Deadly Government Bears
Another collared bear has killed an innocent citizen:
Grizzly kills man near Wyoming’s Yellowstone Park
By MEAD GRUVER - Associated Press Writer, June 18, 2010 [here]
A grizzly bear killed a Wyoming man outside Yellowstone National Park, apparently just hours after researchers trapped and tranquilized the animal.
The attack happened Thursday in the same place where two researchers with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team [here] had examined a large adult male grizzly earlier that day, Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said Friday.
The suspect bear was wearing a radio collar. Authorities didn’t intend to venture into the woods to chase the animal, however. …
Shoshone National Forest officials closed off the Kitty Creek area, about six miles outside the Yellowstone East Entrance, until further notice.
“There have been Forest Service people in the area talking to people who live in those cabins, and at the lodges around there, letting them know what’s going on,” forest spokeswoman Susan Douglas said Friday. …
“My heart goes out for the victim and the family involved in this. Nobody would want anything like this to happen,” Chuck Schwartz, head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team based in Bozeman, Mont., said Friday.
The team is made up of federal and state biologists who monitor and study grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
The researchers also had trapped and tranquilized another grizzly in the area Thursday.
Schwartz said there would be an investigation, including into whether required procedures were followed, such as posting warning signs about the grizzly research.
Schwartz said it wasn’t certain whether the trapped grizzly had mauled Evert. But Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said it’s unlikely that another grizzly would have been in the same area as the large adult male.
“There’s a very, very high probability that it was this bear,” Servheen said.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department was working Friday to try to recapture the bear, agency spokesman Eric Keszler said.
Grizzly bears have been back on the federal list of threatened species since last year.
This is not the first case of negligence by wildlife biologists leading to the killing of innocent people. In 2007 an 11-year-old boy was killed in a bear attack, by an aggressive bear known to employees of the USFS and the Utah Division of Wildlife Services who failed to warn campers [here].
Moving Forward on Solutions for Wolves
Note: The following is a series of letters sent to share with permission to publish from the Yellow Pine Times. My own response is attached last. - MD
Moving Forward on Solutions for Wolves
by Don Peay, Founder, Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife, June 9, 2010
1. Judge Malloy will hear the case next Week and then by Sept. 1, both Molloy and Judge Johnson should have made their rulings
a. Montana has proposed to increase wolf harvest to 216 wolves
b. Idaho Game and Fish and Commission are discussing reducing wolves down to 500 if Judges allow for Management.
c. Wyoming is waiting for Judge Johnson Ruling.
d. Wolves will be reduced in all three states this coming fall season, if the Judges allow management. Sportsmen will have to come out and support increased wolf harvest at commission meetings.
For Political solution – Congress acting, be ready to introduce legislation the day the Judges rule, if the Judges rule against state management authority :
Ryan Benson working for Big Game Forever is working with Congressman Jason Chaffetz office to get the exact language for the legislation. We had an hour private meeting with Congressman Chaffetz this past Monday. We had a meeting with Utah Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson 3 weeks ago, he is supportive to move forward, the day the Judges rule. Steve Kiesel, President of SFW Nevada had a private 10 Minute conversation with Nev. Senator Harry Reid last Saturday on this issue. Congresswoman Lummis of Wyoming came to the SFW Wyoming Jackson Hole event in May and had a 20 minute conversation with Ryan Benson and is 100% on Board with this effort. Wyoming’s Senators Barras so and Enzi are on Board as well. The Idaho delegation – Senators and Congressman are supportive of wolf management.
So, now it comes down to the State of Montana. The only way such legislation can pass right now is to have Montana’s two Democratic Senators Bacchus and Tester sponsor the bill and lead.
The goal is within three weeks to have some Congressional Language ready. And then just wait and see what the Judges do, but be ready to pounce the day after they rule, if they rule against management of wolves.
