Ending endangered species protection could give hunters a shot at predators

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i guess

you're a vegetarian?
and forgive me but small picturesque i missed the answer vis a vis objectivism for the cattleman. and the street i was talking about? it has a sign that says one way.

i'm not cool with wiping out wolves but i would blast one if it threatened the pony goats or chickens here. i wish se had a few would cut down on coyotes. i live and let live with the bears and bobcats here i enjoy em. the coyotes are almost like rats. a pain though i kinda like em too away from my chickens

so why is the cattleman disallowed the right to his pursuit of objectivist happiness? my experience with the western range practice is that the cattle move quite a bit unlike in the east where the are openned up and do in fact generate some nasty conditions for those downstream. though we have programs here that reduce that by fencing off the rivers and pumping water up to the livestock
 
ESA vs Management

....not having such restrictions in place lead to people killing most of them off under the pretense of defense or safety. People are just not responsible enough (on average) to preserve if you put the choice in thier hands.
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Zoog - can't tell from your post if you're a hunter - but hunters have been a big part of the preservation, comeback and current flourishing state of whitetail deer and wild turkeys across the country, in numbers like we've never seen before. And I trust the Idaho FWS to properly manage this situation better than Fed.gov, so if they think there are enough wolves to allow select shooting or hunting, more power to them.

As for others who have claimed that wolves only go after the weak and cull the herd, that's just romantic BS that's outlived its usefulness. Check on the HEALTHY biologist tracked and killed by a wolfpack in Canada within the past 18 months, as well as the HEALTHY Canadian jogger who was attacked by a wolf and was only saved because a bus of his fellow mine workers came by and were able to help.

I hunt in Alaska every other Fall or so, and like having wolves and bears around - it brings home the fact that you're really in a WILD place. But predators in my opinion do need to have some fear of man, or the predator/human conflicts increase and can be too frequent. No way to instill that fear that I'm aware of, without allowing some reasonable level of management via hunting or controlled population reduction.

Cosmoline can cay all of this a lot better than I can, if he's around.

Michael
 
Well, if hunting wolves is like any other kind of animal the state will give only so many permits out. So long as the population isn't going to be exterminated what's the big deal? Limited hunts are fine with me.
 
Finally the state is able to take over.

I know a rancher in SW New Mexico that ran afoul of the federal government when he found federal employees on his land. When he asked them what they were doing there they told him he didn't have a right to know as it was some kind of federal business. He told them to get the hell of his property, which they grudgingly did. A little while later he started to notice predation on his herd. Other area ranchers and homeowners reported the same. It seems the feds released a pack into the Gila National Forest without telling any of the locals about it.
I asked him what he intended to do about it. He just smiled and said, "It's already sorted itself out".
 
I disagree, just go diving someplace in the ocean where humans rarely disturb and you will see more life in 1 acre underwater than in 50 acres on land. I think on land was not quite as rich but pretty close before people disturbed migrations and interupted the cycle through exploiting for trophies, fur, or just protecting thier domestic animals by slaughtering all predators.
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As mech ag said, there's natural and dead spots in ocean. Also, that's just an anecdote. Because you went diving and saw lots of pretty fishes and colorful things doesn't mean it's a perfect, beautiful balance, vibrant, circle of life etc. It doesn't mean you have any understanding whatsoever of the dynamics of that ecosystem just because you went diving and it looked pretty. You don't have any information on the stock any life forms in the area, the rate of production of biomass and how it's being maintained. Maybe those pretty purple starfish you saw covering the bottom of the ocean floor were currently exploding in population and decimating the shellfish population, which would later be causing an algal bloom? Just because everything is colored and looked pretty on the surface doesn't mean that ecosystem wasn't changing. Environments are always changing. This is evolution. Every species you saw on that dive was competing with another, and not being a perfect balance, sometimes that causes extinction. New species move in to take over that niche, the ecosystem changes, and life goes on for some, and not for others.
 
