Since this topic is Going on and on. I will start a different thread.
Bringing over the last response from Lungbutter and my response so we can continue this debate.
Which I'm sure will end up in the Dumbgeon.
LungButter wrote:
WHEN the wolves cause damage it is paid for right out of tax payers pockets.
These wolves will cost the state of Colorado MILLIONS of dollars and will also make some attorneys very very rich in the process as there is bound to be many court battles coming as the goal posts continually move regarding the goals of recovery.
This is not to mention that these wolves have been reintroduced into a world they never lived in with massive freeways and highways separating their range. Not to mention all the development of cities and housing that sits on the land the wolves once called home.
It’s just a mess that nobody needed except a few folks who like to sit at home and fantasize about how wolves exist now….while their day to day pampered suburb lives are never affected one bit. And it’s laughable to think any of them will ever even see a wolf in the wild.
It’s funny, none of these wolf lovers want Grizz in their back yard though. The “rewilding” talk seems to slow down once they know their kids could be a meal anytime they go outside the house. Some of you will think that’s an exaggeration….those of us that live and spend copious amounts of time in Grizz country know that it’s not.
So Mr. Carrol, can we also send some Grizz to your backyard since you are passionate about intact ecosystems?
My response;
Dig your passionate response, I'm not your enemy on the topic but do enjoy a good discussion.
1. these wolves have been reintroduced into a world they never lived in with massive freeways and highways separating their range.
Wrong; They were captured in Oregon, up around your area of the Nation and released to Grand County, CO 40.31499380095622, -106.44603058387278. know where near a heavy population but more like the area they were taken from.
Furthermore;
Each gray wolf was weighed and measured. collected genetic material – tissue and blood samples – before fitting each with a GPS satellite collar for tracking upon release by CPW staff. Then, the wolves were given vaccines and were placed in crates and flown to Colorado for release back into the wild.
CPW project marks another milestone in the long CPW tradition of species recovery in Colorado. These include the black-footed ferret, one of North America’s rarest mammals, the 1999 effort to reintroduce the lynx, the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, the greenback cutthroat trout, and many more.
2. It’s just a mess that nobody needed except a few folks who like to sit at home and fantasize about how wolves exist now….while their day to day pampered suburb lives are never affected one bit. And it’s laughable to think any of them will ever even see a wolf in the wild.
Wrong; Wolves and all wildlife owned this land waaaay before Humans started building upon it. the pampered suburb lives will prevail and grow. Why shouldn't the Wolves and Wildlife? Your philosophy is to eradicate Wolves, Grizz and any other wildlife that harms your beloved atmosphere?
3. Some of you will think that’s an exaggeration….those of us that live and spend copious amounts of time in Grizz country know that it’s not.
Now were bringing Grizz in this?. Why not the Zombie apocalypse since were reaching?
So it's all of Americas/World fault that you decided to live in "Grizz, Wolves" country?
Guess what?, Most of you all moved here from Europe into Grizz/Wolves/Wildlife country. So lets kill all of them off!, YEAH!!
Grab the pitchforks, were going after anything that disturbs us.
You sound like someone that is inline with Antifa?
All wildlife needs to be cherished and preserved. No argument, no debate...just preserved.
I brought Grizz into it as an example that your "intact ecosystems" argument doesn't hold much water. You also live in historical Grizzly country, so if you want a complete ecosystem and biodiversity, we should bring them back to you as well right? Bison as well right? They shouldn't cause any issues.....
The "you live in their backyard" is the weakest argument around, we ALL live in their backyard, it's just that folks in the suburbs typically don't think it applies to them because they are so desensitized to the real wild world. I'd also like to point out that humans are animals, we belong here just as much as any other animal does.
NOWHERE have I said that wolves should be fully eradicated. I just don't think the millions of dollars spent on this re-introduction was necessary or a good idea. Wolves were already in Colorado from Wyoming, shouldn't we have just let nature take it's course and let them spread naturally?
At the end of the day, this will be a net negative for Colorado. Your Elk herd will take a big hit over the next couple decades which is going to lead to a big loss of tourism dollars.
Even more money will be wasted in court battles and studies of these wolves.
