Alaska aerial wolf hunting

C

cory

Branched out member
What do you people think of Alaska's aerial wolf contol program currently being used to try to boost moose populations in 5 areas of the state? 93 wolves killed so far this winter say state officials.
 
Moose in decline or hunting revenues threatened?

I guess a parable would be to shoot Army Corps of Engineers workers when Salmon stop running.

I have an old dime novel about Kit Carson. Yale sociologists agreed at the time that the only good Indian was a dead one, for they were in the way of Western expansion.

But that's just my opinion. We have a nation and lifestyle to keep building here.
 
I didn't know there were any people out there still believing that predators are bad. thought we had learned about overpopulation of single species and the threat of disease outbreaks. Oh well, guess we make the same mistake over again.
 
I'm not supporting the killing of wolves because I don't know the details of the policy, but because you kill them doen't mean you think they are bad. if you consider humans as predators, it would follow that humans would like to keep other predators from competing for the same prey. Its essentially the same thing wolves do in Yellowstone to coyotes. Before wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, they were known to pack up and hunt deer. When the wolves were reintroduced, the wolves kicked coyote butt till the only safe place for a coyote in Yellowstone is along the roads near people, which the wolves of course avoid.
 
Isle Royal National Park is a 210 square mile island 15m out in Lake Superior. Moose have populated the island since 1900 and in 1950, during an unsually cold winter, wolves crossed the ice from Canada.

Since 1959, the predator-prey relationship of the moose and wolves has been studied. It was feared that the wolf pack would wipe out the moose, but the two species have lived in balance for 55 years, even though because of the lack of other species the moose is the primary food for the wolves.

If left alone, nature finds its own balance. The only creature which routinely disturbs the balance of nature is Man. If there is a decline in the Alaskan moose herd, the cause is almost certainly human encroachment and human predation (hunting).

Here in Vermont there is a year-round open season on coyotes, the largest and most well-adapted predator left in the Northeast. There was recently a coyote killing contest which brought 600 "hunters" to the state and bagged 70 coyotes.

This, and the aerial "hunt" in Alaska, are examples of the selfish and shortsighted perspective of the one truly destructive species: homosapiens.
 
You got to the point I was threatening to do but did it more eloquently than I could - and before I would. Thank you. We can extend it too, if you will, far beyond predation imbalance between two dependent species. We can focus down to the microscopic levels of effects of 'depredation' or 'overpredation' in atmospheric/oceanic data, our food supplies, market priorities, genetic manipulation, labor, public health, and even water. It too is now trading in money markets for proprietorship, meaning in short, predation as well. The main predator now owns the entire planet and dolls it out accordingly because we've destroyed the balanced flow, we'll need even more of what it has to give in order for us to survive. In simple terms it means we failed. Ecology now as science can't convince against the forces that insist, and as a politically deadly word the best hope has shrink down to just fixing each mess after the fact. Restoring heritage gene lines to function as originally evolved, a fenced-in herd of 200 Bison can't help the praries function as time allowed and gave us what we took 150 years ago. It's the same with Salmon, halibut, and cod. It's the same with the quality of the skies we had vs. what's going down now. Epidemics simply mean controls don't control anymore.

Of course, we're insisting it isn't so. That's the bizzarre concept, it's one we won't even allow to be presented, let alone react to.
 
I seem to recall having learned that leopards (the only great cat that does so) will kill for sport, so while we mankind are by far the greatest practitioners, we are not quite alone.

I was out in Jackson, WY for an extended time which coincided with the release of the first wolves up at the park. Almost without exception the local ranchers could be heard grumbling "we'd just finally got rid of the damn things!". There's no accounting for the pull of a few Hollywood bigshots who are disappointed in not seeing a wolf as they drive through...

Glen
 
There's also no accounting - in long term - the fact that we have to drill the ANWR or South Padre Island or denute Indonesia or Brazil, other than money and that can't buy back what is processed and taken, in addition to the damage being done in the processing of those manifest destinies.

I live in former Angora goat country, subsiding now due to loss of demand but more so...because the support subsidies are gone. Yet to this day Golden eagles are shot when spotted by a mentality left over from the "who's land is it anyway?"
Having known people who posed carcasses of lamb and ewe underneath a shot eagle knowing full well the dead babies were the result of bad husbandry practices, the photo(s) used in hearings to question the mentality behind federal species protection.

Craigheads proved the necessity of the Grizzly but Disneyesque preferences and idiotic sanitary practices helped override common sense knowledge of balance in a park that was expressively set aside as a protection - immune to man's design - of that very system. The big bad wolf. Kind of like the "devil" of lustful thought or native "savages" roaming about threatening Westward moving theft, let's kill more Orcas because they eat salmon but suppress any legislation that just may restore at least a fraction of the wild species.

Watershed protection has been demonzed by the developer, air quality has become a point-trading system lobbied for by the utility industry alone, mercury levels in freshwater inland fish prompted the NIH to issue nationwide alert directives last month and the U.S. Forest Service is the largest road builder in the world.

Hollywood? Those actors, huh? I think about Marlon Brando once saying the Holocaust was blown all out of proportion. It goes both ways.

Are everyone's idea of specie's protection a tank at Seaworld where we can buy tickets to watch a dolphin juggle our balls? I'm beginning to think we might be a bit sidetracked with our lives, certainly with our intellect and notions of propriety and rights, not individual, but all life. WE appointed ourselves God, but aren't too sure of the message or task that comes with that.

Don't eat freshwater fish more than once a week, none if pregnant. Did that warning come from Hollywood? No, oddly it came from our own secretive "we're winning" government.
 
