Note that this replaces the 16th edition. That edition will now move slowly into the depths of the blog.
Please don’t post entire articles here, just the link, title and your comments about the article. Most of these violate copyright law. They also take up too much space.
Comments
The Bozeman paper has poll regarding removal of wolves from the ESA. You can vote: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/poll_60d42232-cf43-11df-a90d-001cc4c002e0.html
Kinda looks like the “mythical majority” that supposedly wants the wolves on the list is missing out. 61% to 31% for removing them.
Layton,
I thought everyone knew that newspaper polls have no scientific validity. It could be right, but no one knows about newspaper polls.
The results are a function of the wording, newspaper, which groups choose to organize responses, if any, and the kind of people who read newspapers (older), plus actual opinion.
Unitah County Sues Feds over Conspiracy and pro Wilderness Agenda…
More nonsense in the never ending Sage Brush Rebellion revival..
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50412807-76/wilderness-county-lands-uintah.html.csp
Damn, I hope they can find one of those undotted “i’s” or uncrossed “t’s” like the greenies do!!
Layton, have you ever noticed that greenies don’t seem to resort to name calling?
Pro,
I beg to differ, I have been called quite a few names over the years because of my position, most from the conservation side of the coin..
Pro,
Your kidding right.
Ryan, what names do “greenies” use all the time? I seem to hear words like greenie, tree-hugger, and hippie used all the time for anyone who even remotely cares about wildlife or the environment. What do these people call those who have opposite opinions?
“mouth-breathing rednecks”?
Pro wolf,
How about redneck, hillbilly,cabela’s queens, westerners, idaho residents, montana residents for a few? I’m sure I could do a bit a research and come up with MANY others.
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100812/NEWS/8120318
Savage rapids dam going out a little ahead of schedule.
The comments are interesting. The way I see it, if you want to catch skanky midwestern bass and crappie then go to the midwest to catch them, don’t bring them to our good trout and salmon streams.
See ken we agree on somethings.. Bass make great crabbait.
Lots of really stupid comments! Man, what does it take to educate people? oh wait, they just watch Fox “News.”
Hmmm…maybe the Republicans will sweep back into power, after all. There was a very important Supreme Court Ruling earlier this year that removes caps on campaign contributions and allows contributors to remain anonymous. I’ve heard that records will be set this year on TV attack ads mostly directed at Dems all funded by third party contributors and there are millions of dollars pouring in. Even though the Dems have raised more money, a few large corporations or billionaires are going to launch an unprecedented media campaign in October. Depending on how much they spend and on how the economy does in October, Republicans may take back both the House and the Senate with a media blitz.
I was optimistic for awhile there but I believe we will have further serious economic hardship ahead and will be at war with the Middle East should the right wing sweep back into power.
http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Campaign_Spending_Donors_Go_Secret_101005
pointswest,
It’s already underway. If the now legal inflow of anonymous corporate cash swings the election, but 2012 both parties will be totally owned by corporations and democracy dead.
No organization can compete with money a corporation can take out of its general funds. It will greatly harm the economy too because it is much cheaper to buy politicians than build good quality products.
It is not just corporations. Democratic groups are asking that the ultra-conservative Chamber of Commerce be investigated for soliciting campaign contributions for foriegn sources…
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/dems-claim-chamber-commerce-soliciting-political-donations-foreigners/
…better start thinking about how we can privatize wildlife and wilderness! We can turn the River of No Return wilderness over to Hilton Hotels and they could build a fly-in and fly-out five start hotel on Chamberlain Creek.
It’s interesting to read the comments on the paper. I particularly love the people who say anyone who loves wildlife wants wolves gone. They should rephrase it to say that anyone who loves wildlife that tastes good and is fun to shoot wants wolves gone. I had to laugh about the comment about going to Yellowstone and not seeing a single moose in a week. I actually saw two big bulls in Grand Teton less than three hours apart. I must have seen the last two survivors that fled Yellowstone’s Great Moose Slaughter.
Moose can reliably be seen in Yellowstone in the early morning and evening on the south side of the road from Pebble Creek to the Cooke City entrance. In my brief visits to the park over the last decade I have rarely failed to see them there or around Petrified Tree/Lost Lake. I guess it’s hard for people to see any when there head is up their ass!
