Dogs and Cats Living Together… Mass Hysteria!
Global Warming Lunacy #4756
Because of global warming the polar ice caps will melt and then mixed species breeding will occur. That’s what the models that scientists create tell us.
You think I’m kidding?
Some scientists think receding sea ice could lead to species mingling
by Jeff Richardson, News Miner, April 25, 2010 [here]
FAIRBANKS — As long-term climate models predict declining amounts of sea ice in the Arctic, a University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher believes the change could bring an unexpected result — more inter-species breeding among mammals that live in the far north.
Brendan Kelly, a marine biology professor at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, said the presence of sea ice has resulted in the isolation of numerous animals in the Arctic during the past 10,000 years or more. Those animals have evolved gradually into distinct species, such as walruses, ringed seals and polar bears.
But without ice to separate them in the future, Kelly believes many of those distant cousins will start to mingle again. The result could be more breeding between species, resulting in a biological stew that could reshape animal life in the Arctic.
“In 100 years, the species (in the Arctic) will be different than the species today,” Kelly said. “Is that good; is that bad? It’s different, for sure.”
Kelly discussed the theory during a teleconference hosted by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy on Tuesday and has submitted a manuscript on the subject to Global Change Biology, a peer-reviewed science journal.
Kelly said there’s an understandable public weariness toward scientists who attribute every blip in the ecosystem to global warming but said he’s confident the theory is sound. …
“This really kind of pushes our definition of species,” he said. “It kind of shows our dirty underwear as biologists.”
So there you have it. The dirty underwear of biologists. It must be true because it has been submitted to a peer-reviewed science journal.
Yessir. Walruses and polar bears in weird animal sex orgies, breeding new species never seen before, all because of global warming.
Which isn’t happening. The globe has been cooling for the last 15 years, and generally for the last 6,000 to 10,000 years (since the Holocene Climatic Optimum). Arctic sea ice is growing. There is more ice now than at this date anytime in the last 8 years [here]. The models are dead wrong.
Around 115,000 years ago during the previous interglacial there was little or no Arctic ice, even less than today. But no narseals or walbears resulted.
There have been 18 short-lived (~10,000 year long) interglacials in the past 1.8 million years and 18 long-lived (~90,000 year long) glacial stadials during the Ice Ages, but no penguin-parrots. Not that I know of, anyway.
Do you remember the movie Ghost Busters?
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Yep. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. Thermageddon. The Ecopalypse. Ringed bearwhales. Dogcats.
Or possibly silly “scientists” drinking too much backwoods Alaskan moonshine.
NM Alliance Sues USFWS and Others Over Mexican Wolf
Claims violation of NEPA provisions for Endangered Species Act
by Frank DuBois, The Westerner, April 23, 2010 [here]
RESERVE, N.M. Americans for Preservation of the Western Environment, the Gila Livestock Growers Association, the Board of County Commissioners of Catron County, New Mexico and other plaintiffs have jointly sent notification of an intent to file suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of the Interior, and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, for management actions and policies that violate the provisions of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Plan and the Final Rule issued under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species.
The letter states that instead of following the procedures and process set forth in the Final Rule issued under Section 10(j), the Fish & Wildlife Service, the Department of Interior and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish have embarked on a procedure of developing ad hoc management practices and procedures for dealing with depredations and removals, all of which have been put in place without following appropriate procedures under the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Additionally, the letter states that the agencies’ demonstrate intent to continue to violate the express findings in the FEIS and Final Rule.
“The point of this letter is to give the agencies the opportunity to come into compliance,” said Ed Wehrheim, Chairman of Americans for Preservation of Western Environment, a citizen-based group claiming overwhelming support throughout New Mexico.
“In a time when we’re cutting back on teachers, health care and other vital programs, the Mexican wolf program, which is now costing over $400,000 per wolf, is insane.”
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Deer, Elk, Bison Homo sapiens Moose Wildlife Agencies Wolves
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James Swan: the myth of the harmless wolf
James Swan, author of the book “In Defense of Hunting” [here] has written an excellent synopsis of wolf issues with emphasis on the dangers that uncontrolled wolves pose to wildlife and humans.
Selected excerpts:
Recent wolf attacks on humans raise calls for proper management
By James Swan, ESPNOutdoors.com, April 24, 2010 [here]
On March 9, 2010, Candice Berner, a 32 year-old special education teacher working in Chignik Lake, Alaska, went jogging at dusk on a road near town and was attacked and killed by wolves.