I am reminded of the saying, "A healthy forest is no accident"

I will not pretend I know what a wildlife biologist does and I hope they don't pretend to know anything about tree care.

Isn't it quite possible that they are trying to prevent population problems or bottlenecking, etc.

Even if they do nothing, that is still the result of a human's decision. It is the world we live in.

I hear you on the Edwards Plateau. My parents are stuck out there in Angora country. They quit letting predator control fly over back in '99 as did 2 other neighbors yeilding a 12,000 acre coyote reserve. Sure is nice to hear them howl at night. /forum/images/graemlins/theyareontome.gif
 
We have "yippers" here too, more persistant and loud than I've ever heard 'em before. The odd thing is, traps set (M88's) are killing more dogs than coyotes and like Australia's ruminant populations, jack rabbits are everywhere. Other than kids with 22's, which aren't around like they used to be (read: video games and monster trucks), there isn't controls set for these rabbits, only the coyote.
Without antural predators a disease specialist from CDC told a group of ranchers that this Summer may be a record for the rise of Plague, which hit the Four Corner's region and killed 23 people ten years ago. Rats, gophers, and field mice.

Citing innuendo, I have to say that these local Germans are cheap penny-pinchers, where they were used to federal reimbursement four times the value of a lamb for each one dead, they reach for any excuse to get that money back. It's simply that no one buys the wool anymore, synthetics and cheaper foreign material won the war. They need to move on, and most are by selling for subdivisions while complaining all the way to the bank. Of course I am German too, and buy cheap beer, but notice problems before they become insurmountable...at least try to. That's the essence of penny-pinching, not ignorance. Besides, the most serious destructive land changes leading to events such as hardwood disease epidemics may in fact have been lubricated by the complete eradication of the native grasses from over grazing. On and on.

If coyotes, or wolves become too impacting, let's release some large cats and/or grizzlies. They used to be here too, long before we were. Goat and sheep herders were shot on sight at one time, like murderers and thieves. Hmmm. Never mind. My mind gets to wandering a bit with too many cups 'o' joe. Sorry we didn't get together this winter...when are you coming back, or do I have to get to the 'ol homeland to see you?
 
I have always been a fan of anything that kills sheep and goats.

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Goat and sheep herders were shot on sight at one time, like murderers and thieves. Hmmm.

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Reminds me of this
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Well I guess I am digressing for sure.......
 
Arghh mate.

My ultimate fantasy is captaining a pirate ship. Feed-off the riches being stolen and loaded from the new world and distributed democratically amongst my faithful crew. The ultimate predator. A predator's predator. But don't tell anyone I think like this.

If gold, corn, potato, and democracy weren't taken from here, Europe would still be tribal and worshipping the sun while being beaten senseless by the church.

Cap'n Oak. Funny thing is, it's not that far off now. At least the boat part. I believe the barefoot charters of yuppies in the Caribbean would be the litmus test, then on to the supertankers of foreign oil and freighters full of Chevrolets made in China coming here. Argh.

In the meantime I have a few oaks to prune in town and a birthday boy to appease. Will tip a few later, in honor of my tribal past.
 
Alot of good points here guys....I lean toward let nature find it's balance, but if humans should feel they need to intervene, they should do it humanely. My understanding is that aerial wolf hunting is inhumane, as these creatures, which possess legendary endurance, are chased by a plane until they are exhausted and can't run anymore and then they are shot. Aren't there plenty of big game hunters who would pay big $ to hunt and shoot wovles on the ground? If my presumptions on the mechanics of the aerial hunt are correct, what kind of person could do that?? It must be people who aren't afraid of building up a butt load of bad Karma.
 
Hi I volunteer to track Wi. wolves and www.timberwolfinformation.org is a great site. Killing wolves so people can pay for trophy hunts seems strange to me, if they were tring to boost the moose population for food it would make more sense to me. Don't get me wrong I practice shooting 2or3 times a week with my bow and I love moose steak. What did the animals do without us?
 
Merak, speaking of "stalk a wolf," have any of you read any Tom Brown? His Apache mentor was known as Stalking Wolf. He's written alot of cool books on survival and tracking. He was based in the NJ pinelands until recently relocating to FL.
 
A Tom Brown graduate here. Highly recommend it for all reasons not taught but misunderstood by the public. It's an intensive workshop for understanding subtleness, redefining perspective, and learning to see things blocked-out by the demands of civilization and prohibited by human ego.

I learned nothing about tracking game per se, even though we successfully homed-in on a ten-day headstart over hard rock, through flooded creeks, and suburban sprawl...but sharpened our abilities to detect fraud and deception from fellow humans and further understand the inter-relationships of all things living.

If a religion or a denomination could only briefly touch this science, the world would be far more advanced and completely less destructive than it is now, under the top-down malevolent guidance we willingly subject ourselves to.

Probably the reason I've been to D.C. on more than several occassions and feel the need to never go back. It's a doomed culture and the one reason I'm sorry I took the course. Ignorance is bliss, but I can't go there anymore. The one thing I learned from Tom beyond anything else was to identify my cancer on a personal level and from that, start to challenge it. Twelve years ago. So the victory doesn't come from finding the target he released for us days earlier, but finding ourselves in the process.
 
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Killing wolves so people can pay for trophy hunts seems strange to me, if they were tring to boost the moose population for food it would make more sense to me.

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Some areas depend on the tourist hunting trade for survival. Economies in some of these area have been severely stifled due to the decline of the timber industry. The hunters come in from out of state and purchase licenses, gear, lodging etc. Without these sources of income what would the small town businessman in Montana or Idaho do? In essence, big game populations do provide food for people.
 
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