gurn
Gone but not forgotten
I agree with this old boy
http://www.versus.com/the-best-and-worst-of-tred-barta/videos/barta-on-wolves/
http://www.versus.com/the-best-and-worst-of-tred-barta/videos/barta-on-wolves/
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Good Video
- Thread starter gurn
- Start date
drippin' rock
Senior Member
Being in GA I don't feel like I have a dog in this hunt( or wolf!) but I agree with Tred. Maybe it could be a lottery if naysayers feel like too many would be killed.
gurn
Gone but not forgotten
Although we do have wolf in Michigan. I think there might just be a bigger picture in this that could affect many states, as far as game management. What you have with the wolf in many cases is what I call Disney Land game management. We have it with the wolf, and doves.
Some people want wolf, but their usually not the ones that have to deal with everything that comes along with these big predators.
When their numbers go over a pratical healthy sustainable population. Taking into account people who live by them, and other animals they feed on. Many folks dont want to use the best sicence available to deal with them. At that point, they want to throw biologist recomendations in the trash, and switch to warm and fuzzy Disney Land game management.
Some people want wolf, but their usually not the ones that have to deal with everything that comes along with these big predators.
When their numbers go over a pratical healthy sustainable population. Taking into account people who live by them, and other animals they feed on. Many folks dont want to use the best sicence available to deal with them. At that point, they want to throw biologist recomendations in the trash, and switch to warm and fuzzy Disney Land game management.
miles58
Banned yankee
Tred Barta is F.O.S on this one.
I have lived around wolves my whole life with the exception of four years I lived outside Minnesota. I do not have resident wolves near my house now. but they are only 30 miles off. My hunting camp is an hour away and roughly 50 miles straight line. We have wolves there. They are not impacting the deer population adversely. In point of fact, back 40 years ago when we had no wolves other than an occasional wanderer, there were very few deer in the area.
Last summer the DNR trapped 9 and someone shot 1 a mile east of deer camp. There are cattle surrounding deer camp, and there are stock losses but it's less than one per year for the whole area as far as I know up until the time the pack east of me got into the habit. Shooting wolves makes them smart and even more wary of people, and there is nothing you will hunt smarter and more people shy than a wolf before you shoot at it.
Wolves are very dangerous to dogs of any species running loose. I run big going pointing dogs (horseback trial dogs) in the grouse woods and I am very mindful of whether there are wolves in the area and I stay that way. I have had a coyote stalk a dog on point one time that I saw, and I have had a bobcat show an unhealthy interest in a dog pointing once too. Both cases I believe were more due to the beeper than the dog. In more than forty years of running those dogs I have gone to points more than half a mile distant many times and had dogs well beyond half a mile countless times in wolf country. I don't know as I have been lucky or what. I have never had a problem with a wolf.
I have been fairly close to wolves but not with a dog that I have known about, and never in a situation in which I have made as much noise as I commonly have to to handle a big going dog. When I spent a lot more time up in Balvarik's country I did have trouble with wolves and stock but it was sheep and it was very rare.
Wolves are efficient predators. No question about that. Their presence in an area will move deer to different behavior and even different areas. But, for instance, from ST Croix Falls north to Superior Wisconsin is an area that is very sparsely populated and has a very, very high deer population. There is also a very healthy wolf population there and it is not keeping the deer population in check. Not there and not where I hunt, ten miles west of the border. Weather and disease are still bigger mortality factors than anything including people.
I am not a wolf lover. I don't hate them either. I would just as soon they were not present in areas where I hunt birds. But, They don't bother me a bit in terms of how many deer they take. I hunt birds around deer camp and a wolf would probably be shot on sight by anyone there at any time of the year. I think it probably is better for the wolves that a few do get shot like that to keep them all properly wary of people.
There is something undeniably wild about being close to them and hearing them howl in the night. Something that we will all be the poorer for when it is no more.
Dave
I have lived around wolves my whole life with the exception of four years I lived outside Minnesota. I do not have resident wolves near my house now. but they are only 30 miles off. My hunting camp is an hour away and roughly 50 miles straight line. We have wolves there. They are not impacting the deer population adversely. In point of fact, back 40 years ago when we had no wolves other than an occasional wanderer, there were very few deer in the area.
Last summer the DNR trapped 9 and someone shot 1 a mile east of deer camp. There are cattle surrounding deer camp, and there are stock losses but it's less than one per year for the whole area as far as I know up until the time the pack east of me got into the habit. Shooting wolves makes them smart and even more wary of people, and there is nothing you will hunt smarter and more people shy than a wolf before you shoot at it.
Wolves are very dangerous to dogs of any species running loose. I run big going pointing dogs (horseback trial dogs) in the grouse woods and I am very mindful of whether there are wolves in the area and I stay that way. I have had a coyote stalk a dog on point one time that I saw, and I have had a bobcat show an unhealthy interest in a dog pointing once too. Both cases I believe were more due to the beeper than the dog. In more than forty years of running those dogs I have gone to points more than half a mile distant many times and had dogs well beyond half a mile countless times in wolf country. I don't know as I have been lucky or what. I have never had a problem with a wolf.
I have been fairly close to wolves but not with a dog that I have known about, and never in a situation in which I have made as much noise as I commonly have to to handle a big going dog. When I spent a lot more time up in Balvarik's country I did have trouble with wolves and stock but it was sheep and it was very rare.