As my first post I'm going to anger some people, but I so do not care. Predators can be hunted legaly without a permit here in Canada if they are on private land and you have permission or if you are collecting the wolf bounty up in Northern Alberta. If you are afraid for your life you may also shoot a predator with no ill effects from the government.
That said the wolves that are being reintroduced into the States do often come from Canada, the area's where the wolves are being released often do not have wild herds of game animals any longer because, get this, HUMANS HAVE KILLED THEM ALL.
That's right, wolves have killed a human here in Canada for the first time for the record. Were they sick? We have no answers except the media sensationalistic B.S. to go on. I have lived around wild animals all my life and I have this to say, once upon a time the world was ballanced and the wolf hunted the weak and the sick but because herds of ungulates no longer excist in the levels neccesary they have adapted just like human's to survive in this environment. Humans have caused this problem so is the answer killing off the wolf? No. I have no qualms about shooting a predator in self defence whether it is two legged or four but the wolf will never be hunted for sport by myself and I will do everything in my power to defend them from the real enemy.
 
Wolves should not be hunted, rather they should be exterminated.
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Yes, by all means we should exterminate all animals that frighten us or stand in the way of our livelihood. Or people, for that matter.
 
I recently read a paper on the wolves in yellowstone, and all the benefits they brought. They really need to be restored throughout most of their old range, we could use some over here, the deer populations are out of control, and chronic wasting disease is spreading. I have no problem with people killing them to protect themselves and their property, however, it would be a shame if the hysteria large predators incite resulted in excessive killings. It would harm future de-listings if once they were delisted, they were brought right back down into endangered status. They'd put them back on the list and you'd never get them off again.

A random fact I learned a few weeks ago, there have been no documented cases of people being killed by wolves in the US. The ones in Canada mentioned earlier were the first in over a hundred years.

I have no experience in raising livestock in wolf populated areas, but arent there fences?
 
There are a Few Animals Left

LoneWolfAlpha,

First off, welcome to THR.

Next, gotta call BS to parts of your thread. Yes we know that many of the grey wolves introduces in the western US came form Canada, but at the time of their introduction the elk population in most of those states seemed to be doing pretty well, actually. It's funny that in some areas there seems to be a significant decrease in elk sightings and population density, since the intro of the wolves.

As for wolves hunting the weak and the sick, is there any data you can point to in support of this? Wolves and other predators kill what they can catch - that's what predators do. And no, they don't only kill to survive and eat, sometimes they kill simply because that's their predatory instinct.

Maybe it seems like the humans have killed "all" the animals up in some parts of Canada, but there are still plenty of elk in the western US. And if the western states are given the freedom to manage the wolf population as they wish, there's a good chance that will remain the case.

Michael
 
Maybe it seems like the humans have killed "all" the animals up in some parts of Canada, but there are still plenty of elk in the western US. And if the western states are given the freedom to manage the wolf population as they wish, there's a good chance that will remain the case.
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Are you suggesting that the wolves would kill off the elk?
 
MDHunter,
Thankyou for the welcome to this forum, I did not expect it.
First off let me assure you that there are plenty of elk in Canada, the government insists on draw hunting for most area's, and furthermore the elk herds being eaten in the area's of the Western U.S.A. where the Canuck wolves have been rereleased should come as no surprise as the wolves were wiped out almost a generation ago in these area's and the ungulates have forgoten about them (or so it would seem). Please clarify the points where you are calling B.S. please, I can't realy understand which points which you wish to dispute.
Maybe one point that I did make (but may not have clarified) is that we should not be reintroducing the wolf into an environment where the animal's and the human's have forgoten them. You helped to clarify this in your post.
 
Clarification

Roscoe,

Sorry for my ambiguity - no, not suggesting that wolves would kill off all the elk, but if unmanaged they will certainly make a dent in the herd. I've been following some of the stories on various forums for several months - if the assertions many are making there are accurate, the Fed.gov significantly underestimated how often the gray's reproduce, and the number of pups in the litter. If I understand things, in several states (Idaho being an example) the target number of wolves has been exceeded by a fair amount, and wolves are doing more damage to cattle and sheep than .gov anticipated (thus their willingness to NOW turn this "problem" over to the state).

LWA,

I think you'll find at the High Road, as long as you disagree with others civilly and refrain from personal attacks, there's a lot of good discourse to be had and lots to be learned from both sides of most debates. As for my BS call - it was mainly around the "Humans have Killed Them All" assertion, I should have been clearer.

Michael
 
Michael;
First of all, if my post appears as a personal attack it was not ment as such! I have no intention of starting an argument with someone that I can't share a tequila with in person, the internet is much too impersonal, my statement of "humans have killed them all" would have been much better served as "human's have upset the ballance that nature designed"-the failing in explanation was certainly all mine. I look forward to future debates here on this forum, which is kind of odd because I found it while researching Norway's Krag rifles and this topic fired me up to join and comment.