Another thing you can expect is to see more and more Elk starting to live in more urban areas and closer to humans as they start to realize they are safer in those areas since the Wolves will be smart enough to avoid humans at all costs. This will lead to more elk/vehicle collisions for one thing and it will also lead to Elk living in farming areas causing damages that have to be paid for by someone.....that means you Colorado taxpayers.
It's a passionate topic for sure. Nobody has the 100% correct answer but I think you can look at Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to see what is going to happen and a lot of it isn't positive for many humans or wildlife.
Open up your pocketbooks Colorado folks, cause this is what is headed your way....
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2022/06/rancher-dozens-of-sheep-killed-in…
https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/newshound/2013/08/two-wolves-kill-176…
Open range grazing has its risks. Out here we’ve had an interesting run with mountain lions.
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LB, here’s where you lost your audience:
”Funny timing too, was driving to Christmas dinner and saw the local trapper here with 2 dead wolves on his UTV. Merry Christmas in deed! I’ll do my best to get out before the end of the year and shoot a couple for you fellas as well!”
We understand that sometimes wildlife must be culled for the general well-being of the population, agriculture, etc. It’s when the killing is glorified, as above, that people start to push back. Your message may have merit, but your messaging needs work.
This is a bigger issue of predator species and to many the introduction of wolves and grizzlies is actually a part of an anti hunting, anti grazing movement.
Eliminate the human(hunting) as the top predator species and in its place have wolves, bears and cougars.
Wolves are pretty unique and there really aren’t a lot of good comparisons with other predators out there. You can have a fairly healthy population of cougar, bear, etc., and still have fairly low predation on cattle. Wolves seem to do much more damage even with far lower numbers of animals.
It really is a complicated issue, and both ‘sides’ have some pretty good arguments for their positions. I hate the idea of eliminating a species simply for our convenience, but it’s hard to fathom what ‘natural’ populations of wolves can do to cattle too.
Fair point.
My counter argument to that would be how I was given a website to a zoo with tame wolves you could take your picture with as knowledge of and experience with wolves. This is just as harmful for the other sides argument in my opinion as it is not seated in reality at all. Wolves are not something from a Disney movie that you snuggle and take pictures with. They are one of the most ruthless apex predators on the planet, to justify your argument of wanting them on the landscape by using fairy tales does nothing for the support of wolves, it only drives those of us with real world experience further away.
I don't hate the wolves for what they do, they are just doing what wolves do.
What I hate is folks in big population centers that think they know what they are talking about because they went to pet some tame wolves or watched a biased documentary on YouTube. These same folks then get all dramatic and emotional and push for decisions that won't affect them and they have no true knowledge of but they will feel better about because Wolves exist in some far off land far from their suburb. Their lives aren't affected one iota, they don't truly care about a "complete ecosystem" or whatever other crap, that is just the justification given. To the pro-wolf folks 99% of the time a "complete ecosystem" means they don't have to drive more than 5 minutes to find the next Starbucks.
Something tells me some opinions might differ if ya'll found a dead Cow Elk in your neighborhood in the Spring with the asshole eaten out and it's Calf pulled out of the womb to be some wolfs breakfast..... Colorado soccer moms went to the ballot box because they want cute cuddly wolves....not because they want the reality of what Wolves actually do...
Wolves are beautiful animals but as soon as they start fucking with my shit they are gonna get dropped just like coyotes messing with my shit or any other predator.
It’s like the idiots that think it’s cute to feed deer in a suburb and then are outraged when they start getting smoked by cars and are dead on the side of the road in front of their house.
Movies paint them as dogs with a "wild" side, maybe they can be tamed and loved type thing. Or people see one in a sanctuary, thats been " domesticated" since a pup, Instagram reels type thing. All bad examples. They hunt , and kill like any predator does.
The "humanization" of animals (as pushed by movies, television, cartoons and social) is actually a major issue that never gets talked about. It's completely changed-for the worse-the way a huge chunk of the human population view animals-wild and domestic-and their roll in the world.
