dwelling birds. Aspen trees seemed less affected.
“We also found that as elk populations climbed, active beaver lodges declined, probably because beavers could no longer find sufficient trees with which to build their dams,” Hebblewhite said in a statement.
But in the parts of the park where wolves returned, the elk populations in affected areas fell and willows were coming back.
While other predators such as grizzlies might have played a role, Hebblewhite’s team noted, bears were never completely driven from the park while wolves were.
“Yes, wolves are ecologically important. It (the study) bolsters the importance of conserving species like wolves and other top carnivores,” Hebblewhite said.
Source: Reuters
I recorded a wolf (named Legend) howling at America’s Teaching Zoo. Here that is
Wikipedia has a great page on gray wolves, thought I would link that
Now, an update on the aerial wolf hunt situation from the only paper which seems to be following this story, the Anchorage Daily News.
Groups taking aim at aerial wolf from the hunt
LEGISLATIVE EFFORT: Support is being sought for a ballot measure to restructure the hunt.
By SEAN COCKERHAM
Anchorage Daily News
Published: November 9, 2005
JUNEAU — The much-touted tourism boycott of Alaska appears to be a flop, and another winter of state-sponsored aerial wolf killing is set to begin in the next month or so.
But the state’s controversial predator control program is not out of the woods. Connecticut-based Friends of Animals still hopes to stop it in court. And a group of Alaskans who don’t like how the state is running the program are scrambling to collect enough signatures to get an initiative on the 2006 ballot.
“We’re not a pack of greenie weenies,” said Nick Jans of Juneau, one of the initiative sponsors. “We just want game management to be science-based and in a manner consistent with what the people of Alaska have already stated twice.”
Alaska voters have twice, in recent years, banned the shooting of wolves from airplanes or shortly after landing. But the Legislature subsequently passed measures to ensure that private pilots could do both if participating in a state-sponsored predator control program. Last year 72 private pilots and 143 assistants obtained permits to shoot wolves under the program.
Jans said he is not trying to stop this latest predator control effort, just reform it. But the initiative would effectively make it impossible to continue the program, according to the chairman of the Alaska Board of Game, Mike Fleagle.
“It’s a terrible idea. It would just totally eliminate the ability of the board and the (Fish and Game) department to do predator management,” he said.
The initiative would require that Alaska Department of Fish and Game employees shoot the wolves, instead of using private pilot-gunner teams. It would also demand there be “adequate data” of a biological emergency, such as game populations being driven down, before airplanes could be used to kill in a predator control program.
The current program has resulted in the shooting of almost 400 wolves in the past two winters, as an attempt to boost the populations of moose and caribou for people to hunt and eat. State Fish and Game officials said they are encouraged by results so far but cannot yet tell how well it will work.
The program began around the Interior village of McGrath after local residents complained that moose were scarce and said it was because wolves and bears were eating too many calves. The state expanded the effort last winter to five areas of Alaska. Wolves can be shot from the air in some areas; in others, the airborne hunters must land before shooting.
Initiative sponsor Jans is a hunter and author of “Grizzly Maze,” a book about Timothy Treadwell, the bear videographer who was killed, along with his companion, Amie Huguenard, by a grizzly on the Katmai coast in 2003.
He said having private hunters do the state’s killing leads to abuses. Soldotna hunting guide David Haeg, who was working with the state’s predator control program, was recently convicted of killing nine wolves by shooting them from his aircraft while outside of an allowed area.
Jans said he believes such abuse is widespread but it’s just too hard to catch the culprits. State officials called Haeg a “bad apple,” and pointed to his harsh sentence, which included spending 35 days in jail, losing his airplane and giving up his guiding license for five years. Wayne Regelin, Fish and Game deputy commissioner, argued that in today’s Alaska there’s not many places people can hunt from a plane completely unnoticed.
Regelin and Fleagle said the initiative requirement that Fish and Game employees do the wolf shooting themselves would be expensive.
Jans also said he believes that at least some of the wolf killing is driven by politics — people wanting more moose and caribou — rather than a demonstrated biological emergency.