On October 28, 2009, Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell was hiking in a Provincial Park in Nova Scotia when she was attacked and killed by two coyotes, which were subsequently identified by park rangers as a wolf-coyote hybrid.
In November of 2005, college student Kenton Carnegie was hiking on a road near Points North Landing in northern Saskatchewan when he was attacked and killed by wolves. There was some dispute over whether Carnegie was killed by wolves or a bear, but a provincial inquest found that wolves were responsible.
The attacking wolves in these three incidents were not rabid.
Because more than 90 percent of the population lives in urban areas and relies heavily on electronic screens to get information, most people today form opinions based on books, films and what people say.
For decades we have been told and taught that wolves have never attacked people in North America. The Internet Movie Database lists over 150 film and TV titles with the words “wolf” or “wolves.” There was only one found about wolf attacks: “The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge” (2005), a TV drama based on the true story of a wolf that terrorized a rural Swedish community and kills 10 children.
PHOTO GALLERY [here]
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/photogallery?id=5131655
We’ve also been told that children’s fairy tales about the “Big Bad Wolf” were created to keep children home at night, and do not paint a realistic portrait of wolves.
Some light on wolf-human encounters was shed in 2002 when Alaskan wildlife biologist Mark McNay published a report of a two-year study documenting 80 aggressive encounters between wolves and people in North America in the 20th century.
In only 12 of the attacks were the wolves rabid. Since McNay’s report came out there have been three fatal attacks by healthy wolves, and an unknown number of non-fatal aggressive encounters and attacks on people and their pets in the U.S. and Canada. So what’s up?
“In Wolves In Russia,” Will Graves reports on a long history of wolf attacks on people in Eurasia, especially Russia, Pakistan, India and Kazakhastan, including thousands of fatal ones. …
Not nearly as many people in Eurasia are armed. As Graves points out, in Russia the populace was kept unarmed to prevent revolutions and reports of wolf killings were also suppressed to keep people from demanding to be armed. Our perspective on wolves is based on our experience, which is different from people abroad. All three peopled recently killed by wolves were unarmed. …
There are at least 6,000 wolves in the Northern Rockies and Northern Great Lakes states, 40,000 to 50,000 wolves in Canada and 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska — 65,000-70,000 wolves for all of North America.
Wolves live in wild places, where there are few people, at least until recently. In recent years, especially since Canadian wolves were released into the Northern Rockies in 1995, the North American wolf population has doubled. Elk and deer herds have been dramatically reduced in some areas.
In 1995, when wolves were first re-introduced to the Northern Rockies, there were 19,000 elk in the Northern Yellowstone herd. By 2008, the herd was reduced to 6,000. Current estimates place the herd at less than 5,000. The moose herd in that area has dropped below 1,000.
Similarly, in 1994 there were 9,729 elk in District 10 of the Lolo Basin in Idaho, and 3,832 in District 12. By 2010, the elk herd in District 10 had plummeted to 1,473, and in District 12 in 2010 there were 705.
Such dramatic declines have moved the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to move from a position of what RMEF President David Allen describes was “sitting on the fence about wolves,” to its present stance, which favors “managing wolves like other predators, because their population numbers have soared way over the benchmark goals of the re-introduction as elk herds have declined by 80 percent or more in certain areas of the Northern Rockies.”
A recent study by Mark Collinge of the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services office in Boise, Idaho, finds “that individual wolves are much more likely to prey on livestock than are individuals of any other predator species in Idaho.”
As wild prey declines, wolves will look for food elsewhere. Noted Canadian wildlife biologist Dr. Valerius Geist finds that wolves (and coyotes, too) constantly test boundaries as they look for their next meal.
When normal prey is scarce, and they aren’t challenged by people, both wild canids progressively move closer and closer — preying on livestock, pets, garbage, etc. until they experiment with humans as food. “Habituation,” it’s called. It spells “trouble.” …
Wolves enjoy killing. It’s well-documented that on occasion they will run amok among herds of livestock, deer and elk, killing as many as they can, not eating their prey.
David Allen of RMEF, Don Peay of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and Steve Alder from Idaho for Wildlife, all cite numerous examples of wolves attacking and killing large numbers of elk and livestock and not touching the carcasses as food. All three organizational leaders add that the elk killed by wolves are not just the sick, lame or aging, but very often healthy elk, especially calves and yearlings. …
Since wolves were introduced into the Northern Rockies in 1995, more than 1,000 have been killed by animal control. ….