J.C.
 
the Fed.gov significantly underestimated how often the gray's reproduce, and the number of pups in the litter.
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No surprise here. How well any wild animal species grows is a matter of food supply, minus natural enimies.

Introducing a wild animal in to an area with good food suppply and no ememies will give a far grater population growth than anticipated. What is a better food supply than some cows or calves that has no fear of a wolf since they have never expieriened seeing one? The wolf's only enemy would be man.

Hunt a wolf for sport? No,thank you. If I had a cattle ranch with wolves on it, there would be some S, S, SU.
 
characterized roughly by a logistic equation PFn = PF(n-1)- DF*PF(n-1)
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Don't suppose you can expand on this? Most of us don't mess with logic equations(I only discovered them when my older brother took a few classes with it), and have no idea how to interpret that.

Fear of predators is a good point. Perhaps part of management would be to introduce fearful prey animals to help speed the learning curve?
 
Even if all the 1200-1500 wolves currently roaming around MT, WY, and ID were killed off, the wolves would still not be "endangered." The fed.gov transplanted them down from Canada, where there are still millions more wolves up there where they came from. As a species, wolves are not at all endangered.

Some of the posters on here have clearly been lapping up the radical enviro-nazi bull-****, just like the anti-gunners have blindly digesting the garbage from the Brady Bunch, etc. I'm a little fuzzy on just what some of you city folks expect the people that have lived out here for generations to do with their land if they don't raise cattle? Would you prefer that they sell it off for housing developments? Or maybe sell it to some rich movie star who will then forbid all hunting by the general public? (most of the family ranches allow public hunting to some extent). The truth is that the family owned ranches (my friends and neighbors) maintain most of the "open space" remaining in the western US.

And if you drive the rural culture off the land, you can kiss the last of your gun "rights" goodbye, because you sure aren't going to get much support from the urban folks.:rolleyes:

BTW, didn't wolves, cougars, and black bears used to live in all of what is now the eastern united states??? What are you doing to re-introduce those species in your home town? Why don't you tear down those multi-story beehives where all those bloated and farting city people live, and give it all back to the wildlife? :p

Why is it that the people in the West are supposed to give up their homes and lifestyles to provide for some city dwellers' wilderness fantasy? :fire:

The wolves really don't bother me much personally (as I said earlier, I like them as long as they are living in some national park or wilderness area) but the attitudes of the enviro-nazis just make me want to shoot any wolf I might see just on general principles.:evil:
 
Manedwolf, you were rocking along okay until you came up with, "Modern beef cattle hordes are the OPPOSITE, wreaking havoc on the plains, on the slash-and-burned rain forests, all that."

Sorry, but I started learning about the "cow bidness" in 1940. Had some vocational ag. in high school. Ran cows on the old family place from 1968-1980. Others of my family have been in "agribusiness" in Texas since around 1840. Yeah, "18", not "19". :)

Modern beef cattle operations are highly land-sensitive, or the ranchers would go broke. "Carrying capacity" is a very important term to any rancher. That is, you learn how many acres per cow are required before you stock any pasture. You rotate pastures to avoid over-grazing. I got my winter hay from pastures that the cattle grazed for part of the year.

And if you take all livestock off a range, the hooves don't churn the surface and certain native seeds don't get "planted" by that hoof action. You also then convert grasslands to scrub-brush country, same as happened from the over-grazing of the 1800s in many parts of the west. (No grass, no stock, brush then comes back.) But the 1800s were over a hundred years ago and what happened then has zilch, zip, nada to do with today's world.

Kowboy is totally wrong about "pittance" as to costs for leasing of BLM & USFS lands. On private lands, the landowner commonly provides barns, corrals, water supplies, etc. On public lands, the leasing rancher provides all those features--and they don't come for free.

Some areas, like southeast Texas or southern Florida, you can run a cow to the acre. Around Austin, Texas, it's about eight acres per cow. In the grasslands around Marfa, Texas, about twenty acres per cow. You get out around Van Horn and the opinion of the ranchers in that country is that you can run as many cows per section as you get inches of rain per year. Well, a section is 640 acres, and they get about six inches of rain in that part of the country. Much of the BLM range is the same. I've been there.

When you need 100 acres for an animal unit (cow and calf), and a calf is worth $400, your gross income is then $4 per acre. A good mama cow costs around $800 on the hoof.