Fleagle and Regelin said that, if the initiative were to pass, the state would be in court for years arguing over definitions of “adequate data” and “biological emergency.”
The sponsors hope to get their initiative on the ballot for the general election in November, 2006. They need 31,451 signatures by Jan. 9. The signatures must come from two-thirds of the state House districts in Alaska.
Meanwhile, the Connecticut-based Friends of Animals, which Jans said his group has nothing to do with, said it still hopes to get the courts to stop the wolf kill. Priscilla Feral, the group’s president, said the backup plan is to try to strengthen the tourism boycott against Alaska.
The boycott began in December 2003 with “howl-in” demonstrations across the nation. But it does not appear to be keeping visitors away from Alaska.
“At this point the impact has been minimal, at best,” said Ron Peck, president of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, the leading tourism trade group in the state.
The number of visitors to Alaska this summer was estimated at 1.5 million. That’s up from 1.3 million in 2003, according to the tourism association.
Crowd gathers to watch wolf eat elk
KETCHUM, Idaho — A wolf that killed a young elk near Stanley in central Idaho and settled down to try to eat its meal drew a crowd of human spectators – including a longtime wolf advocate and a longtime wolf foe.
Jane Somerville of Stanley saw the chase and kill last Thursday by the Salmon River near the junction of Highways 75 and 21.
“He pretty much went right for the neck and got it down on the ground,” Somerville told the Idaho Mountain Express. “It was over very quickly.”
Alerted by cell phones, people began arriving along the river bank to watch the wolf eat the yearling elk.
Among them was Lynn Stone, leader of the pro-wilderness Boulder-White Clouds Council and a wolf advocate. She said Ron Gillette, president of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition, arrived after her, carrying a .22-caliber rifle.
Stone said she took photographs of Gillette as he walked toward the wolf on three occasions during the day, carrying the rifle. The wolf ran off each time. The area is open grassland near the river but turns into forest on the sides of the valley.
“I wasn’t going out there without a rifle because if a wolf comes after me I’m going to shoot it,” Gillette told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I have the right to protect myself.”
Stone said Gillette confronted her after returning from his walk toward the wolf in the morning and then again in the afternoon.
“(He’s) yelling at me to get out of my pickup,” she said. “Since he has a gun as well as a camera in hand, I’m not anxious to get out and don’t.”
Gillette said he didn’t remember what he said to Stone.
“I probably told her to get out of my way,” he said. “We’re sick and tired of these wolf lovers elevating wolves to a godlike status. They’re the most cruel and violent predator in North America and we’re not going to put up with them killing all our animals. We’re tired of it.”
The wolf returned a third time in the evening and again ran off when Gillette approached. Stone said she called Brian Reeves, a conservation officer with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. He declined to comment.
The federal government in January turned over to the state day-to-day management of the wolves reintroduced in central Idaho in 1995 as an “experimental, nonessential population” under the Endangered Species Act. Wolves located north of Interstate 90 in the Idaho Panhandle remain classified as an endangered species under the act and are still under the control of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The state can ask for the federal government’s permission to kill wolves that are causing “unacceptable impacts” to wild elk, deer and moose.
Gillette said the dead elk was one of about 130 that he had helped feed during the winter.
Gillette said his drive to get a wolf-banning initiative on the November ballot has failed. He said his group gathered about 41,000 signatures in six weeks, but only about 13,000 were certified. Wolf foes needed about 47,000 by last Monday.
Stone said the wolf returned the next morning to finish eating the elk.
“He pretty much ate everything that was left,” she said.
fennec, have you had to live off the land?
Do you realize the caribou population is dwindling rapidly, and it the primary source of life for the people that have lived in the north for thousands of years?
Do you realize that the only way to ensure 95% of a herds newborns don’t die is to cage them in to protect them from the wolves?
Seriously, fennec, live up north for a while, it would help you realize how your stance on banning the wolf hunt would be like condeming peopl’es livlihoods.
P.S are you a vegetarian?
Do you realize the caribou population is dwindling rapidly, and it the primary source of life for the people that have lived in the north for thousands of years?
You have a point. Hm, when did this problem start. It was around the time Europeans came over. Hm, I would have to agree that the best way to bring the population back would be to kill all the white people.