David Mech recently has said that regulated hunting of wolves is not a threat to the species survival. Wolves no know political boundaries. They are here to stay.
Wolves are smart, prolific, and adapt quickly. Mech says that so long as there is adequate food and habitat it’s necessary to kill off between 28 and 53 percent in an area just to keep that wolf population stable. In 2009, hunters killed 22 percent of the wolves in Idaho and 14 percent of the wolves in Montana.
Cal Grown, Director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, says that declining elk populations in the state could lead to more liberal wolf hunting seasons in 2010. This will cause some people to howl, but will it threaten the survival of wolves?
“If the animal rights folks were truly just concerned about wildlife diversity they would leave the sportsmen and the states alone to manage the wildlife, including wolves. The U.S. has had the most successful wildlife model in the world for a century and it is due in large part to the American sportsmen. But I don’t believe that wildlife diversity is really their agenda or end goal; anti-hunting is their agenda,” says David Allen.
There are efforts afoot to return wolves in the Northern Rockies to the Endangered Species list. If you would like to voice your support to continue delisting wolves, a new website has been established, www.biggameforever.org, that will have an online petition. The goal is getting 100,000 signatures. … [more]
Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Graph and Map
The following images are from the:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Nez Perce Tribe, National Park Service, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Blackfeet Nation, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Idaho Fish and Game, and USDA Wildlife Services. 2010. Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery 2009 Interagency Annual Report. C.A. Sime and E. E. Bangs, eds. USFWS, Ecological Services [here].
The 2009 NRM wolf population increased over 2008 levels and now includes at least 1,706 wolves in 242 packs and 115 breeding pairs. Wolf packs and especially breeding pairs largely remain within the core recovery areas, but for the first time breeding pairs were confirmed in eastern Washington and Oregon.
Rocky Mountain wolf population growth, 1980-2009, minimum estimate by state. Click for larger image.
Map showing distribution of known wolf packs in the northern Rocky Mountain region. Click for larger image.
Polar bear’s status focus of Nunavut hearing
Article and comments from CBC News, April 13, 2010 [here]
The question of how to classify Canada’s polar bears under species-at-risk legislation is the subject of a three-day public hearing that began Tuesday in Iqaluit.
Polar bears in Canada were listed as a “species of special concern” — one step below “threatened” and two below “endangered” — under the federal Species at Risk Act in 2002.
The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board is hosting the three-day hearing to consider a 2008 recommendation from the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) to keep the “special concern” classification.
The board will submit its own recommendation to the federal government, which will make the final decision about whether to change the polar bear status.
There were an estimated 15,500 polar bears in Canada in 2008, according to COSEWIC, a 60-member scientific committee that advises the federal government on species that should be protected. …
The committee spent two years assessing data about the entire Canadian polar bear population — which is divided into 13 isolated subpopulations — chairman Jeff Hutchings said Tuesday.
Hutchings said although COSEWIC found there are generally more polar bears today than 50 years ago, their future survival could be threatened.
“The key question is what’s going to happen in the future given that sea ice is likely going to decline and that polar bears do depend upon sea ice,” he said.
“That’s the key uncertainty; it’s looking into the future. That’s the basis for the special concern listing.”
While the committee is worried about the effects of climate change in the Arctic, it also has concerns about the hunting of polar bear subpopulations in the Baffin Bay and Kane Basin areas, some parts of which are governed by Greenland.
Inuit in those areas have long disputed scientists’ claims that overhunting has led to fewer bears and could threaten the survival of those subpopulations.
Deer, Elk, Bison Homo sapiens Moose Wildlife Agencies Wolves
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Minnesota Wolves
There are now an astonishing 3,500 wolves in Minnesota. That is more than 10 times the population in 1974, when wolves became a federally protected animal that may not be hunted or trapped.
Several attempts have been made by the USFWS to delist Minnesota wolves, but Federal judges have enjoined delisting in response to lawsuits filed by the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) [here].
It is widely recognized that Minnesota has too many wolves and they are not in danger of going extinct. According to the Minn DNR [here]:
“Everybody’s recognized that wolves have recovered in MN,” explains Dan Stark, Minnesota’s DNR Wolf Expert.
Everybody, that is, but HSUS:
Minnesota DNR wolf experts say conflicts like these could be better managed if wolves were taken off the Federal Endangered Species List and managed by the State.