The real KEY to CONGRESSIONAL ACTION is the Sportsmen of Montana need to request a meeting with Senators Bacchus and Tester and get their support and commitment. Most importantly, make sure they know the VAST majority of Montana people support reasonable wolf management. It would be nice to see if Montana Game and Fish would do a public opinion survey about wolf management. Based on my on the street conversations with non hunters in Montana last month, the vast majority of Montana people clearly support wolf management and do not want wolves destroying game herds, livestock and pets.
Distinct Legal Confusion
There are plenty of wolves in the Lower Forty-Eight. There are thousands of wolves from Oregon to Wisconsin. The are tens of thousands more wolves in Canada and Alaska. Wolf populations are growing. The species is not in danger of going extinct.
Despite those obvious and agreed upon facts, and despite the fact that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been attempting to delist wolves (remove the species from the Endangered Species list) since 2002, Federal judges have refused to allow a complete delisting.
In 2008 U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy overturned the delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and put them back on the Endangered Species list [here]. Then he partially lifted his injunction and in 2009 the USFWS delisted wolves in Idaho and Montana, but not Wyoming [here].
The USFWS also delisted Great Lakes wolves at that time, but later in 2009, under another court order, the USFWS was forced to re-listed wolves in Great Lake states [here].
Then the usual plaintiffs sued everybody, or intervened in someone else’s lawsuit, and the Rocky Mountain wolf delisting case went back to Judge Molloy. He listened to oral arguments yesterday from all factions — you need a scorecard to keep track of who is opposed to whom and why.
The latest case revolves around Wyoming and whether Wyoming wolves need to remain listed, and if so, why aren’t all Rocky Mountain wolves listed. Part of the legal arguments centered on the question of “distinct population segments” (DPS’s).
Wolf Control Works
by David Johnson, Outdoors Directory [here]
In the mid `70s, early in my career as an Alaska state wildlife biologist, the Associated Press distributed a picture of me nationwide. I was standing in front of wolf pelts ADF&G was auctioning in Fairbanks. A Lower 48 reader clipped the photo and inscribed it: “This is so you can show your children what wolves looked like when they become extinct.”
That they are not extinct, or even remotely in danger of becoming so in Alaska, now more than a quarter century after that photo, is obvious. Why else would we still be having rancorous discussions about managing wolves?
Standing above the rancor is the simple reality that properly applied wolf control works. An example from the wolf control program that resulted in the wolf hides I had my picture taken with illustrates.
When we started the Tanana Flats wolf control program in the mid-1970’s moose and caribou numbers were low and falling. Wolf numbers were high. Ten years later, and some years after the program ended, there were more of each: more moose, more caribou, and…here’s the punch line….the wolf population had bounced back to a larger size than when we started.
In the early 1980’s, as an area biologist in Delta Junction, I watched as wolf control had a similar impact on moose numbers. Today, moose and wolves are again abundant around Delta.
Wolf control doesn’t always work. For example, when bear predation of young ungulates is the primary mortality factor, wolf control has a much smaller impact. Intelligent application is the key.
Wolf control programs also may not work if they are operationally hobbled. If insufficient numbers of wolves are removed from a population, the advantage for the ungulate populations will not be achieved. Depending on the circumstances, game managers with substantial knowledge of pack distribution and movements may have to use helicopters to control wolf numbers. The efforts of trappers and hunters alone are usually insufficient to achieve real control.
Romantic notions of the “balance of nature” lead easily to the false conclusion that if we simply “let nature take its course,” abundance will naturally result. The historical reality is that much of Alaska was hungry country when US Army explorers began to penetrate the Interior in the late 19th century. Some of these parties nearly starved for lack of game. The Athabascan inhabitants of the Interior often struggled with starvation. The “balance of nature” there seems to have been weighted more toward scarcity than abundance.
I believe our choice today is either wildlife abundance, maintained by intelligent management of ungulates, their habitats and their predators, or what will likely be long periods of limited numbers of prey species like moose and caribou, as the 19th century explorers found.