Do you realize that the only way to ensure 95% of a herds newborns don’t die is to cage them in to protect them from the wolves?
Wolves and caribou have lived side by side since at least when the first people arrived (there is a theory that they followed human beings over the landbridge from Russia to Alaska long before there was a Russia or an Alaska).
Seriously, fennec, live up north for a while, it would help you realize how your stance on banning the wolf hunt would be like condeming peopl’es livlihoods.
The humans kill the caribou and the wolves that keep their populations healthy. Your statements almost make me believe you know nothing of top down trophic cascades, and predators keeping populations healthy by killing off mainly the sick, old, and the weak. What you have said makes me think that you are ignorant of all of this. Why do you think that is? You need to brush up on your basic biology before even talking to me. You should be honored that I even address your ill thought concerns. So, congrats.
... the best way to bring the [insert one of thousands of species] population back would be to kill all the white people. ...
nodding…
no wait, that means me
... looking for an [alternate] solution
got any other ideas?
haha – as I read odin’s post I thought it was almost as if he was a fake poster setting up “arguments” in order to get owned. Then fennec posts pretty much the exact same thing I was thinking about as a response. I been reading too many continuity posts I think.
got any other ideas?
That was Opie’s idea. Trust me, there are always better ideas.
Just to let you know, the natives are the only ones hunting elk where i live, they are the only ones hunting them to extinction. Same with bald eagles, they are killing them in mass numberes for the “honor” of having the feathers.
Seriously, tell me why culling the wolves is bad?
Humans have hunted wolves for thousands of years, why stop now?
100 wolves is not the end of the world.
_ Just to let you know, the natives are the only ones hunting elk where i live, they are the only ones hunting them to extinction. Same with bald eagles, they are killing them in mass numberes for the “honor” of having the feathers._
Well, your evidence is overwhelming.
Seriously, tell me why culling the wolves is bad?
I did in the article, Opie. Can ya’ read?
Humans have hunted wolves for thousands of years
Hunted? Well, I hope they had a good reason. I haven’t actually heard of any culture that has hunted wolves. It is usually tastier and healthier to eat non-carnivorous animals. Christians actually lived in harmony with wolves until they became an easy scapegoat. They sometimes ate their livestock, so they declared war. Later on, the rest of the western world turned on wolves when during the black death wolves were sometimes seen scavenging the carcasses of the dead. Now, they were providing a service, but it’s just wrong, aint it? That you have a literally dark age view on the matter is kinda funny, really.
why stop now?
Um, because there’s no reason to continue and there was never reason to begin, retard?
100 wolves is not the end of the world.
It would be much more worth someone’s time and effort killing something that is actually destructive to the ecosystem it lives in. Killing large numbers of keystone predators is a good way to insure ungulate irruptions and other such population explosions of prey, as well as epidemics of disease.
Something tells me you ride the small bus to school where they only give you the safety scissors, they only let you draw on paper with rounded corners (to keep down on paper cuts on the tongue), with non-pointy crayons. Am I right? You are a grotesque fat fuckhead with the logic of a tire.
“Well, your evidence is overwhelming.”
A: I don’t feel like discussing where i live. It is heavy bear country though. ahalf hour drive west and you will spot about 3 bears for sure.
There are only a few hundred elk in the area, only people that hunt them are natives, because if a non-native hunted them it’s against the law. The elks are going to be vanished soon.
You didn’t give a reason except “The return to aerial wolf hunts in Alaska is shocking if you consider the opposition by the clear majority of Alaska voters”
The majority of americans wanted bush in power too. Is that all you have as a reason?
Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want wolves to go extinct, but you have to understand that some caribou herds in northern B.C/Yukon/Alaska reached 1% of their natural numbers 20 years ago, and culling of wolves by the Yukon and Alaskan government was one method that helped restore their numberes to NATURAL levels. Is righting a wrong, wrong? I don’t think so. I’m not saying it’s the wolves fault, but i believe we can heel the caribou herds, and make sure wolves are part of the eco system as well.
