Alaska aerial wolf hunting

What you've said Roger is the story here in the Hill country of Texas. Most ranches, close to half the the yearly operating expenses are met by hunting leases. Some operate completely on that income.

On this 600 acres, especially with price supports nearly gone from federal subsidies, a handful of what I would call 'pretty consciencious' hunters from the big city provide a necessary chunk of bucks. They aren't common approach hunters, rather, educated in management of white tails to influence dominant gene propagation. They welcome a variety of predation and mostly let the animal progress and breed. Without them here, or by welcoming just any hunters, the land would be over-run by left-over spiked bucks and explosive doe populations. Have seen that countless times in the past. In fact, knowing the protein/fat return and caloric requirements of range beef, venison is by far a superior meat here for both land management AND human consumption. As far as economy locally, the tourist-shop and Bed and Breakfast brokers would not have a living...which may not really be a bad thing.

But not all good comes from the hunter-dependent economy. We are over-run with escape exotics from blackbuck antelope to Siberian tiger to simitar-horned oryx. Saudi's fly in to 'can hunt' and pay enough money that sleaze-ball operators purchase endangered species to chain-up to a post for some wimp's kicks and a chance for a trophy. That's not hunting, it's greed.
 
The canned hunting is pretty sad. I feel if you're going to hunt you should earn it. As my dad always said, "it builds character son." He used to say that that about getting firewood, hay and other fun stuff too. I ate a lot of venison growing up, but recently found that it is not good for people with my blood type. Later, Roger.
 
Wow, Oakwilt! Thanks for the interesting perspective. You've further whetted my appetite to take a course.
 
Hey I think we had a misunderstanding, hunting is a great way to provide a rural economy! As to killing wolves to grow more moose this seems strange because the main prey of wolves are either old and weak or young although a pack can take a full grown bull. Now most hunters want trophies so old and weak are probubly out so the wolves taking calves would be the only thing affecting the hunting industry. Wolf packs balance themselves out so if there are to many in a pack they will split and roam into new territory. This is why they believe that wolves will enter Or. in the near future. So if the hunting industry and people could create an equalibrium with the wolves there wouldn't be a need for culling of wolf packs. Human population has condensed many species territories some adapt(white-tails) others don't do as well(wolves) who would rather never see a human. Hey just so you'll know I don't endorse PETA they're loco I shoot 3 times a week and believe in hunting and wildlife conservation
 
I believe in hunting too, but chumming corn three weeks before hunting season and setting a blind 25 yards away, or logging on to the internet and shooting from the computer at a Texas game ranch, or riding the front bumper at 20 mph with a loaded clip and semi auto is about as brave and thoughtful as thinking we're going to force christianity down the throats of anyone who thinks otherwise.

Boone and Crockett has created tresspassers, liars, and cheats. Food? That doesn't hold up when heads are severed and the carass left to rot.

I have hunters here. It's a process that includes interview, background checks, and vigilance. Weeding-out the scum shows there are as many idiots as there are good people. Kudos to the dads who follow and teach respect, hopefully someday they can be pitted against the jerks with live ammo and tact, and that's a hunt that I'll look forward to.
 
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As to killing wolves to grow more moose this seems strange because the main prey of wolves are either old and weak or young although a pack can take a full grown bull.

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Here are some facts about the wolf reintroduction program:

(1) The wolves dropped into Yellowstone Park were not Rocky Mountain wolves, known in the scientific community as Canis Lupus Irremotus, a smaller animal that hunted in pairs and was the indigenous species in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. Rather, they were the Canadian Grey Wolf, a super sized predator hunting in super sized packs that evolved to chase caribou herds for hundreds of miles.

(2) Federal implementation of wolf introduction has violated the Endangered Species act (ESA) on virtually every count. Dr. Richard Mitchell, PhD., one of the original authors of the ESA, traveled from Washington, D.C., on January 11, 2000, to testify in Billings [Montana] at the Predator Management Symposium. Dr. Mitchell stated to an audience of several hundred, including Sen. Conrad Burns, that it was a violation of the ESA to dump the Canadian Grey[wolf] on top of the Rocky Mountain wolf.

(3) The Rocky Mountain wolf didn't need to be ‘re-introduced’ -- because it was already there. Locals testified at the aforementioned event to having seen the native wolf in and around the park prior to the "soft" introduction of this "experimental-non essential" predator that was already migrating into Montana naturally from Canada.