As a younger man I scorned what I considered to be emotionally motivated arguments against good wolf management. I could then and still plainly see the potential for wildlife abundance in Alaska….an abundance that includes both predators and prey.
Today, I have more sympathy. I have come to understand that some of the best things in life cannot be decided or even understood on the basis of logic. I have come to sincerely respect the perspectives of those who are hurt by even the thought of wolves being killed. In the calculations we as a society make about this issue, we fail to acknowledge as honest and important these sentiments only at peril to our humanity. National Parks and special state areas should be an important contribution to meeting this valid emotional perspective.
But I also have observed with my own eyes that that intelligently applied wolf control works. It can provide a balanced abundance of prey and predators for subsistence, recreational and aesthetic uses. Alaska is poorer today for having failed to appropriately manage wolves in many yesterdays now gone by.
The main question, in my mind, is whether we want an Alaska with abundant wildlife or an Alaska where wolf populations are not actively managed with occasional lethal control. The evidence suggests to me that we cannot have both.
David Johnson is an Alaskan and retired state wildlife biologist and supervisor who worked in Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Juneau and Anchorage during his ADF&G career. He is currently the webmaster of OutdoorsDirectory.com and general manager of Outdoors America Communications.
Effete New Yorkers Contemplate Wolves
Larf Of The Day:
Way out East in Canton, New York, the public radio liberals are contemplating wolves. Should they or shouldn’t they welcome wolves into their neighborhoods?
On one hand, wolves are cuddly and never harm good humans. On the other hand, they already have coyotes, so the “top tier” predator job is already filled (as good union folks the libs believe in the seniority system).
See for yourself:
“Northeastern wolf” back in the news
by Jonathan Brown, North County Public Radio, June 10th, 2010 [here]
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced yesterday it would not develop a plan to protect wolves in northern New York and New England.
From the Associated Press wire:
“Wildlife Service officials say the decision was made because there is no distinct breeding population of wolves in the region that could be protected.”
This needs a little deconstruction:
Some animals–according to their DNA–are wolves. Gray wolves, for instance live in the North American West (though they are moving slowly eastward–there are anecdotal reports of gray wolves as far east as Minnesota).
Coyotes are not wolves. Their DNA is different. But here in northern New York, this crisp distinction between the two species blurs.
Some biologists say coyotes here bred with wolves from northern Ontario and Quebec (read all about it here). This, they say, explains why coyotes in northern New York are much bigger than coyotes out west. It may also explain why coyotes here have been reported exhibiting the kinds of pack behavior more like that of wolves than other coyotes elsewhere.
These biologists also say that, because of this coyote-wolf breeding, there’s no good reason to re-introduce wolves in the area. There is also some evidence that our coyotes are already filling wolves’ traditional role as a top-tier predator.
Those biologists! You have to trust somebody if it says -ologist after their name. After all, -ologist means scientist and scientists are sacred. Once a scientist has blessed a proposition, it’s inviolate truth.
Unless, of course, it’s actually science-plated garbage. That’s when it looks like science from the outside, but please don’t scratch the surface. (I stole that line — not sure from who — it was just sitting there so I took it).
More from the libs in NY:
Personally, I’d love to see (or, more likely, hear) wolves in northern New York. Other top tier predators scare the stuffing out of me. Wolves do not. I have avoided being “et” by a bear twice, thankyouverymuch, and I know I’m no match for a mountain lion.
But wolves seem much more akin to humans, more understandable maybe. Wolves live in a family structure similar to humans.
There’s daddy wolf and mommy wolf and all the little wolves. Daddy wolf goes to work every day while mommy wolf stays home with kids, watching Oprah most likely. They’re just like us!!!!
That kind of mental drool goes on and on. The article is hysterical. Maybe it depends on your sense of humor — I could see where some readers would consider it to be merely pathetic and sad.
But the general concept is interesting. If it’s good for Westerners to have the Federal Government dump wolves in our midst, then it must be good for Easterners, too. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. We’re all Americans. Fair is fair.