You are giving an opinion from California. The reality of The north western side of north america is different. Bears eat my garbage, dear eat my fruit, coyotes eat your dog, etc. Your talk comes easy living in California, you don’t have to worry about your balls freezing solid if you get locked out of your house.
You don’t live here, you don’t depend on caribou to survive, you don’t depend on seals, or whaling to live. Tofu farming isn’t viable. Yet you condemn those of whose shoes you havn’t walked in. You disgust me.
Yet again I ask, are you a vegetarian?
The majority of americans wanted bush in power too. Is that all you have as a reason?
sorry – this made me snort… had to share
It is heavy bear country though.
Bears are generally pretty heavy. I don’t see what that proves.
The majority of americans wanted bush in power too
What, about 24% wanted him in power just enough to vote for him? That’s the majority?
You didn’t give a reason except
Actually I gave plenty of reasons.
culling of wolves by the Yukon and Alaskan government was one method that helped restore their numberes to NATURAL levels.
There’s never been anything natural about culling anything. It is always trying to fix something we fucked up, and especially in the case of wolves, it has never worked.
Is righting a wrong, wrong?
Wolves evolving wasn’t a wrong. If you want to right a lot of wrongs I would advise you to look into culling humans.
but i believe we can heel the caribou herds,
Me too. It starts by stopping the killing of them. The next step is to stop killing their natural regulators. Any biologist worth their shit knows the necessity of the existence of the unmolested grey wolf in whereever they have evolved.
You are giving an opinion from California.
I am giving an evidence packed opinion from someone who knows about ethology, biology, animal behavior, and ecology with the backup of nothing but support from legitimate sources. The only opposition is from biased or close minded, entrenched individuals such as yourself.
The reality of The north western side of north america is different.
Not really. The story is sadly too alike. The American government wiped wolves out of the lower 48 as well as red wolves and grizzlies (and decimated the populations of many other carnivores), the only thing that made it difficult in the top 1 was the sheer size of the landscape and the lack of technology to overcome it. Then planes and helicopters came along.
Bears eat my garbage
And they’re the only ones, I am sure…
dear eat my fruit, coyotes eat your dog, etc.
Then move out of their territory. I have no doubt if you kill yourself none of these scary creatures will bother you anymore.
you don’t have to worry about your balls freezing solid if you get locked out of your house.
You got a heavy layer of fat to keep yourself warm.
you don’t depend on caribou to survive, you don’t depend on seals, or whaling to live.
Neither do you. Neither does anyone else.
Tofu farming isn’t viable.
You’re just so breathtakingly retarded.
Yet you condemn those of whose shoes you havn’t walked in.
Oh so breathtakingly retarded.
You disgust me.
You’re a xenophobe. Over 99% of the planet disgusts you.
Yet again I ask, are you a vegetarian?
This has less to do with my article or this thread than the question of how someone [that’s you cletus] with so many recessive traits could possibly survive past his first birthday.
Are you a vegetarian? Why is that so hard to answer?.
watch… “I am not a vegetarian”. your turn.
the majority of voters voted for bush. majority of alaskans who VOTED, also voted against the aerial hunt. You can’t count non-votes, you are retarded, that’s what voting is for.
Seriously though, yeah humans fucked up, but culling wolves has helped restore caribou numbers, as the death of newborns is predominately due to the wolves killing them.
Yes, there is people who rely on the caribou to live and survive. You’re an asshat if you don’t even know about the people who depend on caribou. Inuit for one.
Are you a vegetarian, for “humane” purposes. The question is relevant to this topic. Maybe you are against the 100 wolves being hunted because you don’t want to see wolves hurt… you sound fragile. Humans are a predator, just like wolves, deal with it.
I’m sad to see wildlife disapear int he states, i didn’t cause it though. I like the fact we have a vibrant wildlife where i live, i want to see wolves and caribou thrive, you can have both, we can hunt caribou and wolves and mantain order, that is why we have hunting lottery, and poaching laws. Humans have been hunting for 1000’s of years, deal with it.
now this makes sense..
the dude is from Prince George or some shit.
or Mackenzie…or… Burns Lake or wait.. it’s, it’s…
Chetwynd..
ha ha ha ha ….
you’re from fucking CHETWYND !
omg, omg, omg…
a northerner newfie…
who ever heard of such a thing.
you’re like a tuna from the Alps.
no wonder you’ve so many emotional problems
P.S.. just to give you an idea fen, these communities pride themselves as being the Ozarks of BC.