You stated the 100% truth pro wolf. Do they expect that everytime they go to yellowstone, they’re going to see an elk or moose? Things don’t work out that way. There’s no guarantee you’re going to see the animals you want everytime a person visits there. That is what some don’t seem to get. You obviously do.
I have gone a few times without seeing elk in the park and it has happened before and after the reintroduction. I also usually see buffalo in the park but not always. Moose are something I see every once in a while. This also happened before and after reintroduction.
Anti-wolf activist accused of poaching
SaveElk.com founder charged with felony in killing of trophy elk
http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005133545
Doesn’t that site profess to loving wildlife and being about saving elk from wolves? I at least thought they wanted to kill stuff in season.
I know a little about this fellow Tony Mayer. It is good when people like him who claim they care about wildlife are exposed through actions like these, illegally killing animals.
It used to be called “saveourelk.com”. Guess he is getting his while he can.
Maybe save our elk means elk just for him and his friends and family. Something like that makes him lose lots of credibility and causes more harm to the pastime of hunting than wolves ever could. When people kill out of season that makes most people regardless of opinion on hunting mad.
I recall reading Tony’s account of this elk on bowsite.com. he was very much impressed with himself. Apparently, however some other posters on that site also happen to be connected with law enforcement and quickly saw that 2+2 was not adding up to 4. It also looks like the investigation was extremely thorough, taking nearly a year.
Shows that Tony is, in all but the final rap of the gavel, what I suspected he was all along.
Phony as a three dollar bill
Thanks Jeff E. Glad you follow.
Koch Brothers Paying to Polute
By Paul Krugman, The New York Times, Oct. 3rd, 2010
[…] As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.
Arguably, this shouldn’t be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.
[…]
So the Ministry of Propaganda has, in effect, seized control of the Politburo. What are the implications?
Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that when billionaires put their might behind “grass roots” right-wing action, it’s not just about ideology: it’s also about business. What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to pollute. What Mr. Murdoch is acquiring with his expanded political role is the kind of influence that lets his media empire make its own rules.
Thus in Britain, a reporter at one of Mr. Murdoch’s papers, News of the World, was caught hacking into the voice mail of prominent citizens, including members of the royal family. But Scotland Yard showed little interest in getting to the bottom of the story. Now the editor who ran the paper when the hacking was taking place is chief of communications for the Conservative government — and that government is talking about slashing the budget of the BBC, which competes with the News Corporation.
So think of those paychecks to Sarah Palin and others as smart investments. After all, if you’re a media mogul, it’s always good to have friends in high places. And the most reliable friends are the ones who know they owe it all to you.
end
For the full article…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h6028/show
Wolves: Hunters, not animals, out of control
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_3f6da5d0-d152-11df-bcbc-001cc4c03286.html
Don’t expect Congress to delist wolves
http://trib.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_0bb59cae-002c-5166-8e6d-0aa5eec75a73.html?mode=comments
Frustrated by court rulings that have retained federal protection for wolves in the Northern Rockies, lawmakers from Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have introduced bills to remove the animals from the endangered species list and turn management over to the states.
The measures amount to little more than political grandstanding. They have essentially no chance of passing.
Instead of spending their time promoting legislation that’s going nowhere, the congressional delegations should focus on helping develop a multistate wolf management plan that could pass muster in federal court. First task on the list: convincing Wyoming officials to adopt a wolf plan similar to the neighboring states’.
http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2010/09/30/sens-baucus-and-tester-accused-of-derailing-wolf-bill/
Interesting that there are no replies to that post.
Idaho Should Get Out of the Business of Managing Wolves
Wolves live in packs, or family units, upon which they depend, much like all other social animals, such as chimpanzees, elephants and dolphins. Depending on our families is something we humans do too. To propose killing 50 to 80 percent of any group of family-based animals, while it may not heavily impact the number of wolves in the state overall, is unethical and has no place in 21st-century wildlife management.
Wolves are not the driving force behind elk herd decline in the Lolo. A changing landscape is. IDFG knows this. Their own records show this. But because IDFG generates its revenue from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and hunting tags, it manages Idaho’s wildlife as a game farm and not in the interest of ecological integrity. IDFG manages Idaho’s wildlife for the sole benefit of hunters, not for the benefit of all animals or in the interest of well-balanced nature. There is no financial incentive for them to do otherwise. The economics of selling elk is behind this proposal.