The DNR successfully implemented its own plan for state wolf management during a span of 18 months beginning in 2007. However, several lawsuits from animal protection groups put the wolf back on the list in 2008. …
However, animal protection groups say Minnesota’s plan is misguided.
According to Howard Goldman, Director of the Minnesota Humane Society “The answer is pretty straightforward: the wolves have not recovered.”
How many wolves in Minnesota?
The DNR calculates Minnesota has up to 3,500 wolves, including more than 100 wolf packs. Populations in Michigan and Wisconsin’s are not as strong with only about 600 hundred wolves each.
Curiously, Minnesota moose and deer populations have crashed. The Minn DNR blames everything but wolves. It’s a moose mystery [here]. But don’t worry, they’ll bounce back [here].
The Humane Society? I bet you thought they were all about humane treatment of pets. Not hardly. In Minnesota wolves eat pets like candy [here]:
For a growing number of people living close to wilderness areas, dangerous wolf encounters and pets being lost to wolves, are an increasing cause of concern.
These reports, plus a recent situation in which a woman in Alaska was killed by a wolf pack, are contributing to mounting fear.
“Can you let your little kids play in your yard? I certainly wouldn’t,” said Gary Mitchell of Ely.
Many Ely residents are on full alert, keeping a close eye on their children as they play outside; others are thinking twice before letting pets run free.
Ely authorities confirm more than five dogs have been killed and eaten by wolves in the last three months.
Worst Wildlife Management Disaster Since the Destruction of Bison Herds
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has posted a letter [here] from RMEF president and CEO M. David Allen to the enviro-litigious groups Defenders of Wildlife and Western Wildlife Conservancy, taking those organizations to task for promoting proliferation of wolves at the expense of elk and other wildlife.
Selected excerpts:
April 8, 2010
TO: Mike Leahy, Director, Rocky Mountain Region, Defenders of Wildlife
Kirk Robinson, Executive Director, Western Wildlife Conservancy
FROM: M. David Allen, President & CEO, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Dear Mr. Leahy & Mr. Robinson:
I am in receipt of your letter of March 30, 2010. I will address your points factually and straightforward.
We would be happy to meet with you to discuss conservation issues and the destruction of specific herds of elk in North America. We believe; however, that your organizations and others are contributing greatly to perhaps one of the worst wildlife management disasters since the destruction of bison herds in the 19th century. Until the lawsuit relative to re-listing the wolves is settled or until you withdraw your support for such, there really isn’t much need to meet as we continue to be at opposite ends of this issue.
Once again, I will state that elk are not flourishing where wolves are present. Contrary to what you have suggested many times to claim otherwise is disingenuous and “cherry picking” data. Elk populations are being exploited at a high rate by predators, primarily wolves and somewhat by grizzly bears. However, since the introduction of the Canadian gray wolf into Yellowstone this exploitation has become worse for elk numbers in the same areas. Yet, you would have the public believe otherwise. The numbers and facts do not lie and they are as follows:
Judge “Grizzly” Molloy Scares Humans
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has banned aerial weed spraying on the Kootenai National Forest because the helicopters might scare grizzly bears.
The poor, frightened grizzly bears might be driven from their habitat according to the judge.
Judge nixes aerial weed spraying on Kootenai
By MATT VOLZ, helenair.com, April 8, 2010 [here]
A U.S. Forest Service plan to spray herbicide from helicopters over the Kootenai National Forest does not adequately protect dozens of grizzly bears and could drive them from their habitat, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy concluded the federal agency can’t conduct any aerial spraying in the 2.2-million acre forest in Montana’s northwestern corner until it addresses in its plan how often the flights would be allowed and what the effect would be on the endangered bears.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, a Helena-based environmental group, sued the Forest Service over the plan, saying multiple fly-overs would cause the bears to flee and permanently abandon any habitat that is subject to weed spraying.
“When the low-flying helicopters fly over grizzly habit, the grizzlies leave,” said Michael Garrity, executive director of the group. “They can’t just fly helicopters over endangered species habitat without looking at the effects on the endangered species.”
Molloy, affirming a magistrate judge’s earlier recommendations, sent the plan back to the Forest Service, saying the agency’s conclusion that low-altitude, high-frequency flights are not likely to adversely affect the grizzly bear was “arbitrary and capricious.”
Other aspects of the plan, including ground application of the herbicides, can go forward, Molloy said in the March 30 ruling.
The environmental group also claimed in the lawsuit that the chemical used in the herbicide could be harmful to animals and to people living in the Libby area, but the judge ruled for the Forest Service in those claims. … [more]
Judge Molloy also thinks grizzly bears are going extinct due to global warming [here].