Are you a vegetarian?
This doesn’t have anything to do with wolves.
the majority of voters voted for bush.
Yeah, no they didn’t. The plurality didn’t even.
majority of alaskans who VOTED, also voted against the aerial hunt.
By a large margin. Considering how ass-backwards Alaskans generally are compared to the rest of the American population this is saying a lot.
You can’t count non-votes
Sure you can. I just pointed out a flaw in your statement. The majority of Americans actually didn’t vote for anyone, as opposed to what you stated.
culling wolves has helped restore caribou numbers,
You have this pathological inability to actually show proof for anything you state.
as the death of newborns is predominately due to the wolves killing them.
Of course it is. It’s something caribou have evolved to handle. It’s why they, and many other group species with many predators give birth all around the same time. Many will die, many will live. This is not a new phenomena, nazi-douche.
Are you a vegetarian, for “humane” purposes.
This doesn’t have anything to do with anything.
Maybe you are against the 100 wolves being hunted because you don’t want to see wolves hurt… you sound fragile. Humans are a predator, just like wolves, deal with it.
The death of animals for no reason would be distressing to any human who isn’t inhuman. Seeing as wolves are an integral part of the ecosystem their removal is always detrimental. It has been seen time and time again. And it isn’t a new discovery.
Humans are a predator, just like wolves, deal with it.
If people want to eat the wolves then go for it, I just haven’t heard of them being a great food source.
I’m sad to see wildlife disapear int he states, i didn’t cause it though. I like the fact we have a vibrant wildlife where i live,
So you can shoot ‘em?
Humans have been hunting for 1000’s of years, deal with it.
Humans have been hunting wolves for 1000’s of years, it’s why wolves went from being the second most numerous medium to large mammal in the northern hemisphere to one on the brink of extinction in many areas. Humans don’t hunt wolves. They kill them.
just to give you an idea fen, these communities pride themselves as being the Ozarks of BC.
I always figured Opie was the Canadian equivalent of Appalachian mountain folk.
If Fennec wishes to volunteer for a wolf, I will be willing to speak out against this barring that, this is good news if only to provide a forum for that low life piece of shit to have something to yak about instead of being the normal nauseating and insulting idiot.
The death of animals for no reason would be distressing to any human who isn’t inhuman.
The death of any animal period should be distressing for humans. I have never witnessed an animal dying that did not exibit some kind of human like fight for survival. Even bugs will flail around looking for some way out.
Maybe I have an over active imagination, or maybe I’m not a sick fuck, but killing, even a fucking mosquito, leaves me depressed.
You, fucking stormfront warrior, the savoir of the white race, you make me so mother fucking sick to my stomach…...
With all my guts, and all my soul….
DIE. Just fucking die.
c’mon now, how would you feel if he really did die?
Elated? Exultant?
Ecstatic?
The death of any animal period should be distressing for humans.
I suppose I am always in at least some small way distressed when I see an animal die. But, just like a medic can’t let every human’s dying or being injured get to them too much I can’t let every animal I see who is injured or killed (specifically to be the food for another) get to me. But, some animals show emotion and cognition and social structure that is too compelling to ignore.
Are you saying that you guys would be excited and energetic about this guy dying?
greenpeace, sea shepherd, and others interfere with japanese whaling and canadia seal hunts. i’d like to see someone get a few helicopters and disrupt the alaskan arial wolf hunts. greedpeace could afford it.
holy crap! greedpeace was a total type-o. how strange. no really, despite their deradicalized nature and their insane funding, i still really respect their work.
suuuuuuuuuuure
i swear. really. honest.
“You have this pathological inability to actually show proof for anything you state.”