Ralph, can you make a new post with this article?
jon,
Do you want me to just embed the URL (make a hyperlink), or make a full post?
Full post would be nice. It’s up to you really.
Here is a short article from the Butte Standard about the meeting in Dillon yesterday. The Butte paper is one of the worst papers that I have ever read, it is called the Sub Standard by local residents.
http://www.mtstandard.com/news/local/article_27794228-d101-11df-917b-001cc4c03286.html
Here is a short article in the Missoulian about the meeting in Hamilton. When I was in school at the Uof M the Missoulian was as bad as the Butte Standard and was called the Mogolian.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_2a696242-d106-11df-9c8f-001cc4c03286.html
Thanks for the link elk. Some comments that caught my eye.
And Mike Mosolf, a Dillon resident, questioned why 500 wolves in Montana are such a problem when Minnesota has learned to live with 3,000 of the large carnivores.
“Minnesota has a wolf plan; why is that working?” he said. “Are the wolves preying on all the whitetails in the state?”
I couldn’t vote for the Democrat that is running against U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg (he’s another rancher; and worse one involved with R-CALF), but writer Paul Richards has certainly produced a detailed attack on Rehberg. Rehberg appears as a rich, phony rancher, prime land subdividing tea partier. Ugh, wipe off the slime!
Multi-Millionaire Land Developer Us Rep Denny Rehberg Leads Fantasy Life As A Cowboy!. By Paul Richards. Alternet
I went to high school with Dennis he was a freshman and I was a senior. I do not know him but he would know me, everyone knows me unforunately. A fifth generation rancher, maybe fourth, his father in the 1960’s had a small dinner near Montana State University Billings. Steak sandwichs were $1.10.
Dennis has never ranched. Oh, maybe he looked at a few cows in high school and helped brand one day of the year. There ranch is behind the Billings airport and it did not support his father nor him and his family. His wife runs the subdivision and the HOA and is a “she devil”. I think maybe he is a 5th generation Montanan with his grandfather being the last full time rancher.
It’s always amazing to what lengths some politicians will go to portray themselves as something they are not. I wondered how Blumenthal expected to get away with claiming service in Vietnam when he was never actually there. I guess there are some cons that actually do go uncovered.
Thanks again Elk275.
The other night I watched Rancho Deluxe for about the third time.
It sounds like congressmen Rehberg is a bit like rancher John Brown, though phonier and dangerous.
Hey everyone, i do not see anything posted here yet, but on the Yellowstone Net Forum they are indicating that a grizzly sow with two cubs of the year is about to be euthanized, no reason indicating why.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 7, 2010
Contact: Mel Frost, 406-994-6931
GRIZZLY BEAR SOW AND CUBS CAPTURED NEAR GARDINER
AND RELOCATED TO INTERIOR OF YELLOWSTONE PARK
BOZEMAN—Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologists recently captured and moved a female grizzly bear with two cubs.
The 8-10 year old sow and two cubs of the year were captured after raiding two separate chicken coops near Gardiner, Montana, on Oct. 5. During one of the raids the sow spooked a horse, which ran through a fence causing some injury. The sow showed no aggression toward people.
The three bears were transported to the FWP office in Bozeman so biologists could assess their health and overall condition. The sow was in fair physical condition. The two cubs were small and thin for their age and the time of year. Biologists are uncertain if they will survive the winter given their condition.”
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/10/06/wa.council.bear.attack.victim.cnn?hpt=T2
Note (for the sake of clarity) that Timz has posted a black bear attack video story. It is not a reply to Anna’s question.
And Ralph, it is really a old report, that incident happened a couple of weeks ago!
“And Ralph, it is really a old report, that incident happened a couple of weeks ago!”
It was a lead story on CNN’s website only yesterday. Don’t you have anything better to do then critique every post on here. You really should get a life SB
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?33
Save bears here is a link to CNN where you can comment on their content. You can whine to them about posting something that happened a week ago. Maybe you’ll get an apology from Ted Turner himself.
Timz,
As I have said in the past, I will comment how I see fit, as long as it fits within Ralph’s guidelines, as he did not remove it, then I would guess it was ok.
As far as getting a life, I would say you are on here just about as much as anyone including myself.