We have a serious problem when Federal judges adopt pseuodscience mythologies and prescribe wildlife management from the bench. Crackpot theories are okay when held by crackpots without dictatorial powers, but when Federal judges pretend to know something about wildlife, they really muck things up.
How about wildfires, Judge Molloy? Shall the USFS stop fighting forest fires in “grizzly habitat” because those firefighting helicopters “scare the bears”?
Grizzlies Relisted Due to Global Warming
The US Fish and Wildlife Service put grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park back on the threatened species list on March 26th. The USFWS was forced to do so by a court decision that said global warming is causing the bears to go extinct.
Yellowstone grizzlies were first listed as endangered in 1975 when 200 bears roamed the park and surrounding areas. After $20 million was spent to recover the species, over 600 bears in Yellowstone constituted the densest population in North America and grizzlies had spread throughout the Northern Rockies.
The USFWS delisted Yellowstone grizzlies in 2007, as required under the Endangered Species Act, because determination was made that the Yellowstone grizzly bear population was no longer an endangered or threatened population.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition brought suit, contending that whitebark pine was declining due to global warming, that grizzlies are dependent on whitebark pine nuts, and that therefore the bears were still endangered and likely to go extinct.
All those contentions are completely bogus, yet U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled last September that, “There is a connection between whitebark pine and grizzly survival” [here].
Judge Molloy is the same judge who put Northern Rocky Mountain wolves back on the endangered species list because he determined the wolves capacity for “genetic exchange” was inadequate [here].
Judge Molloy thinks he is a wildlife biologist, but his theories are completely crackers. Judges who pretend to be scientists, who ignore the overwhelming testimony of real scientists and dream up their own crackpot theories, are a strain and burden to the American judicial system.
In this case Judge Molloy didn’t base his ruling on his pet “genetic exchange” theory, but instead ruled that “climate change” was going to make the bears go extinct. This is despite the fact that the grizzly bear population has grown steadily over the last 35 years, a period when climate alarmists claim we have experienced global warming.
Note: No one can prove that the climate anywhere has “changed”. No one can prove that it is going to. The entire global warming theory is a hoax and a scam.
But even if the climate changes, it will not affect grizzly bears who once roamed regions far to the south of Yellowstone. Heck, grizzly bears once roamed California where they are the Official State Animal. Grizzly bears are not restricted ecologically to any particular climate.
Nor are whitebark pine nuts the principal food of grizzly bears. They are a minor snack, and in most places where grizzly bears live there are no whitebark pine trees at all!
Nor are whitebark pines dying out, nor will they even if the climate changes, which it is not going to.
The entire theory is complete eco-babble nonsense and bogosity. But Judge Molloy is all-powerful, no matter how loony he his. The system is truly broken when lunatics run the asylum, and that is exactly the case in America today. Justice is not only blind, she is mad as a hatter.
Extracts from the grizzly bear relisiting Final Rule follow:
Maine’s Deer Population And Harvest Numbers Collapsing
by Tom Remington, Black Bear Blog, April 6, 2010 [here]
I have written at length about the dire predicament that exists in Northern and Eastern Maine with the whitetail deer herd. The general consensus is that there are three main factors – weather, habitat and predation. I dug around and put together population and harvest numbers for the past dozen years. These I’ve put to graphs so readers can get a better sense of the decline. Unlike the “climategate” scandal, where participants have been accused of “hiding the decline”, nobody is trying to hide the decline in deer population and harvest. The argument is what has caused it and what is being done about it?
Before you examine the graphs below, let me explain a couple things. Bear in mind that the data used is for population estimates and harvest numbers statewide. The whitetail deer crisis is for Northern Maine and Eastern Maine, comprising perhaps as much as two-thirds or more of the total state land mass. From information and accounts given, it appears the deer population and harvest figures for Central and Southern Maine remain steady or even growing in some places. I just did not have available data to plot out deer population estimates for the Northern and Eastern Wildlife Management Districts.
With the figures available and keeping in perspective that in Southern and Central areas the deer herd is stable, it’s easy to see that Northern and Eastern Maine deer herds are essentially non existent.
The first graph plots Maine’s estimated, post-hunt deer population beginning in 1998 and ending in 2008. The 2009 estimated, post-hunt deer population figure has not been made available to the public as of yet. At least that I am aware of at this time.
