Yellowstone Wolves Help Trees Rebound

Thank GOd the elk are gone!!!!  I just love those aspens?????  WOW this pisses me OFF!!!!!

Screw trees!

Here's proof that wolves do kill for fun.

http://www.norcalblogs.com/gate/2010/08/photograpkic-proof-that-wolves-do-kill-without-wating-their-prey.php

The elk herd in Yellowstone was about 3800 when they brought the wolves back. Now the elk herd is down to about 1200. They won't publish those numbers or that the bison herd numbers have dropped by a third or that the deer numbers have dropped by over 60%.

jet- I would hardly take an anti-wolf blogger site as proof! I'm sure they do once and a while and I am for a hunting season on wolves but come on! They probably chased the wolves off the kill to take pictures like they weren't feeding on it. Most of those kills looked pretty fresh and the others could've just been scavenged on. Get me a peer reviewed study and I'll believe wolves go around killing for fun.

Every deer i have come accross that has been taken down by wolves is completely eaten!

The site lost me at the part with the liberal left have infiltrated the govt. Come on no science in there at all.

FEASANT_HUNTER Said:
jet- I would hardly take an anti-wolf blogger site as proof! I'm sure they do once and a while and I am for a hunting season on wolves but come on! They probably chased the wolves off the kill to take pictures like they weren't feeding on it. Most of those kills looked pretty fresh and the others could've just been scavenged on. Get me a peer reviewed study and I'll believe wolves go around killing for fun.

Every deer i have come accross that has been taken down by wolves is completely eaten!

The site lost me at the part with the liberal left have infiltrated the govt. Come on no science in there at all.

Are you trying to say you can't believe everything you read on the internet? I read on a couple websites there is proof of aliens living among us, now you have me wondering if that was true or not.

I don't know how to break the news to most on this website, but wolves being released into Yellowstone aren't the end of the elk herd, or the end of anything else. It's call nature. It will balance itself out eventually. I've been in Denali national park and seen wolves, grizzly bear, dall sheep, mountain goats and caribou all in one day, all in close proximity. The idea that man should kill every other animal that kills animals, so man has the killing all to themselves is repulsive.

Take a minute and read

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2011/11/11/refuge-few-elk/

Heck, all the article said was that Aspens which are critical to many species, including elk, or perhaps I should say ESPECIALLY ELK (see RMEF BUGLE a couple months back)  were being overgrazed and dying out and now that the wolves are chewing on elk and reducing the chewing on the aspens by reducing elk numbers, that the aspen were coming back.  Simple as that.  They could have mentioned many other tree and browse species also coming back, like  willows along the creeks and rivers, and all that.   Nothing new there - that stuff is well known to Elk supporters who are RMEF members who get the very imformative BUGLE magazine! 
The article was about aspens, not wolves per se.  They could have dropped the elk numbers like they did in TRNP, but ND was kind of a pioneering experiment and much less visible to the antis than Yellowstone would have been for a "first" and much smaller with far less elk to remove, and easier to do in ND terain.
.  
 But now the wolves are back and we have to face it - they will NEVER be removed again so don't get your hopes up!  Taint gonna happen!    So like it or not we elk hunters  better work with the G & F people and manage them accordingly like any other big game species. 
 
I'm taking no side in whether wolves should have been reintroduced, but I'm facing reality so please don't kill the messenger!  
  
Its too bad Wyoming held the hunts up in the other states, so we are now 2- 3 years BEHIND reducing wolf populations than where we should be!  But that's completely another story - its easier to blame the wolf huggers!    As wolf hunts progress, the quotas in Idaho and Montana  will be gradually increased once the hugger/hunter wars settle down.  ?Wyoming? who knows??  Things seem stalled out - - again.
 
Nowhere did the article  say that wolves should or should not  have been reintroduced.  They didn't  take either side in that controversy.   Just said that they reduced the elk numbers and aspens are recovering from many years of overgrazing..
At least now we have seasons in Montana and Idaho, with Oregon  and  especially Colorado  looking at seasons into the future when it becomes necessary.
 
I have a feeling that when the time comes, Colorado will be proactive and start seasons early like Mt. and Idaho intended but were held up by----never mind - -  to prevent excess wolf numbers rather than try to play catch up like the other states must do now. PREVENTION of overpopulation is always better than TREATMENT once it occurs.   

  My hangup with the Montana season is that the tags IMHO are tooexpensive for many out of state elk or deer hunters  to put out that kind of money for a possible incidental shot at one while hunting other game, especially when the dumb ones get shot off and the smarter ones wisen up.   Where they are hunted you hear them but rarely see one.  Been there done that many times.

Actually the Northern herd for yellowstone before wolf introduction was between 19000 to 20000, the latest count for 2010 was around 4600. But don't worry all the park biologist's say the wolves are not the problem, the decline is from global warming, and i am not kidding that is what wolf biologist doug smith was saying.

Bobkat
Your spot on.  There should be a charge of say maybe $10-20 per wolf tag on limit resident or non!!!! Even at that I still doubt we would fill the qoutas in either state.  The MT FWP did just enough to silence us hunters.  We can't trap, bait, electronic call,  shoot from a plane ECT!!!!!  Oh ya you can shoot one if you see one though.  Now big game seasons are over and no one is out hunting wolves.  Hell I've still yet to even see one of the bastards!!!!