Wolf Timeline

1930s - Fear of wolves by settlers combined with livestock losses leads the U.S. Department of Interior to spend millions of $ eradicating the wolf population

1973 - Wolves receive protection under the Endangered Species Act

1995-1996 - 66 wolves from southwestern Canada were introduced to Yellowstone National Park

1996 - $16,000 spent on wolf related expenses (including reimbursement to ranchers for livestock losses)

1997 - $20,000 spent on wolf related expenses (including reimbursement to ranchers for livestock losses)

1998 - $36,820 spent on wolf related expenses (including reimbursement to ranchers for livestock losses)

1999 - $77,722 spent on wolf related expenses (including reimbursement to ranchers for livestock losses)

2000 - $135,880 spent on wolf related expenses (including reimbursement to ranchers for livestock losses)

2001 - $158,290 spent on wolf related expenses (including reimbursement to ranchers for livestock losses)

2001- Idaho wolf population reaches at least 281


Will the wolf be deemed a nuisance once more and eradicated at taxpayer expense AGAIN? It seems that the govt spends money to get rid of something, then turns around and spends money to get it back.
 
Can't reintroduce canus Lupus Irremotus because its extinct. Being hunting isn't allowed in the park and the primary goal was to keep the park as close to presettlement as possible, it only made sense to reintroduce the wolf into the park. Seems to be working pretty well. Coyotes ain't too happy though. The wolves from Canada was Canus Lupus Occidentalis, also known as the Rocky Mountain Grey Wolf. There hasn't been a sighting of Irremotus since 1940. It is only logical that the wolf to move in after the extinction would be the Canadian Rocky Mountain Wolf. Heres a good website: www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/intermed/inter_gray/rocky.asp
 
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It seems that the govt spends money to get rid of something, then turns around and spends money to get it back.

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Or, conversely, will pay farmers subsidies to grow hemp (the most economically useful field crop) during WWII and then decide it's a "nuisance" and spend billions to eradicate it (while clandestinely supporting the drug trade in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and elsewhere).

The moral of the story about wolf reintroduction is that sometimes (though rarely) even our government is capable of learning from its mistakes. Similarly, the Army Corps of Engineers, after spending decades and millions of dollars building flood-control dams along the Mississippi, realized that it was causing the very problem it was intended to correct and is now dismantling some of its dams.

- Robert
 
Or that occupying a sovereign nation and forcing change leads to insurgencies and stimulates resentment.

My personal favorite was the purchase and destruction of America's streetcars and now the last of the passenger trains.

Another one is relaxation of the clean-air standards so that the utility industry can continue reporting eight-fold profit increase statistics. Or Halliburton can continue determining any additional costs for their war and not be accountable to any regulating body - let alone provide any answers to the 9 billion missing when they go after a UN lackey for $110,000 in opportuned profits.

Twidle da de, twidle da dumb.
 
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Being hunting isn't allowed in the park and the primary goal was to keep the park as close to presettlement as possible, it only made sense to reintroduce the wolf into the park.

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Yeah, if only they would stay in the park, eh?

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Seems to be working pretty well. Coyotes ain't too happy though.

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So the wolf is valued more highly than the coyote? There is no doubt that the reintroduction program is working. Livestock kills are up, right?

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The wolves from Canada was Canus Lupus Occidentalis, also known as the Rocky Mountain Grey Wolf. There hasn't been a sighting of Irremotus since 1940. It is only logical that the wolf to move in after the extinction would be the Canadian Rocky Mountain Wolf.

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There is a smaller wolf (smaller than the Canadian reintroduced species) that lives in Idaho. Reports show that the reintroduced species is more agressive and has killed the smaller wolf. What I find interesting is that most of the people proclaiming that the wolf reintroduction program don't live in the area where wolves have been dropped.
 
Its a Federal Park. I am a tax paying citizen. Its my park as much as anyone. Where do all those livestock graze? Gee whiz, on federal land my tax dollars pay for. What do those ranchers pay the feds to graze on that land? Darn near nothing. My wife grew up out there, her dad worked as a Fish and Wildlife biologist for the state of Montana. Don't like wolves, move. Can't afford to lose some livestock, find another business.
Lets remove the bison too. Can't get them or the elk to stay in the park either.
Ranchers are reimbursed for livestock kills outside the park. Coyotes are adapting to the wolves. They are one notch down on the food chain now, same place they were before the white man killed off the wolf. The expense is worth it. Heck of a lot cheaper than a cruise missile.
 