Of course, my life is living in the woods and working on wildlife issues, which unfortunately in this day and age, involves the internet and knowing what the public is talking about when it concerns wildlife and the environment.
But again Timz, I would suggest stop reading my messages and your blood pressure, because you are not going to see me go away, no matter how much you might wish for it to happen..
I would expect CNN to be behind, they have bigger fish to fry, but you live in this area and this incident was reported in Montana, Idaho and WA when it happened, in fact I believe somebody did report it on here.
I heard about it but that was the first video I’ve seen. And as long as you mention it my BP was 114 over 72 the other day. Tell me for such a pompous know-it all a-hole that you are it seems odd that you are to chicken-shit to use your real name.
Here we go again with:
Your a chicken shit, “because you don’t use your real name”
“Get a life”
“Know it all asshole”
Anymore childish names to call me Timz?
Now Timz, is there anyone else on here, that is a “chicken Shit Asshole” because they don’t use their real name, just curious if this only applies to me, or is everyone else that don’t use their name classified the same?
And as I have stated before, I am considered pompous by many, as far as a know it all, not even close, there is lots of stuff in this world that I don’t know anything about…ask me a question out of the field of Wildlife or the Military Strategy, and you run a chance of me not knowing about it.
sb, it may be a old report according to you, but some on here may not have seen it. I know I haven’t. Not everyone on here sees the same stuff that you do.
Ok ask any question sb. Who do you think was a greater military strategist out of these guys and explain the reason why.
Hannibal
Napoleon Bonpaparte
Genghis Khan
Alexander the great
Jon,
I have no problem with that, those of us that live in this area have seen it, I simply added that this was not a new event, but it seems some are a little sensitive, now remember Ralph is the one that pointed out, it was not part of the same discussion about the Grizzly incident in Gardiner…but that is fine, I would expect you to chime in, now I wonder why does Timz not tell you to get a life?
sb, me and timz have no problem, that is why. I like timz and I think he’s cool. You do seem to have a know it all pompus attitude sb, but I don’t want to get into it with you because it’s a waste of time going back and forth and arguing. I asked you a question about military strategists because it intrigues me somewhat.
In my opinion, and that is all it is, Khan leads the pack, be we studied all of them as they were all great military minds, and have be very important to the modern military around the world. It would be interesting, to see how they would modify their strategies given the modern state of Urban Warfare…it would be fascinating to see how they would adapt..
Fair enough, it may not be a new event, but that doesn’t mean that everyone on here has seen or heard about it. I know I haven’t and I try to keep tabs and up to date on what is going on when it comes to bears and wolves and other forms of wildlife all over the country, but I will miss some stories and articles from time to time.
Jon,
I have never said I didn’t have a pompous attitude, so calling me that, has no bearing on the way I word my posts or what my opinions are, I have been called far worse than anyone on this blog can, you and timz and others, have not thought up anything new, I haven’t heard before, and I am sure I will hear it again..
Some say Hannibal was the greatest military strategist ever sb, but I will agree with you on this. I will go with khan. I believe he also had the biggest army. Much bigger than Alexander’s.
That is one of the keys Jon, in the ancient times, strategy often times depended on numbers, in many military campaigns the one with the most bodies, won, of course now a days, it comes down to technology and well as training and the ability to really think on your feet, in a close quarters combat situation, now a days, we have to worry about peripheral damage, they didn’t worry about who got killed, there objective was to take the goal, no matter the cost..
sb, I was watching this show that had on spike tv where they pit ancient warriors against other ancient warriors. They showed some of the weapons that Alexander and his army had and some of the weapons for that time were quite impressive in my opinion. Khan and his army would have had the better weapons and more soldiers. It is very interesting to see what kind of weapons they were using during that time.
” just curious if this only applies to me, or is everyone else that don’t use their name classified the same?”
No it only applies to you because given the fact you know everything and are right all the time (just ask yourself if you don’t believe me) you should at least have the courtesy to use your real name. It’s hard for us common folk to hang on to every word spoken by someone who calls himself “SaveBears”. Sorta like calling yourself “TwoDogs”.
This attack happened over by Lake Wenatchee, which is just south of the Glacier Peak Wilderness off of Highway 2 and not far from Leavenworth.
It’s an old attack, but the man has recovered enough to tell his story. I’m not sure, but I think wrestling a wild black bear would be plenty tough and he is lucky to have lived.