Wolves are efficient predators. No question about that. Their presence in an area will move deer to different behavior and even different areas. But, for instance, from ST Croix Falls north to Superior Wisconsin is an area that is very sparsely populated and has a very, very high deer population. There is also a very healthy wolf population there and it is not keeping the deer population in check. Not there and not where I hunt, ten miles west of the border. Weather and disease are still bigger mortality factors than anything including people.
I am not a wolf lover. I don't hate them either. I would just as soon they were not present in areas where I hunt birds. But, They don't bother me a bit in terms of how many deer they take. I hunt birds around deer camp and a wolf would probably be shot on sight by anyone there at any time of the year. I think it probably is better for the wolves that a few do get shot like that to keep them all properly wary of people.
There is something undeniably wild about being close to them and hearing them howl in the night. Something that we will all be the poorer for when it is no more.
Dave
gurn
Gone but not forgotten
Dave I dont think they should be no more.
All I ask is that the recomendations of biologist trained in big game management, and how they relate to their habitat be use in scientific game management. The best sicence available.
Not what you, I, Tred, or the anti hunting groups think, feel, or say. This is a danger to all hunting, regardless of where you live. If your area does not have a wolf population problem, as proved by the best known sicence. Then thats great. Other areas in the US may have problems using the same criteria. In that case, feelings and opinions would be best left at the deer camp fire with a few beers and a good bull session, like whats better, a 270 or 30/06.
All I ask is that the recomendations of biologist trained in big game management, and how they relate to their habitat be use in scientific game management. The best sicence available.
Not what you, I, Tred, or the anti hunting groups think, feel, or say. This is a danger to all hunting, regardless of where you live. If your area does not have a wolf population problem, as proved by the best known sicence. Then thats great. Other areas in the US may have problems using the same criteria. In that case, feelings and opinions would be best left at the deer camp fire with a few beers and a good bull session, like whats better, a 270 or 30/06.
miles58
Banned yankee
The point I am trying to make is that wolves and high populations of prey animals can be and in fact are coincident in many places. In cases like the elk populations out west, until someone tells me that that the difference all went into wolf bellys and has the data to back it up it doesn't mean anything.
My suspicions are that without the wolves, the elk populated places that they might not have, had the wolves been present all along and that now with wolves populating areas that favor them and give them an edge over the elk it turns into a combination of elk moving to places where the wolves can't get them so easily and some of the elk going into wolf bellys due to lack of weeding out the weak and stupid from the gene pool for the better part of a century.
I was back up to deer camp over the weekend. One of the neighbors came over and told me there was a wolf kill about 300 yards from the cabin. Yet, I saw 10 deer out in the middle of the day and just beaucoup deer sign everywhere I went and surprisingly more wolf track and coyote tracks that I have seen ever before up there. Clearly, the deer up there are prospering in the face of a healthy coyote and wolf population. This is a condition I have seen often in my life, which spans the time when we had a bounty on wolves, through the endangered species years, to now when they are filling the last of the places where they can sustain wild populations.
I do not want to protect them further. But, I also do not want to see wolf management fall into the trap that it has out west. Hunting seasons and bag limits do not address the immediacy of the need to act when you have wolves taking stock. Wolves that get shot at are probably the hardest animals to get another shot at on the face of the earth, so hunting is not likely to be all that successful, particularly as we go down the road. I think at best, wolf hunting will degenerate into what we have up here for bear hunting. Baiting. That is basically how we extirpated them before. I fail to see anything sporting about that. I would shoot deer over bait were it legal, but then I do like venison and have never been overly fond of deer hunting. I tend to be fairly simple about things like this. If you are going to kill deer, kill 'em. The hows and which ones never made much sense to me other than to avoid the big stinky ones. Likewise with wolves. They need pressure to keep them wary of people and strong. Just seeing a wolf in country where they are fairly common is pretty rare, and that's as it should be.
Dave
My suspicions are that without the wolves, the elk populated places that they might not have, had the wolves been present all along and that now with wolves populating areas that favor them and give them an edge over the elk it turns into a combination of elk moving to places where the wolves can't get them so easily and some of the elk going into wolf bellys due to lack of weeding out the weak and stupid from the gene pool for the better part of a century.
I was back up to deer camp over the weekend. One of the neighbors came over and told me there was a wolf kill about 300 yards from the cabin. Yet, I saw 10 deer out in the middle of the day and just beaucoup deer sign everywhere I went and surprisingly more wolf track and coyote tracks that I have seen ever before up there. Clearly, the deer up there are prospering in the face of a healthy coyote and wolf population. This is a condition I have seen often in my life, which spans the time when we had a bounty on wolves, through the endangered species years, to now when they are filling the last of the places where they can sustain wild populations.
I do not want to protect them further. But, I also do not want to see wolf management fall into the trap that it has out west. Hunting seasons and bag limits do not address the immediacy of the need to act when you have wolves taking stock. Wolves that get shot at are probably the hardest animals to get another shot at on the face of the earth, so hunting is not likely to be all that successful, particularly as we go down the road. I think at best, wolf hunting will degenerate into what we have up here for bear hunting. Baiting. That is basically how we extirpated them before. I fail to see anything sporting about that. I would shoot deer over bait were it legal, but then I do like venison and have never been overly fond of deer hunting. I tend to be fairly simple about things like this. If you are going to kill deer, kill 'em. The hows and which ones never made much sense to me other than to avoid the big stinky ones. Likewise with wolves. They need pressure to keep them wary of people and strong. Just seeing a wolf in country where they are fairly common is pretty rare, and that's as it should be.
Dave
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