The Y-axis reveals the estimated deer population with a peak of 331,000 occurring in 1999 and a low in 2008 of 199,600. The years are displayed in the X-axis. … [more]
******
Some observations from Mike at Wildlife and People:
1) The Maine deer population has plummeted at least 40% over the last 10 years. That decline has been a steady trend, not an up-down cycle.
2) The hunting harvest has ranged between 10 to 15% of the total population count per year.
3) Healthy deer herds can sustain harvests of 20 to 30% per year and not decline in numbers.
4) Winters have NOT been unusually severe over the last 10 years. In fact, many claim that global warming has reduced winter severity.
5) There is no evidence that the Maine deer herd has exceeded carrying capacity and is dying off for lack of browse.
6) Therefore, it must be something else that is causing the precipitous decline in the deer population numbers.
7) My bet is the cause is PREDATION, probably coyotes and wolves.
The Maine Fish and Game Dept. needs to have their feet held to the fire on this. This post should appear in every newspaper in the state and on every Maine Legislator’s desk. People need to DEMAND accountability from their government.
Kudos to Tom Remington for bringing this issue and these numbers to the attention of the public. Please spread the word.
Colorado Now Being Invaded By A Foreign Enemy!
News Release, LOBO WATCH, March 14, 2010 [here]
The state of Colorado is now under siege. That’s right, the Centennial State is now being invaded by a foreign enemy that could destroy the state’s rural economy, and devastate native wildlife resources. Likewise, the residents of the state are most likely to be exposed to deadly parasites. And, aiding this destructive force is our very own U.S. Government, under the disguise of adhering to the Endangered Species Act.
While all of this kind of sounds like a science fiction novel gone bad, it’s true, and it’s happening right now. As much as this all may read like the plot for another doomsday blockbuster, such as “2012″ or “Independence Day”, when this one is written and produced, the demon will be the wolf. Not werewolves mind you, but the real thing, the gray wolf - Canis lupus.
Will Colorado officials allow the state to become another willing victim, such as state officials did in Montana and Idaho, or will they fight the spread of what is truthfully an invasive species?
PBS Poll Results Favor Wolf Control
The extremely liberal TV “news” show NOW on public television aired an hour-long pro-wolf report in February entitled “Hunting Wolves, Saving Wolves.”
The one-sided report fawned all over eco-litigious wolf loving groups and poked Obama in the eye for allowing the US Fish and Wildlife Service to delist wolves [here]:
Last year the Obama Administration removed federal protection from some of the wolves that had been restored to the northern Rockies under the Endangered Species Act. The move paved the way for controversial state-regulated wolf hunts.
Wolf advocates strongly oppose the administrations decision saying the three states in the region, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming need a cohesive management plan that allows for a much larger wolf population. “It was very disappointing when Secretary Salazar in the Obama Administration, signed off on this rushed-through Bush administration delisting package for wolves,” said Doug Honnold, a lawyer with Earthjustice, who is representing conservation groups challenging the government’s decision. …
More than a dozen conversation groups have sued the Interior Department to return federal protection to the northern Rockies wolves. Some believe the result of this legal debate is a litmus test for the Obama Administration’s overall approach to wildlife issues and the Endangered Species Act.
Wolf delisting is required by law, since wolves are in no way endangered. Efforts by the USFWS to delist have been going on for six years or more, but have been repeatedly thwarted by lawsuits from lobby groups (that collect $billions in EAJA monies for their monkey wrenching efforts).
Despite the puerile propaganda aired by PBS, viewers see things differently. In a poll accompanying the web article about the NOW report, 74% of voters believe delisting is the right thing to do.
The Weekly Q
Do you believe wolves in the Northern Rockies require federal protection?
Evidently people are not quite as gullible as the producers of NOW. Note that the poll voters are PBS viewers. It’s not a balanced sampling, but one biased toward the liberal side. Yet even the liberals are not persuaded. Had the poll been a fair sampling across all the citizenry, the numbers would have been 90% or more in favor of delisting.
Wolves are not endangered. Elk are — and deer, and livestock, and pets, and children waiting for the school bus, and teachers out jogging. They are all threatened by exotic wolves dumped in their midst by an overreaching Federal Government 15 years ago. The dozen or so Canadian wolves inflicted on the Northern Rockies have multiplied and now number more than 5,000.
Next up for NOW, a report on the virtues of plague rats, and how spreading bubonic plague via wildlife is just what the liberal doctors ordered.