I got a kick out of the part of the story where he claimed to “get one decent shot in on the bear, a hard knee”, as if he were fighting another man. Maybe it made him feel a little better to think he got one in.
B.C. mayor wants answers why 60 bears shot
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/mayor+wants+answers+bears+shot/3615576/story.html#ixzz11cLCFiAe
Absolutely disgusting. Good for this mayor. We need more mayors like this one.
All those folks need are some Karelian Bear Dogs!
Ralph – Have you followed the Yellowstone bear story that Anna mentions? Sounds pretty bad to me, but of course I’m not sure of the facts.
Here is a link to the YNP Forum thread about the grizzly subject requested above (thus I cannot find any other references or press releases) :
Beloved Grizzly sow and cubs about to be euthanized
http://forums.yellowstone.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8106
Any better info available?
I cannot stand these fish and game agencies sometimes. They kill bears and other wildlife for the stupidest reasons. Why should a bear be killed for showing some aggression toward humans? How is that considered abnormal behavior? What, bears have to be nice and calm everytime a human is in front of them? These bears are being killed for acting upon their natural instincts and natural behavior and it makes me fucking sick! Last week a bear chased a truck and it was killed. What kind of stupid nonsense is that?
And these bears were the most viewed bears in ynp this past summer. Atleast send them to a sanctuary or something. Why do they have to be killed? We kill enough bears as it is and it’s shameful how we humans treat other creatures of the world.
Good that Chris Servheen was speaking up. He knows if this happens it will be a pr nightmare and he’s right!
Allegedly, Chris Servheen discouraged them from such drastic action, citing the specter of a “PR nightmare”.
++jon writes: Why should a bear be killed for showing some aggression toward humans? How is that considered abnormal behavior? ++
It seems to me that many on this blog believe it is very abnormal and that all or nearly all grizzly attacks are the fault of humans.
I think the F&W people know what they are doing. There is, of course, more to the story the author is not telling us. The author was probably trying to get a reation from the reader just like he got from you. This bear (with her three cubs) had probably become very habituated to people…like one of the roadside bears people fed in the 50’s and 60’s. There is a whole history to this jon. The Park does not want another media sensation of another grizzly attack in or near Yellowstone. It would be bad for the Park and it would be bad for grizzlies.
It is too bad they couldn’t relocate them to the River of No Return Wilderness.
There are problems with translocation of bears, however. There was a story back in the 70’s about a translocated black bear in Northern Idaho. They moved it from Coeur d’Alene to the River of No Return Wilderness 300 miles south. Within a couple of months, it was back. It had crossed the Salmon River and canyon, the Clearwater River and canyon and three major moutain ranges and 300 miles to return home and did so in just a couple of months.
So it is not like they can move a bear 50 miles away and solve the problem. They need to be moved far away and it is probably costly to do so. Further, it does not solve the problem of the bear being habituated to humans. Even if they moved it to a very remote area such as Chamberlain Basin, the bear and her cubs may end up around humans again.
Authors can write stories to stir up outrage for the rest of time and people in tune with nature can befriend the grizzly but as soon as gifted humans befriend a grizzly and it becomes habituated to humans, it is a problem and will likely be killed and it will be just as dead as if a hunter had shot it though the heart. Grow up. Face facts.
Bears creeping into Gardiner for food this time of year is an every night occurence, though it’s usually black bears. These particular grizzly bears did not show aggression nor act habituated. They were not euthanized, they are being relocated in the park.
I should also add these grizzlies were not the same ones that were viewed regularly in the park this summer.
I can’t find any stories about a yellowstone bear, but here is a recent story about how a thin 148 pound old bear attacked a man in Washington state and the man lost one of his eyes.
Kudos to this man for saving his dogs from the bear as well as himself.
http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/111676–washington-state-man-attacked-by-bear-speaks-out
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/idaho_should_get_out_of_the_business_of_managing_wolves/C41/L41/#comments
http://www.dillonitedaily.com/friday
Could this actually be for real? Rangers chasing a wolf off from a kill in Yellowstone? Or is there something more to the story in an area of Montana (Beaverhead County) prone to hysterics (especially from this little town rag of a paper) when it comes to wolves?