The wolf reintroduction is challenging on many fronts. I can tell you first hand in wisconsin/UP of Michigan (we had an estimated 100 in 1999-2000 and now have an estimate of 800-1400) it has decimated the deer population in the north. The DNR has done a poor job of managing them from the start and public opinion is very low of wolves in general (in WI). We occasionally get stories of wolves being spotted in some central and southern counties now. As stated by some, I think eradication is not the answer but having some strong clear guidelines is a must. The reintroduction in WI, along with poor management has crippled the deer hunting season for the state. Which was one of, if not the biggest recreational activity in the state as far as participants and dollars spent.
What about the wolves the govt bought from a lab in Canada and placed in Idaho? I’m talking about the 200 pounders that have been videoed slowly killing a pregnant cow elk and not eating either the cow or the calf. They seem to be killing for the fun of it. Plenty of videos online of it happening. I’ve always been fascinated by wolves but also understand they need controlled.
Somebody has to limit the numbers ,no wildlife expert would ever question that .
Actually, plenty of wildlife experts would probably question that with the reasoning that the prey population would help regulate the wolf population and vice versa. In a perfect world that would probably be true, but we've changed the balances of the ecosystems so much that it's impossible to really know what would happen naturally anymore. In reality we are most likely choosing our own harvesting of deer and elk over the natural predation done by wolves, and any time that the wolf packs start decreasing our own hunting pool we are calling it a crisis, even though it is most likely part of a natural ebb and flow.
Rough numbers here but the hunting population took 235k deer in NYS last year ,a wolf can eat 15 to 25 deer per year depending on what food sources are available ,that's alot of wolves to take 235k deer every year just in one state alone.
Brought from a lab?
200 pounders?
Got any actual facts to back that up or just what you've read in Facebook comments? I've shot several at this point and been around a lot of dead ones, never seen one at 200lbs or even close really. It's pretty well known the wolves we got in Idaho were from Canada but now we're going with they were grown in a lab? Really?
You do bring up a valid point though, Wolves are one of very few species that will "sport hunt" meaning killing just to kill and not eat it. Sometimes they think it's done to train the younger pack members to hunt, sometimes they think it's done just cause they want to have fun. This is the stuff the wolf lovers don't want to think about or see, they just want to think of them as fuzzy little puppies frolicking in the mountains, not the vicious killers that they are.
Lung I believe I’ve gotta eat crow on this one. I searched for awhile and can’t find shit. I swear I remember reading an article about the govt paying a high fee for some large ass wolves from Canada that they then placed in Idaho. All I can find is article after article about people claiming Idaho is going to kill off 2/3 of the states wolf population. Says it was approve in May of this year.
Pit Row
The wolves we got did come from Canada, they just weren't grown in a lab....unless there is some deep state conspiracy stuff going on that nobody knows about or can prove.
Some folks claim the Canadian wolves were a "larger species" than the ones we originally had in Idaho but I don't know that to be fact or not. I'm not sure wolves know what the imaginary border line is between US and Canada so we probably had the same wolves as each other all along the way I see it.
And yes, the new laws Idaho passed about wolves/wolf hunting and trapping are all over the internet, they had the wolf lovers all in a fit.....but reality is, that level of killing will NEVER happen. Wolves are too smart to let it happen unless humans start using poison again. Of course the folks in an outrage about it don't know enough to know that and the news doesn't want to tell the truth because that doesn't get clicks....outrage does.
There is a TON of misinformation out there on wolves being spread by both sides.
There are coyotes here that were found to be genetically related to extinct red wolves. So they collar and track them. There is increasingly less places for them to live on this sandbar, so they are cruising the neighborhoods more and more. I lost two cats to them- one went missing, then saw a coyote had gone up my stairs onto my porch and flush out my remaining cat to jump twenty feet below, where another coyote was waiting.. Horrible stuff, I tried to stop it with a broom but it had already killed my cat. I'm still torn on them, I like seeing them in the state park or empty fields, but they better stay the f away from my dogs..
You're last sentence is one of my biggest problems with this whole thing....the folks who voted this re-introduction into happening have the same policy....
"Wolves are great, they should exist in the wild, it won't negatively affect my life anyway. It's not my problem you live in the Wolves backyard."
They fail to see that the suburb they live in, before it was raped and pillaged by development, was also the Wolves backyard!
Folks living in cities always think they know what is best about everything but they are sheltered from the consequences most of the time.
