Ithaca 37
New member
I can't understand why elk harvest numbers are staying steady when wolves are wiping out all the elk herds. Can any of the anti-wolf nuts explain it?
"Here's one wolf mystery that needs to be solved: Just what are wolves doing to Idaho big-game herds?
Hunters and wolf advocates can argue the point until the cow elk come home and only further fuel the controversy surrounding the wolf.
A Department of Fish and Game study into big-game deaths will help get beyond the anecdotes and the animosity.
This will be the biggest big-game monitoring project in Fish and Game's history: attaching radio collars on 600 female deer and elk to figure out what's killing them.
The answers won't come cheap — Fish and Game has about $675,000 earmarked for the work, including about $200,000 from the federal government. But the answers will be extremely valuable.
A lot of things can kill a deer or an elk: disease, rough winters, and predators including cougars, bears and coyotes. And wolves. What the state must quantify is how much effect the wolf is having on big game.
The current numbers can be massaged for either view you embrace.
The Idaho wolf population has mushroomed since the mid-1990s, when the federal government released 35 wolves in Idaho. Today the wolf population exceeds 400. You cannot introduce a top-of-the-food-chain predator in those numbers without affecting the animals it eats.
Yet hunters aren't getting skunked. Elk harvest numbers dropped in 1998, but that was the result of tighter state regulations, not wolves. Numbers have remained steady ever since; hunters are killing more than 18,000 elk a year, several times more elk than the wolves take.
So the claim that wolves are decimating big game appears far-fetched. But that doesn't mean the wolves are having no effect on elk; the radio collaring project will help measure that.
The result could be darkly called "applied research": The collaring project may gather research that would allow Fish and Game to make its case for federal permission to shoot wolves.
That case must be airtight, and the feds must insist on seeing the goods. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will allow wolf kills when big-game numbers "are not meeting state management goals and are unlikely to rebound because of excessive wolf predation without agency intervention."
That's a mouthful, but each clause matters. It should not be easy for states to kill federally protected wolves. States need to prove their big game are in trouble because of wolves. Wolves should not bear the blame for hard winters or habitat problems. If hunters are spotting and killing fewer elk, the state must prove the wolves are the principal problem.
Mystique and mistrust surround the wolf. The animal's advocates and critics dislike and distrust each other and are often skeptical of the agencies that manage wolves. If states or the feds decide to kill wolves — or let them live — they'll need good science on their side. The Fish and Game study represents an important step in that direction."
http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050228/NEWS0501/502280303/1052/NEWS05
"Here's one wolf mystery that needs to be solved: Just what are wolves doing to Idaho big-game herds?
Hunters and wolf advocates can argue the point until the cow elk come home and only further fuel the controversy surrounding the wolf.
A Department of Fish and Game study into big-game deaths will help get beyond the anecdotes and the animosity.
This will be the biggest big-game monitoring project in Fish and Game's history: attaching radio collars on 600 female deer and elk to figure out what's killing them.
The answers won't come cheap — Fish and Game has about $675,000 earmarked for the work, including about $200,000 from the federal government. But the answers will be extremely valuable.
A lot of things can kill a deer or an elk: disease, rough winters, and predators including cougars, bears and coyotes. And wolves. What the state must quantify is how much effect the wolf is having on big game.
The current numbers can be massaged for either view you embrace.
The Idaho wolf population has mushroomed since the mid-1990s, when the federal government released 35 wolves in Idaho. Today the wolf population exceeds 400. You cannot introduce a top-of-the-food-chain predator in those numbers without affecting the animals it eats.
Yet hunters aren't getting skunked. Elk harvest numbers dropped in 1998, but that was the result of tighter state regulations, not wolves. Numbers have remained steady ever since; hunters are killing more than 18,000 elk a year, several times more elk than the wolves take.
So the claim that wolves are decimating big game appears far-fetched. But that doesn't mean the wolves are having no effect on elk; the radio collaring project will help measure that.
The result could be darkly called "applied research": The collaring project may gather research that would allow Fish and Game to make its case for federal permission to shoot wolves.
That case must be airtight, and the feds must insist on seeing the goods. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will allow wolf kills when big-game numbers "are not meeting state management goals and are unlikely to rebound because of excessive wolf predation without agency intervention."
That's a mouthful, but each clause matters. It should not be easy for states to kill federally protected wolves. States need to prove their big game are in trouble because of wolves. Wolves should not bear the blame for hard winters or habitat problems. If hunters are spotting and killing fewer elk, the state must prove the wolves are the principal problem.
Mystique and mistrust surround the wolf. The animal's advocates and critics dislike and distrust each other and are often skeptical of the agencies that manage wolves. If states or the feds decide to kill wolves — or let them live — they'll need good science on their side. The Fish and Game study represents an important step in that direction."
http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050228/NEWS0501/502280303/1052/NEWS05