“During February and May of 1993, representatives from six First Nations, local residents, and biologists gathered in Carcross to discuss what could be done to help dwindling caribou numbers in the Southern Lakes area. Out of these meetings came the Southern Lakes Caribou Recovery Plan, a five-year work plan aimed at bringing back the caribou.”
One of the methods…
“Evaluate wolf and bear numbers and harvest, and develop management policies that are consistent with the Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, to minimize the impact of predation during herd recovery.”
Go eat your tofu burger in california now. Some people in remote places can’t live on tofu; for example, a gallon milk costs 9 dollars up here, importing food is to expensive. Caribou is practical source of food and trade.
People in the north NEED the caribou numbers to be high, their life depends on it. You on the other hand fennec are selfish living in socal commenting about morality of northerners. The welfare of humans is more important than animals, only a vegetarian would think otherwise.
a gallon milk costs 9 dollars up here,
Where the fuck do you live? Alert?
I call bullshit, not that it has anything to do with anything, but I still call it.
That quote showed me nothing. Who were the biologists? Did their plan work? Why did the caribou numbers dwindle in the first place? Has direct large predator control ever worked?
Caribou is practical source of food and trade.
So what? Wolves don’t hurt their numbers. You can see that by noticing how long the two animals have lived together before caribou numbers plummeted. It’s really not that hard to see what fucked both species over.
People in the north NEED the caribou numbers to be high, their life depends on it.
Then maybe they shouldn’t kill them off?
You on the other hand fennec are selfish living in socal commenting about morality of northerners.
Anyone who has to scapegoat another species for their own failings is pathetic.
The welfare of humans is more important than animals, only a vegetarian would think otherwise.
Then humans should stop endangering themselves. Wolves didn’t hurt humans, dumbass. It was and is the other way around. Take some responsibility for your actions you dimwitted fuck.
only a vegetarian would think otherwise.
You really should kill yourself.
I call bullshit, not that it has anything to do with anything, but I still call it.
It has something to do with his unfailing dishonesty…
oops, here is the link
http://www.yfwmb.yk.ca/comanagement/mgmtplans/slcrp/goals.html
P.S, i’ve had death threats i rather not say where i live…
“Then humans should stop endangering themselves. Wolves didn’t hurt humans, dumbass. It was and is the other way around. Take some responsibility for your actions you dimwitted fuck.”
Are you a retarded gunt fennec? I already stated it wasn’t the wolves fault above. I also stated it was humans decades ago that fucked it up, that is why we have a wolf conservation and a caribou conservation efforts. Killing some wolves to mantain caribou doesn’t mean the wolves will go extinct..you fucking idiot.
P.S. you need to live up north for a while before you post retarded and selfish comments again.
i’ve had death threats
That’s encouraging. It’s strange that your own mother would want to end you, but she is only doing it for the good of humanity.
Here, hunters took an average of 9 caribou per year 1979 and 1992, out of an estimated population of 100-150 animals. This exceeded the 3% harvest level which is sustainable in northern woodland caribou herds. Residents of Carcross and Tagish also reported excessive shooting of animals in their area, by poachers and both local and non-resident First Nations hunters.
Good to know. 150 caribou is a very low population to expect to stay stable. That weather wasn’t factored in is telling of the irresponsible study. A complete moratorium should have been put on the population and big sentences for hunters. Wolves won’t destroy a population (on their own). They will kill the young, sick, and the old…and not out of morality, out of necessity. It is the only animals they are capable of. If there are too few of these less fit individuals they will switch to another species.
P.S. you need to live up north for a while before you post retarded and selfish comments
I think that would probably help contribute to posting retarded and selfish comments, but I think there are other factors in your case.
no, they attack the newborns. I remember one group reported that 80% of all newborns from a herd of 200 died due to predation. Now, if the herd was 40,000, that might be not that bad. Though the numbers weren’t 40,000, humans fucked up, but we have to do everything possible to maintain and boost their numbers.
Controlling the wolves is one method that has worked.
You can’t argue it hasn’t been 1 peice of the puzzle that worked to restore the caribou numbers.
a gallon milk costs 9 dollars up here, importing food is to expensive.
holy fuck… I’m willing to sell you gallons of milk for at least…hmm how about a full dollar off of that price… seriously. Where do you live. I won’t tell anyone..I’ll even deliver… wow..
this might actually spawn a new career move for JL
Think I’ll need to go all out and get me one of them fancy blue caps too.
importing food is to expensive.