IDFG Wolf Depredation Memo Feb. 10, 2010
The following memo describes the efforts by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to control livestock depredation by wolves. This memo is a response or companion piece to the USDA-APHID Wildlife Service report: Idaho Wildlife Services Wolf Activity Report 2009 linked to in the previous post.
State of Idaho
Department of Fish and Game
Boise, Idaho
February 10, 2010
MEMORANDUM
TO: Regional Supervisors
FROM: Cal Groen, Director
SUBJECT: Response to wolf depredations on livestock
CC: Fish and Game Commissioners, Jim Unsworth, Virgil Moore, Mark Collinge, Nate Fisher, Bonnie Butler
Despite our increased response to controlling wolves depredating on livestock in recent years, wolf depredation complaints continued to increase. In November 2008 the Idaho Fish and Game Commission directed IDFG “To develop and aggressively utilize all available tools and methods to control wolf caused depredation of domestic livestock.” Responding to that directive, our control efforts have progressed as follows:
* Decentralized decision-making to Regional Supervisors when authorizing removal of depredating wolves.
* Extended the effective period for take orders by USDA Wildlife Services (WS) and kill permits (livestock owners) from 45 to 60 days following the most recent depredation incident.
* Authorized additional WS wolf removals and extended kill permits based on recurring incidents or chronic history of the wolf pack involved.
* Allowed kill permit designees to include all members of a grazing association during their entire grazing season.
* Increased authorization to remove most or all of the members of wolf packs involved in chronic depredations where there has been a history of depredations from previous years.
* Developed area-specific harvest objectives for the 2009-2010 wolf hunting season to address livestock conflicts.
* Authorized take orders during open hunting season when hunting proved ineffective to remedy chronic depredations.
* Increased coordination between Montana and Idaho WS.
IDFG authorized WS control actions in response to 160 confirmed and 43 probable wolf depredations on livestock during federal FY2009. These control actions resulted in removal of 107 wolves including complete, or nearly complete removal of 6 entire packs (Middle Creek, Snake River, Applejack, Falls Creek, Sage Creek, Blue Bunch) as authorized by IDFG. Fish and Game authorized the removal of the Blue Bunch pack but complete removal was not achieved during the federal FY2009 period. Since the end of the federal FY in September 2009, IDFG has authorized the complete removal of all, or nearly all, members of 3 additional packs (Basin Butte, Steel Mountain, Sweet-Ola) in response to repeated depredations caused by these packs.
Although the Department has documented nearly 300 wolf mortalities in 2009, livestock losses continue at an unacceptable level. As a result, we need to renew our commitment to meeting the Commission’s directive to reduce livestock depredations.
With due consideration to maintaining linkage corridors, we will recommend to the Commission increasing harvest limits in 2010 and expanding season dates in wolf zones with chronic depredations.
Further, in high conflict areas where a history of depredations exists, we will respond to a confirmed depredation incident more aggressively by authorizing WS to remove all involved depredating wolves. Additionally, I am committing staff to work cooperatively with WS to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative methods, such as sterilization or other nonlethal measures, to alleviate wolf damage. We would like to keep all options available to manage wolf depredations in the future.
Idaho Wildlife Services Wolf Activity Report 2009
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Wildlife Services
USDA-APHIS IDAHO WILDLIFE SERVICES WOLF ACTIVITY REPORT FISCAL YEAR 2009
Full text [here]
Selected excerpts [here]
Introduction
This report summarizes Idaho Wildlife Services’ (WS) responses to reported gray wolf depredations and other wolf-related activities conducted during Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 (October 1, 2008 – September 30, 2009) pursuant to Permit No. TE-081376-12, issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) June 16, 2006. This permit allows WS to implement control actions for wolves suspected to be involved in livestock depredations and to capture non-depredating wolves for collaring and re-collaring with radio transmitters as part of ongoing wolf monitoring and management efforts. …
Results
Brief summaries that pertain to those investigations which resulted in a finding of confirmed or probable wolf damage are available on request from the ID WS State Office.
Investigations Summary: WS conducted 226 depredation investigations related to wolf complaints in FY 2009 (as compared to 186 in 2008, an increase of almost 22%). Of those 226 investigations, 160 (~71%) involved confirmed depredations, 43 (~19%) involved probable depredations, 16 (~7%) were possible/unknown wolf depredations and 7 (~3%) of the complaints were due to causes other than wolves.
