Do you blame wolves?

[Lawnboy]

I still go back to rmyoung's comment on the Gardiner area. I've lived here 24 years now and remember those booming numbers in that area and also having to slow down for elk at night in the upper Gallatin that were scattered on the roads at.

Very little has changed in the Gardiner area as far as development and loss of habitat in the last 20 years. Pretty much a stalled economy in that little town. The weather is really the same as it has been forever. It's always dry up there.

While I have no doubt the bear and lion numbers have increased you just can't deny the impact the wolves "must" be having on those herd numbers. They are really staggering when you think of the decline. Almost 20,000 in 1994 to 4,600 in 2011. Ben is right the hunters did take a good wack at them some of those years as well. One year reported several thousand elk killed. The crazy thing is that from what I read the objective for the northern herd is around 4-5,000? So really they are close to objective. I'm assuming we just became used too and emotionally attached to seeing such massive numbers that now we are whining and shocked

As far as not liking us complain I guess just quit reading the post. I guess we should congratulate Minn on the high wolf numbers. How are your elk and moose doing?
Seems similar to weather around here. We get a "good" winter storm that rolls through Montana and the Dakotas and suddenly when it hits the states east of us it becomes a "crushing" winter storm We are all whiners at some point and time.

Back to the original question. If I wasn't a sucky shot with my bow I would be done right now but my wife hasn't seen a year go by in 16 years of marriage without elk meat, so I guess I'm surviving the "wolf crisis".

 

[ismith]

Go ahead and complain...I will tell you you are FOS every time. There are wolves here eating critter too...I guess I just don't whine about it like MT people do...LOL.

I suggest you ALL'S do the math...let me do it for you....eh?

MN - 86,000 SQ miles - 3300+ wolves and most of them in only 1/3 of the state.
MT - 147,000 SQ miles and only 600+ wolves....

Lets keep this thread going...in the end I will still be a crybaby little bitch...wait...I already am...you are all just pissed about about our killer perch fishing and plus size clothing stores.


Better yet........since im obviously just pissed about all the wolves here Minneapolis, St. Paul, the Twin Cities metro area (not the basketball team though, they ROCK!) and the other third of Minnesota thats mostly lakes, Ill will quite hunting altogether and take up knitting or perhaps gin rummy.

86,000-3300+ 1/3= 27,567
147,000-600= 146,400
Man thats one crappy word problem! I think I got it though. :hump:

 

[MN Public Hunter]

86,000-3300+ 1/3= 27,567
147,000-600= 146,400
Man thats one crappy word problem! I think I got it though. :hump:

And we have another ass clown brown noser that feel that need to insult people....Thanks for the edit...^^^^^^^^

 

[MN Public Hunter]

Hmmmmm? Please explain.

Dang, I obviously have gotten under your skin, some how, some way. Care to explain in further details?

Not sure what you refer to when you say "all this Randy wolf stuff." Got any examples?

Curious about the reference to ..... My problem is Randy has blown this wolf thing WAY out of proportion ......

Given I seem to have done something that has created a "problem" for you, please oblige me the favor of further explanation or examples.

Are you making a straight comparison between the wolf situation in MN to the wolf situation in MT?

I suspect if "all those guys...speak up" you will get your wish to be proven wrong. Just sayin'.

You are not under my skin. You got people up in arms based on your show which I believe was a bit over the top, that is my opinion as well as others as you can see.

I could go on about my opinion, but in the end it's your show and you can do what you want. I will always be here to point out MT has WAY fewer wolves and we don't cry and whine about it in MN. And yes, our elk and moose numbers are the same as far as I know and we have 5x as many wolves in 1/3 the area. Good try by the other member trying to twist the numbers, but now he just looks dumb.

I'm done responding to this...really...I will still post in ALL the wolf threads since that all you can all seem to talk about. I really don't get it.

I like the show, but this wolf thing has just turned a corner which you yourself have pushed and I personal think you are over hyping it. IMO. There are many reason that numbers are down and it's not just the wolf, but for some reason people seem to think that is the main reasons, I disagree and that is my opinion.

 

[ismith]

And we have another really nice fellow that feels that need to be a really cool guy! Thanks for the edit,...^^^^^^^^

Is my math is wrong? I seem to remember that theres a particular order you do each function but I dont recall how it goes, math wasnt my strong subject. Your welcome, i've got spell checker!