So do you live off Cariboo and wolf exclusively? Or do you vary your diet with squirrel and the occasional 9 dollar gallon of milk?
Alright on a more serious note.. what’s one of these goin for up there ?
Bombardier 800
As in NEW , not used.
“Alright on a more serious note.. what’s one of these goin for up there ?”
One “reparation” cheque from the government for enrolling a native in a school.
the query was legit.. check yer PM’s.. you got mail
there’d obviously be something quite decent in it for someone up in your area… your not interested..oh well
no, they attack the newborns. I remember one group reported that 80% of all newborns from a herd of 200 died due to predation. Now, if the herd was 40,000, that might be not that bad. Though the numbers weren’t 40,000, humans fucked up, but we have to do everything possible to maintain and boost their numbers.
That they do. It’s called differential survival (evolution). Ungulates are usually altricial, and it is the most fit who escape. If they can’t save the herd the way they wish, then fucking up the rest of the ecosystem isn’t the solution. Maybe, they should try starting a captive breeding program.
Controlling the wolves is one method that has worked.
Apparentally it hasn’t.
You can’t argue it hasn’t been 1 peice of the puzzle that worked to restore the caribou numbers.
Sure I can.
So do you live off Cariboo and wolf exclusively? Or do you vary your diet with squirrel and the occasional 9 dollar gallon of milk?
heh
okay… let me check my e-mail.
On a serious note, a “reparation” check is the real price.
They are $8000+ those checks and so are ATV’s and snowmobiles.
Snowmobiles are going through the fucking roof, they sold like a years worth in 2 weeks.
P.S, i rather not even tell you confidentially where i live. Plus, you’ve threatened to assault me, so i don’t feel like “giving you business”
I will give you this tip though: if you want to sell ATV or snowmobles, just go anywhere the natives are getting “forced relocation” or “forced schooling” checks.
Do the research yourself to find out where.
Just go anywhere natives are getting checks.
“captive breeding program.”
They have started it. They coerce half the herd in a fenced in area for the birthing, and until the newborns are strong enough to escape attack from predators.
I tell you this, isn’t restricting newborn caribou from the wolves going to lead to wolves dying off as well?
If you restrict their food source, you will hurt the wolves numbers. So either way, wolves die. Live with it you shit packing vegetarian .
“Apparentally it hasn’t.” actually it has worked because the caribou herds are recovering ever since they started using those methods, one of which was monitoring(and killing) some of wolf population.
They have started it. They coerce half the herd in a fenced in area for the birthing, and until the newborns are strong enough to escape attack from predators.
Good.
I tell you this, isn’t restricting newborn caribou from the wolves going to lead to wolves dying off as well?
Some wolves will die, others will survive.
If you restrict their food source, you will hurt the wolves numbers.
Wolves don’t only eat caribou. A lone wolf could scarcely catch something that size. A caribou that defends itself against a wolf is going to escape almost without fail. It’s a good thing there are other animals to eat.
So either way, wolves die.
Killing wolves directly (or pretty much anything) is the most easily perverted form of environmental control. At least without killing them the most clever and powerful will survive, the best packs will thrive, and evolution is allowed to continue more or less unimpeded.
Live with it you shit packing vegetarian .
I never said I was a vegetarian.
actually it has worked because the caribou herds are recovering ever since they started using those methods, one of which was monitoring(and killing) some of wolf population.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It’s not a coincidental correlation.
sorry fen… for dumping this tripe onto your blog…
post deeeeeeeeeleted
No i realize the potential to make money, i just don’t want some prick that threatens me pocketing any $$ because of me.
I have enough money, I don’t need your fucking money.
Is everything about money to you?
LoL. This is good, having you ramble like a crazed nutjob was worth it.
deep six this bitch
“what can I say, I guess fudgepackers like you bring out the best in me… :)”
Wow, you cut me deep…not. The only shit packer here is fennec.
read.