Wolf Hunt Accounting
A curious headline accompanied an article on the recently finished first-ever Idaho wolf hunt:
Successful wolf hunt may not be profitable
By Brad Iverson-Long, IdahoReporter.com, April 1st, 2010 [here]
Idaho’s first sanctioned wolf hunt ended March 31. Despite all the notoriety surrounding Idaho’s wolf hunt, it may not be a moneymaker for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), according to a department spokesman. Ed Mitchell said it’s debatable whether the hunt that led to 186 hunters killing wolves paid for itself. More than 31,000 hunters bought tags to hunt wolves, which sold for $11.50 to Idaho residents and $186 to out-of-state hunters.
“We need that tag money for our wolf and other big game programs,” Mitchell told IdahoReporter.com. He said the cost of wolf management programs, including tracking and tagging wolves, and the loss of revenues on elk hunting tags due to elk being killed by wolves has offset the more than $400,000 raised from wolf tag sales. Mitchell said elk herds in several areas of the state have been declining, including the Lolo zone. “The Lolo’s been studied so thoroughly,” he said, adding that other areas, like the Selway zone, may also have had large depredation. “We just have more complete science on the Lolo.” Both the Lolo and Selway zones are located along the Montana-Idaho border.
How is $400K in wolf tag sales not profitable?
Mr. Mitchell offered up the word “debatable”. I accept the challenge.
The cost of wolf management is not an “offset” of the hunt. Wolf management is a burden accepted by the State, in effect forced on them (extortion is the appropriate word) by the Feds. The wolf management costs must be borne whether there is a wolf hunt or not. The tag sales offset the management costs, not the other way around.
The loss in elk tag revenues due to the wolves radically reducing the elk population is also not an offset of the wolf hunt. Again, it’s the other way around. The wolf hunt is a method to save the elk, so more elk tags might be sold, if there are any elk left.
The decline in elk tag revenues is another burden borne by the State courtesy the Feds. That burden is a cost to the State that has nothing to do with the wolf hunt. The wolf hunt might reduce that burden, if the State can sell more elk tags. In other words, the wolf hunt is a potential benefit to the State, over and above the $400K in wolf hunt tags.
The IR article continues:
Wolves that kill livestock can also harm ranchers’ bottom line. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that Idaho will get a $140,000 grant to pay back livestock producers in cases of depredation. U.S. Sen. Jim Risch said in a news release that ranchers need this support. “Over the past year, I have heard repeatedly from ranchers who have been pushed to the brink of going out of business as a result of wolf predation,” Risch said. “This funding will help provide the resources to prevent future conflicts and provide compensation for losses. Idaho needs to continue active and aggressive management of the wolf population, just as it has successfully done with cats and bears over the last century.”
The wolf hunt will hopefully reduce livestock losses. That’s another benefit (opposite of a cost). The USFWS grants would not be required if there were no wolves, so technically killing all the wolves would eliminate the need for the grants. That would be an opportunity cost to the State, technically. But the economic effect of livestock loss is much greater than the USFWS reimburses for, so even considering the grant income, depredation is a net cost to the State. Reducing the livestock depredation is a net savings, even if as a result the grants are not necessary and not forthcoming. Hence reducing the number of livestock killed by wolves is another economic benefit of the wolf hunt.
As is well-known, the economic gain from any hunting program is vastly more than tag sales. Hunters buy equipment, rent motel rooms, and spend money like any tourist or recreationalist. The economic boost from hunting benefits businesses, causing them to hire more employees, and everybody pays more taxes on their enhanced incomes. Hence the State benefited from increased sales and income taxes.
All the wolves were not killed. In fact, the wolf population is expected to increase despite the hunt and removals of livestock depredating wolves. It is probable that elk populations will continue to decline. Hence it is difficult to accurately appraise many of the gains mentioned above. As I explained, they are not all gains per se, but reductions in costs, and possibly not much in the way of reductions either.
However, without the wolf hunt the costs probably would be even greater. The wolf hunt potentially provided a savings in costs as well as a boost in revenues. Both are economic benefits.
The State is not a private business. It is not the mission of State government to make a profit. It is their mission to provide services at a reasonable, affordable cost (that ought to be their mission at any rate). Hence the headline claim that the wolf hunt was not profitable is slightly off-kilter. A better headline would have been Wolf Hunt Enhances Economy, State Government Revenues and Reduces Costs to Taxpayers.
The wolf hunt was, in fact, a money maker. Maybe not as much as most citizens would like, but definitely an economic positive rather than a negative.