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Don't like wolves, move. Can't afford to lose some livestock, find another business.

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You got a beef with ranchers? Save a wolf, kill a rancher, eh?


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Ranchers are reimbursed for livestock kills outside the park.

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They are reimbursed only for those livestock they can PROVE were killed by wolves.

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The expense is worth it. Heck of a lot cheaper than a cruise missile.

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Merak, I'm not saying the US govt doesn't waste money as a matter of course. I'm saying that a good deal of money has been spent on this program, and to what benefit? Why bring the Canadian wolf into the US at all? That is my question?
 
I guess the best answer is that it helps fulfill the mission of Yellowstone Park, which is to try and maintain a wilderness as it was before European settlement. A difficult thing to do in these times. Unfortunately to restore it completely as it was is impossible, thus Canadian wolves were the imperfect answer.
I have no problem with ranchers. I used to raise poultry and waterfowl. Losses to predators is part of the game. No one is guaranteed a living in this country. It probably won't be too many years before the wolf population is considered stable enough that ranchers will be able to shoot or trap the wolves that are causing the problems.
 
Let's go ahead and call the re-imbursed ranchers what they really are - welfare recipients. Federal grazing, predator loss programs, irrigation permits, non-taxed fuels for personal use, non-tax payers for local school districts, and a free ticket to get out of military conscription. Now they're complaining about not getting gas royalties even though they have no mineral rights.

Take that. And I ranch, so....
 
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Let's go ahead and call the re-imbursed ranchers what they really are - welfare recipients.

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Since we're on the subject of corporate welfare - the REAL welfare queens of America - let's disabuse ourselves of the myth that the Republican Party and the Bush administration are <font color="red">conservative</font>.

Since taking control of the House in 1994, on a "contract with America" to eliminate government waste, the number of special-interest appropriations has more than TRIPLED to $48 billion a year. Among other pork, the 2005 Defense Spending Bill, included a record $8.8 billion in spending the Pentagon never requested (including two new F-15s when the Air Force is scrapping F-15s), while cutting BILLIONS from military maintenance and training.

<font color="red">Rather than "supporting our troops", this administration is using them ruthlessly and then cutting the VA budget just as 20% of returning troops are expected to suffer from PTSD and need intensive counseling and support, in addition to the tens of thousands who will need life-long medical assistance.</font>

The recently passed American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, surreptitiously signed into law aboard Air Force One with no media fanfare, was described by President Reagan's corporate tax-reform man as "the worst tax bill in US history". It gave tax breaks to virtually every industry in America. Since 2000, Wall Street's tax bills have dropped by a third - the second lowest level since the Depression - and nearly 95% of corporations pay less than 5% of their income in taxes, in spite of an "official" corporate tax rate of 35%.

<font color="red">There is nothing conservative about giving OUR money away to the rich and the corporate elite, sinking the US into trillions of dollars of debt, using "homeland insecurity" as an excuse to eliminate both state's rights and individual freedom, and destroying the one social program - Social Security - that has received universal support from WE THE PEOPLE.</font>

It's time for TRUE CONSERVATIVES and TRUE LIBERALS to unite and recognize the grave threat that this <font color="red">RADICAL FASCIST*</font> government is to the future of this GREAT NATION.

* fascism: the association of nationalism and aggressive militarism with corporate elites and reactionary religion to create a falsely nationalist, faslely religious power structure which uses powerfully compelling propaganda to virtually enslave the masses.

- Robert
 
Robert,
How does your last post relate to wolves?

Reed,
I know of ranchers that graze their stock on their own land. I don't know what the ratio of private/govt land cattle grazing is in this country, but where does everyone thing those steaks in your local grocery store come from?

edit: Reed, do you ranch on your own or govt land? I would guess your own.
 
Well put.

But that's just the tip 'o the iceburg.

My current favorite from the "moral values" president is planting a gay male prostitute into the press corps to influence those "conservative values" and to ask kinder, gentler questions.

Goes to show the true spirit behind the rhetoric.
 
You mean there are cattle left for sale after the wolves have had their fill? If we had more wolves, there would be less cattle and the ranchers could charge more. Then, they wouldn't have to use federal grazing land. Might have to charge more for a big mac though.
I wonder how many big corporations are grazing cattle on public lands?
 
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