What's a decent income for a family? Do the people who provide our food come anywhere near deserving the chance to earn a good middle-class income? Assuming all goes well and you can lease 25,000 BLM acres, you could (in theory) gross $100,000. From that, you subtract the lease price and the payments on the ranch facilities financing. And subtract labor costs and winter feed and the cost of your horses, trucks and trailers.

So when I see folks talking about ranching, I can't help but laugh. I've forgotten more about that than most folks will ever know.

Art
 
Bears in the East

BTW, didn't wolves, cougars, and black bears used to live in all of what is now the eastern united states??? What are you doing to re-introduce those species in your home town? Why don't you tear down those multi-story beehives where all those bloated and farting city people live, and give it all back to the wildlife?
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Black Bears are getting more abundant here in Maryland....we have even had the opportunity to draw a bear tag the past two years, when 30-45 bears were harvested per season. Before 2005, it had been 50 years since the last bear hunt in Maryland.

Of course, it didn't happen without a debate....some of our cultured politicians in Prince Georges and Montgomery counties felt that a bear hunt wasn't needed, and tried to block the hunt....the delegate from the western part of the state (where the bears are starting to become a nuisance around farms and homesteads) took care of this by introducing a bill on the floor that would require EVERY Maryland county to have at least one wild black bear. Seems the folks in Monty and PG county didn't love the bears THAT much....so we got our hunt.

I know that's not what you were talking about, just wanted to send an FYI on the predator issue in MD at the moment.

Michael
 
Idaho and Minnesota have almost identical land areas. The most recent count by the feds (Gray Wolf Biologue) estimates the current Minnesota wolf population at 3020. That's right, more than three thousand.

Number of children killed and eaten by wolves in MN in the last thirty years, i.e., since the ESA came into effect: 0.

Number of children attacked by wild wolves in MN in the last thirty years: 0.

Number of people in MN who came to accept the presence of wolves, even as the wolves moved into the outskirts of the 2 million-person Twin Cities metro area: More and more, by far a large majority these days.

Number of adult humans attacked and killed in North America (i.e., all of AK, all of Canada, and the whole rest of the continent) by wolves in the last thirty years: 1 known case.

Here's a deal I will make available to all comers:

1. Go read Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men, cover to cover. You might find it in a bookstore; it will certainly be in most large libraries.
2. Post a list here of ANYTHING you want me to read on the subject of wolves.
3. We'll meet back here and talk about our attitudes toward wolves and how they were formed.
 
And Your Point Is?

Eidsvolling,

Not sure what point you're trying to make with your post - are you saying that wolves are cuddly and we should treat them as pets, or something else?

I'd read all the books you mentioned, figured this was easier and faster...

Michael
 
My point is, be interested enough in this subject to read just one single book on the history of human attitudes towards wolves. And then come back here and talk about it.

I'm willing to do the same, on any title anyone cares to list here.

Who's brave enough?
 
"Carrying capacity" is a very important term to any rancher. That is, you learn how many acres per cow are required before you stock any pasture.
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In central and eastern Montana, I think 40 acres per cow/calf pair is about average. That's assuming you get enough moisture (12-15 inches/year).

So one section of land (square mile, or 640 acres for you city folk) would support 16 cows, and produce 16 calves - minus losses to predators, disease, weather, and just plain bad luck.

I've heard folks say it takes about 100 cows to (barely) support a family. So that means they would need about 4,000 acres of range.

I dunno what the wolf numbers really are in Minnesota, but comparing that state with Montana is pretty well useless because of the difference in precipitation. Stock raising methods are bound to differ as well - you don't just put your stock in the barn at night when they are out grazing on 10 sections of range land.:rolleyes:

And I will keep repeating: it's not really the wolves themselves that are the problem, it's the fact that landowners cannot protect themselves and their property under the current "endangered" federal management status. De-listing the wolves and turning the management over to the states will solve that problem.
 
Don't suppose you can expand on this? Most of us don't mess with logic equations(I only discovered them when my older brother took a few classes with it), and have no idea how to interpret that.

Fear of predators is a good point. Perhaps part of management would be to introduce fearful prey animals to help speed the learning curve?
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Sure. It's just an expansion of the lokta-volterra model used to model growth of populations, with interspecific competition between species. The growth of the prey species relative to time Pfn equals the fecundity, (the reproductive rate of the prey) PF(n-1) minus the search and encounter frequency of the predator times the number of predators and prey. DF*PF(n-1)
 
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