 

[Big Fin]

You are more than entitled to your opinions. As far as your impression of me blaming all the elk woes in Montana to be the result of wolves, I suspect you did not read this thread I started last spring.

http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?t=250136

I have never blamed any hunting problems on wolves. If you read some threads here, you would see that I blame the Montana Elk Management Plan as the primary reason for the reduction of elk in most areas of MT.

You will see that I have advocated for state control of wolves and adoption of plans that will insure that wolves always have a place on our landscapes. Not sure what about that is blowing things WAY out of proportion.

If you have a problem with what I have stated on wolves and elk in the west, I don't know what to say that will help that. My position on wolves, elk, and the screwed up Elk Management Plan are not changing anytime soon.

If you think the wolf show was over the top, that is fine. Given you have not spent much time involved in the Montana wolf discussion, I suspect your impressions of the topic would differ from mine and from what was conveyed in the episodes. Given you did not spend any time hunting them in MT last year, I suspect you would have a different impression about wolf hunting than I have.

When I read wolf discussions on this site, they are a lot more educated and informed than the emotional "Shoot 'em all" tirades I read on other sites. This site supports a TV show that is mostly western hunting. Wolves are a topic of great interest in the west. I suspect people on this site will continue to express the many varied opinions that they have on wolves, as they do on the many MN hunting sites I drop in on.

As to your comment that MN guys do not bitch and whine about wolves, you obviously don't hang out on some of the MN hunting forums that I do. Most the folks north of Highway 2 have the same feelings about wolves that you will find among many in the Northern Rockies. Maybe the discussion in the Twin Cities area where you live is different, but where I grew up in Koochiching County, there is plenty of wolf talk and many guys attribute a good portion of the deer population declines on wolves.

A few points related to your simplified analysis that seems to think the MN wolf topic is the same as the MT wolf topic. Having lived in both states' core wolf areas, trapped wolves in MN, hunted them in MT, and having many family and friends still living in the core MN wolf country north of Hwy 2, I see huge differences between the MN and MT wolf discussion.

You compare two different wolf populations that have different primary food sources, habitats, and many other factors, making a numbers-to-numbers comparison almost invalid for the discussion between the two places.

The MN population is preying primarily on whitetail deer in their historic habitats, not nearly as impacted by human development as the western states. The MT population is preying on elk who have been displaced from their historic plains and foothill environments to the mountains. The MT food source is heavily impacted by development of their winter ranges. Confinement to small habitats and travel corridors being encroached have a huge difference on escapement of the two different prey species and their evolutionary adaptions for escapement. The same when they are confined to smaller summer/calving habitats that make calves very vulnerable to bear predation in June.

MN wolves prey on a species that has very high fecundity. In good years, whitetail does will almost all have twin fawns, resulting in fawning rates of well over 100%. MT wolves prey on a species that has much less than 100% calving rate, and when you consider calf survival due to other issues, it is well below 50%, in some instances, below 20%. The ability of one prey species to recover from harsh winters or human over-harvest is way different than the other, as is the speed at which recovery can occur.

The primary MN area north of Highway 2 is under continual habitat manipulation due to logging. Regeneration of whitetail deer habitats to newer phases of growth, benefiting deer occurs at a much more rapid rate than where elk live. The primary areas of wolf/elk overlap in MT are national forests that have had very little logging and extreme fire suppression, reducing the nutritional value of the forage by great levels over the last 25 years.

The core MN wolf has almost no agriculture and no demand by producers to adopt whitetail management plans that would keep deer numbers way below carrying capacity of the habitat of the wolf's prey species - whitetails. In MT, we have significant agricultural influence in all areas of elk/wolf existence, having a negative influence on the management of elk to levels far below carrying capacity.

The MN population is a result of a naturally expanding population, governed under the full protections of the ESA. The MT population stems mostly from a negotiated reintroduction effort that is covered under a different section of the ESA, giving our population the status of "non-essential and experimental." therefore resulting in different population targets and objectives. This negotiated introduction being the focus of ten years of litigation and much of the acrimony you hear from westerners and a big part of the discussion in our TV episode.