We had coyotes, bears, and cougars before the wolves were dumped on us. That excuse doesn’t cut the mustard. Please don’t play the habitat card, or the rabies card, or the game herd card, or the livestock card. Those cards have been thrown out by the Federal courts. Just because wolves will stalk your children at bus stops and playgrounds, that’s no excuse not to have Federally protected wolves in your midst.
The USFWS should dump hundreds of wolves smack dab in the middle of New York City, along with Federal marshals to arrest anyone who harasses them. Wolves should lope through Central Park and Times Square. It’s a cheap way to solve the homeless problem — the balance of nature!
The libs say:
I think we need more information — more scientific research — before restoring wolves here.
Why? What good will that do? And more to the point, why didn’t you demand the same for your fellow citizens out West? We have thousands of wolves now, thanks to the Feds. Are you saying the science is incomplete and inconclusive and so the Feds jumped the gun?
And so on. If you want a good laugh, go ahead and visit the link above. You can leave a comment there, too. But please be gentle. They are morons of the first stripe, and nothing you can say will fix that. We must suffer the fools. It is our burden and obligation as compassionate human beings. We can laugh at them, though.
Note: special thanks to the Yellow Pine Times for unearthing this gem.
The OX Ranch Wolf-Cattle Study
Reported last week in the Capital Press, and posted at W.I.S.E. Forest Fire, and Wildlife News [here] was an article about wolf-cattle interactions at the OX Ranch near Council, Idaho.
I have not be able to locate the actual study. If anybody reading this has a copy, please email it to me.
The news report is very revealing, however, if not shocking:
Livestock behavior changes as wolves move in to territory
By LEE FARREN, Capital Press, May 28, 2010 [here]
LA GRANDE, Ore. — Maintaining the wolf population at a level that prevents massive cattle predation is the key to allowing livestock and wolves to co-exist, an Idaho rancher says.
In Idaho, that hasn’t occurred, said Casey Anderson, manager of the OX Ranch near Council, Idaho.
He talked about his experience as 28 wolves took up residence near his ranch. Anderson and other ranchers in Idaho and Oregon took part in a two-year study that tracked cattle and wolf interactions with GPS data.
“The way it started for us is cattle behavior started changing, their habits were changing. I jumped on the bandwagon and agreed to participate in this study,” Anderson said.
Anderson documented the movements of 10 GPS-collared cows out of a herd of 450 and one collared wolf during the summer and fall of 2009.
“The researchers were thinking of those 10 collared cows, only two or three would come into contact with the collared wolf, but in fact all 10 cows came into contact with that wolf 784 times during that period,” Anderson said. “You can understand how many times all the cows in that herd are coming into contact with wolves, and why we are really noticing cattle behavior patterns and cattle distribution problems.”
In another herd of 317 mother cows, Anderson weaned only 255 calves in 2009. He attributes most of the missing calves to wolf predation. The ranch had 18 confirmed wolf kills last year, and lost at least 45 calves, five cows and two yearlings. …
Note that the expectation was that a few wolves might pester a few cattle once in awhile. The wolves are allegedly more concerned with wild prey and only trot by cattle herds on a casual, accidental basis.
That proved to be untrue. The wolves stalked the cattle constantly. Every cow encountered wolves. The wolves killed a substantial number of cows and calves. They focused in on cattle to the exclusion of other, more difficult prey. Wolves acted in an ecologically efficient manner, killing the easy prey first.
Whoda thunk it?
Well, for starters the advocates of wolf reintroduction. It is commonly assumed that wolf-lovers are primarily concerned with the “balance of nature” and the aesthetic beauty of wolf packs. That’s not the case. Wolves are a tool of land takeover. The ulterior motive for reintroducing wolves is to drive cattle, sheep, and ranchers off their properties.
It’s not about animal “rights”. Wolf reintroduction is about depriving human beings of their human rights.