“Live with it you shit packing vegetarian “ – me
“I never said I was a vegetarian” – fennec
c’mon now, how would you feel if he really did die?
Pretty fucking good. The guy is a literal piece of shit – takes no responsibility for his actions and thinks he as a right to fuck with other peoples lives based on Jewish bullshit.
Since he has a right to fuck with people – I would say that destroying this mother fuckers life is justified equally. As they give – give in return. Obviously the guy was never educated into the art of leave people the fuck alone and thinks that he has a right to impose his fucking Jewish paradigm on everyone else.
And he wonders why people have a rather healthy respect for the low life mentality of Jewish culture?
Can anyone say “Gay Nigger”, “Israel”, “Fennec”?
All part of the same low life that to this day still is dragging humanity into the cesspool.
Forest service trying to slip new rules for predator slaughter by public
Killing Wolves to Save Caribou Decried
Jan 12 2006 © Copyright Red Deer Advocate
EDMONTON (CP) — Naturalists are criticizing the Alberta government for killing wolves in a last-ditch attempt to save endangered woodland caribou.
The Little Smoky herd in the foothills north of Hinton is one of three distinct caribou populations in Alberta at ‘‘immediate risk’’ of disappearing, warns a provincial report. The herd shrank by two-thirds between 1988 and 2000, said a government spokesman. It’s estimated about 100 animals remain. While environmentalists aren’t suggesting an end to the wolf cull, they say the government should stop new industrial development in the area as well.
Instead, the province is busy selling more leases to companies in the area inhabited by the Little Smoky herd. ‘‘There would be nothing wrong if it was part of the total package, but you can’t put it all on the shoulder of the wolf and ignore the impact of the oil and gas activity,’’ said Glen Semenchuk, executive director of the Federation of Alberta Naturalists. Semenchuk is a member of the Alberta Caribou Committee, which is trying to find a way for the sensitive woodland caribou to coexist with industrial activity. He said the committee was told about the wolf culls ‘‘after the fact.’’
Dave Ealey, spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, said the cull was planned months ago and the caribou committee knew it was scheduled for this winter. Biologists found ideal conditions for the cull earlier than expected and had to take advantage of them, which is why the committee only found out about the actual kill later, he said.
Four wolves have been removed so far from three packs targeted by government biologists, Ealey said. More removals are planned later in the winter. He couldn’t specify how the wolves were killed.
Biologists concluded it’s necessary to reduce the size of the wolf packs, which roam the core of the caribou herd’s territory, to give the herd some breathing room, Ealey said. But studies in other areas have shown predator populations need to be cut by at least half to see a significant improvement in caribou survival rates, said Stan Boutin, a University of Alberta biology professor, who is a member of the caribou committee.
The Alberta Wilderness Association acknowledges the wolf cull might be necessary. But while the government is taking action to help the caribou, some of its policies have the opposite effect, suggested David Samson, a conservation specialist. ‘‘It seems like they’re saying one thing in public and then quietly stepping out of the way of oil and gas,’’ he said.
Ealey said environmental organizations typically ask for a moratorium on further development.
Just saw a program on Animal Planet about this odd guy who studies wolves. Shaun Ellis seems to have found out an innovative and non destructive way to keep wolves from livestock.
Here’s an interview with him
He doesn’t mention it in the interview, but he figured out a way to take advantage of the fact that wolves don’t generally like to venture into other wolves territories, and they broadcast their territories and boundaries by howling. His idea is simply to broadcast the howls of a wolf pack from a livestock ranch that has issues with depredation by wolves. He tried it in Poland and it seems to work, so far. Unfortunately I can’t find much on this on the internet, and it was just an hour long doc, so it doesn’t mention too much on the details of frequency, or if he has tried this elsewhere since, and how well it has worked.
good place for this:
Sarah Palin’s Shocking Animal Cruelty
GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, “the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose.”
But it’s not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation—it’s her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state’s wolves and other creatures.
Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States — and that’s a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation’s worst governor doesn’t end up just a heartbeat away from the nation’s most important job.
Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don’t represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps — practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska’s predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
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What a cunt.