Hmmm. I'm still thinking about how I feel about this whole deal.
On the one hand, it's a money thing for the folks that raise livestock for a living. I get it completely. I've been that guy. Never had wolves, bears, or wild cats but coyotes, bobcats, hawks, coons, and snakes. They damn sure effect the bank or freezer.
But, I always considered those losses the same as a farmer that suffers from drought or blight. It's just all part of it.
Balance...they are part of it, same as me. The trouble comes in when we start using our big brains and fuck shit up.
Age and experience have shown me that every single thing on this planet has a niche/purpose. We destroy things at our peril.
I reckon everyone that is concerned about wolf predation has a boom stick to protect themselves and animals.
If you look at it in that sort of a vacuum, then yes it would sound like it would be hard for them to have an impact. But in a dynamic environment, where wolves are plentiful and would prey far easier on younger animals, it could very easily impact the populations much more than simply their actual kill numbers. The earlier a doe is killed, the bigger impact it has on overall eventual herd populations, obviously.
Again, it’s an incredible complicated system that will never really return to ‘natural balance’ ever again. As a true apex predator, wolves have the capability to overwhelm any ecosystem that they are in, especially those with what would be considered ‘artificial inputs’ like cattle, sheep, etc. With those increased food sources, the predator population doesn’t rely nearly as directly on natural prey sources as it originally did, so without ‘culling’ the wolf population could skyrocket far higher than it naturally would.
The biggest issue right now is how do you support a sustainable wolf population in areas that we’ve created local extinction, and then how do you maintain a reasonable population now that they have far more sources of food than they normally would have.
There’s zero easy, direct answer.
Wolves, bears, coyotes. Here are the real killers. The numbers are astronomical https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
It's a money thing for the folks pushing for the re-introduction too.
Seen it happen with both Wolves and Grizzly here in Idaho. They will set a "bare minimum number" that needs to be surpassed before the wolf/grizz can be considered "recovered" and be managed by the State like other animals.
That number will be reached at some point and the State will try to take over management, a lot of times opening hunting seasons, to keep populations at the agreed upon level.
The wolf/grizz lovers have organizations full of lawyers just ready to pounce and sue to get their way (i.e. numbers changed) to keep the state management from happening.
They will inevitably get the trial heard by a liberal judge that will sympathize with them no matter what facts are presented.
They win the trial and the tax payers are on the hook for paying the attorneys fees.
There are literally organizations out there that this is their business model.
So, instead of counting it as a win that the wolf/grizz have come back to an acceptable number, they keep throwing an emotional fit over and over again to line their pocket books.
A re-working of the equal access to justice act would do wonders to make our country a better place.
Yotes are extremely damaging to wildlife and probably 10x smarter then any wolf which allows their numbers to not only maintain but even grow even in highly pressured areas.
Can't disagree but you and I both know...if a rancher loses some cattle/sheep...whatever...from wolves....they ain't gonna report killing them to anyone. I wouldn't. Balance.
X1000 on the need to reform the Equal Access to Justice Act. (And the Wilderness Act...and the Antiquities Act...all three have been absolutely perverted by the radical environmentalists...and the Endangered Species Act needs some updating as well as it to has become a tool to progress an agenda rather than to protect animals).
Couldn't agree more.
Grizzly populations in the GYE have been well above "recovery status" for a long time yet the sue for profit organizations refuse to let them be de-listed as they would lose a huge income source from it.
It's sad as hell that instead of celebrating the Endangered Species Act actually working we have folks doing everything they can to make sure animals have to stay on it no matter what number they have recovered to.
Coyotes don't have the same allure as wolves do. Nobody cares about them.
Wolves are a control issue...they-like the sage grouse-are nothing but a pawn in the long game the radical environmentalists and liberal politicians are playing, as they gradually turn public land into a museum (look but don't touch), and to force rural populations into urban areas...as long as wolves are on the endangered species list, their habitat is much more easily restricted...so its easier for the greenies to ban snowmobiling, grazing, hunting, OHV'ing, logging, mining etc...thus making it far more difficult for rural communities to survive...this is why the goal posts keep moving as to target numbers...this is why every effort to get them off the endangered species list is fought tooth and nail...
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