Animals don’t have rights. A “right” is a privilege granted by contract. Animals cannot make or obey contracts or agreements. Only people can enter into contracts and agreements. Therefore, only people have rights. Rights are a legal concept. Animals don’t make or abide by laws.
It is often pointed out that wolf-lovers are concerned with the rights of wolves but not with the rights of elk or cattle. But that’s a specious argument because neither wolves, nor elk, nor cattle, nor any other animal has rights. Only people do.
And there is no such thing as the “balance of nature”. It’s kill or be killed and the survival of the fittest. Nature knows no balance.
The real motivation is land takeover. War, by definition, is the takeover of territory by force or threat of force, usually but not always by an armed militia. The people who reintroduced wolves are, in essence, waging war on the residents. Their goal is to wrest control (and title) of the land away from the current owners by force or threat of force.
Wolves are weapons of war.
It is time for peace talks. Waging war on people is a lousy way for society to behave. War is dangerous to children and other living things. Give peace a chance.
ODFW authorizes lethal removal of wolves - Breeding pair to be protected
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) News Release, May 31, 2010 [here]
Enterprise, Oregon - ODFW is authorizing USDA Wildlife Services to kill two wolves from the Imnaha pack, which are responsible for five confirmed livestock losses in the past few weeks.
Wildlife Services has been authorized to kill only two uncollared wolves. This selective removal is meant to protect the alpha male and alpha female, Oregon’s only known breeding pair of wolves at this time. Protecting the collared wolves will also help ODFW, USDA Wildlife Services and ranchers continue to monitor wolf activity. (The alpha female was collared in July 2009 and the alpha male was collared in February 2010.)
ODFW confirmed two additional wolf-caused livestock kills in the upper Wallowa Valley area on Saturday, May 29. (The other three confirmations occurred May 6, May 21 and May 28.)
The lethal action is aimed at killing wolves that are showing an interest in livestock, not wolves simply in the area, and will be limited to an area where three of the confirmed livestock kills are clustered. Under the terms of the authorization, the wolves can be killed a) only within three miles of three clustered locations with confirmed livestock losses by wolves and b) only on privately-owned pasture currently inhabited by livestock.
ODFW’s authorization will be valid until June 11, 2010.
Through these specific terms, ODFW aims to protect the breeding pair and the Imnaha pack’s den site, where the alpha female may be caring for new pups. (Wolf pups are typically born in mid-April, though ODFW has not visually observed any new pups this year.)
The authorization for lethal removal is consistent with the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan and associated Oregon Administrative Rules, which guide ODFW responses to livestock losses by wolves. After non-lethal measures have been used and there are two or more losses on adjacent properties, the department may authorize its own personnel or Wildlife Services to kill wolves.
The non-lethal measures tried include removal of livestock carcasses and bone piles that can attract wolves; radio telemetry monitoring of wolves; use of radio activated guard box; aerial hazing of wolves; the hiring of a wolf technician to haze wolves and monitor wolf activity nightly; and increased presence around livestock.
ODFW has also issued two additional “caught in the act” permits to the landowners with losses confirmed on Saturday, May 29. The permits give landowners the legal authority to shoot wolves “caught in the act” of biting, wounding or killing livestock. Last week, ODFW issued five of these permits.
The Wolf Plan, first adopted in 2005, is currently undergoing a five-year review. Ranchers, conservationists and others with comments about the process for responding to livestock losses or other issues may provide public comment.
To comment, please send an email to ODFW.Comments@state.or.us Comments received by June 30, 2010 will be considered for the draft evaluation, which will include any recommended changes to the plan. The draft evaluation should be available for preliminary review by the public in August. ODFW will present the results of the evaluation and any recommendations to amend the plan to the Fish and Wildlife Commission (the state’s policy making body for fish and wildlife issues) at their October 1 meeting in Bend.
For more information on wolves in Oregon, visit: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/wolves/