This negotiated reintroduction and the abuse of that agreement by the pro-wolfers is probably the biggest difference as to why hunters in the Northern Rockies feel screwed over by the wolf topic. Maybe that is not what MN hunters feel.

A simple comparison of the MN wolf populations to the MT wolf populations is like comparing whitetails to elk or comparing the flat boreal forests of the Canadian Shield to the habitats of the Northern Rockies. The topic of wolves in the two areas have huge biological differences and more importantly, way different social and political differences.

You seem irritated that western guys want to discuss wolves/elk in the context of what was promised when wolves were reintroduced. I doubt that will change among westerners, so your irritation factor may continue as you read wolf/elk threads on western hunting forums.

Carry on .....

 

[drahthaar]

"Randy wolf stuff"? LOL.

Holy crap Randy, I didn't know you had so much POWER!!! Yep, you pushed it. You pushed the re-intro, you pushed the inception of the SFW, then BGF, you surely must have invited Toby Bridges to MT, did you set up Lobowatch too? Come on Randy, what aren't you telling us? Did you set up all the protests across MT too? Did you pay for the big ad BGF put in all 7 major papers?

You filmed a wolf hunt!!! IT's ALL YOU RANDY!! LOL.

They should all be named after you. MT Randy wolves, aka Canadian Super Wolves.

 

[ismith]

I think im going to refer to wolves as "Randies" from here on out.

 

[Dinkshooter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymA8T-ZWTCQ&feature=related

 

[ismith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymA8T-ZWTCQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuRKRFjm-HA

 

[Oak]

Better yet...where are all these other "supporters" of all this Randy wolf stuff...Oak and all those guys...speak up...prove me wrong...

Wha...what? Please show me how many wolf threads I have posted on here in the last two years. Thanks in advance.

 

[Oak]

Here, let me help you.

http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/search.php?searchid=183372

 

[Devil Diver Down]

I suggest you ALL do the math...let me do it for you....

MN - 86,000 SQ miles - 3300+ wolves and most of them in only 1/3 of the state.
MT - 147,000 SQ miles and only 600+ wolves....

SQ miles is a nice figure but what are the carrying capacities for game in those areas? I don't have the answer - it's a legit question.

To be fair, I haven't seen many on this site being in the 'elk are the only problem' or the 'kill them all' camp. I've read plenty of posts about wolves not being managed before delisting and about Elk Management Plans that are choosing short term dollars over long term benefits.

 

[belly-deep]

MN - 86,000 SQ miles - 3300+ wolves and most of them in only 1/3 of the state.
MT - 147,000 SQ miles and only 600+ wolves....

Most of the wolves in MT are in only 1/3 of the state.


I guess you don't know as much as you think you do?

 

[shoots-straight]

Most of the wolves in MT are in only 1/3 of the state.


I guess you don't know as much as you think you do?

To add to that fact: Much of the land mass that has wolves, isn't hospitable to any wildlife for much of the year. Our wolves get concentrated on winter ranges where our big game herds live. These areas often times are quite small.

How many Griz do you have running around in Minnesota? How about lions? We know you have Black bear, so do we.

I think your going over board blaming Randy's show for wolf hysteria. That comes from a lot of sources, and Randy's is but a small player in that game.

All predators have an impact on prey species. That includes man!

Hunting has gotten tougher after wolf introduction. It was way tougher when I was a kid in the 70's.

 

[Dinkshooter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuRKRFjm-HA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjCtHgNEcV0&feature=related

 

[Mudranger1]

Here, let me help you.

http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/search.php?searchid=183372

It's a cover up:hump:

 

[Mudranger1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjCtHgNEcV0&feature=related

I often wonder how y'all spend your days. Now I know it's searching YouTube

 

[Lawnboy]

Dink that last one was just plain crazy! I couldn't get over thinking how that dude couldn't even make it out of the parking lot headed to camp.
I do see how this relates to a wolf thread. There's more hair flying around there than on a pack of wolves.

 

[RobertR]

United We Stand Divided We Fail !

The wolf is here to stay let's just deal with it and manage them. I'm a fourth generation Montanan and have seen the rise and fall of wildlife in general and there habitat. If anyone has read the history of who brought the game back from the brink of extinction you would know it's far better to stand as one.