It is cruel and vicious they way wolves kill innocent animals. There was blood in the river! Wolves should be given dry dog food and only be allowed to consume Park animals that Park Rangers first identify as suffering and then that are tranquilized and then euthenized by lethal injection and then administered funeral rights by a non-denominational Christian Minister.
What kind of people are you!? Mike…what do you think?
very weird!!
A single wolf taking down a Bull elk????
I have a hard time believing a single wolf could take down a bull elk. This must be like those coyotes that are always killing adult cattle. This is pure propaganda.
A more complete and unbiased account of the incident is found on the ynet forums. There were 3 wolves present, the elk was injured by another elk, and rangers did remove the carcass:
http://forums.yellowstone.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8160
Hunters locate body where Wyoming rancher went missing
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_ed928f68-cecb-535b-af5d-5f1c27903e42.html
Is this a suspected grizzly attack? Some guy went missing in Yellowstone Park last week too.
I did not know that one sub-species of grizzly bear was already extinct. It went extinct even after it was protected. I think it could easily happen again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_grizzly_bear
I think the people are going extinct in Mexico, too. Humans are a protected species, but the cartels they are some of the worst poachers.
You know that nearly all of the warfare is right along the US border. These young macho men in border towns such as Juarez can go from being uneducated, unskilled, and unemployed bums wandering the streets to being well paid soldiers for a drug lord. That is the real problem. That is, it is a border with wealth and drug addiction on one side and tens of thousands of impoverished young men on the other eager to make a go of it in life.
It seems to me that the US-Mexico border is a little like the Roman-Empire/German-barbarian border in the 4th & 5th centuries. The Roman Empire eventually fell to invasion and mostly migration by the German-barbarians and their warlords into the Empire. After the Romans decided not to civilize Germany in the 1st century, in time, there were more German-barbarians living along the border of the Empire than in the rest of Germany and every time some crisis befell the Empire, they would come charging in until they finally took most of it over collapsing the civilization that, in turn, resulted in the deaths of some 85% of the population. Of the dozen or so cities of over 200,000 people, all but a couple were in ruins by end of the 6th century.
A hope is that the Tea Party will come into power and set up a small but harsh Mexican style goverment run by the wealthy elite that creates a society that is religious, unskilled, uneducated, and impoverished and this disparity of wealth accross the border will be diminished. 🙂
Chimpanzees ‘hunt using spears’ …
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6387611.stm
Californian Condor: New benchmark for endangered condor
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/10/07/california.condor.recovery/index.html
Excuse my language, but look what that this piece of crap Don Peay wants to do.
http://www.mtexpress.com/story_printer.php?ID=2005133546
An undated letter on the Montana Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife’s website from founder Don Peay suggests adopting shelter dogs and buying sheep, staking them out in wolf areas and waiting for the wolves to kill them. Wolves involved in such incidents could then be legally killed by federal agencies.
“When the wolves killed these dogs, [we’d] get the wolves killed,” the letter reads.
Idaho hunters may not be eager to follow Peay’s advice. Ken Enslinger, spokesman for the Magic Valley Chapter of Idaho Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, dismissed the suggestion entirely.
“That’s totally ridiculous,” he said.
Peay’s letter states repeatedly that the suggestion is not just “idle talk,” but pro-wolf groups seem to find the letter as “ridiculous” as Enslinger does.
All I can say is WTF?
It looks like Peay somehow got into a meeting with Harry Reid, and Montana Democrats Jon Tester, Max Baucus.
He wanted House member Chet Edwards wolf delisting bill tacked onto the continuing (budget resolution), but the two Montana Senators said no, or perhaps it was not feasible. Tester and Baucus have a bill I don’t like, but Edwards, a Texas Blue Dog Democrats apparently bound for defeat this year, would delist every kind of wolf everywhere.
Peay was enraged when he didn’t get his way, but a prudent politician would shy away from a person who advocated using live dogs as wolf bait.
It would probably do well for folks to contact Harry Reid. He will still be majority leader in the lame duck session after the election, and my guess next year too. The Democrats are probably going to hold the U.S. Senate. Of course, folks from Nevada will have more clout with him. Though he has been unpopular in Nevada the last 2 years, he is running against one of the nuttiest candidates this year, Sharron Angle.
You can read about Peay here (By Bill Schneider. New West): Leading Sportsman Blasts Montana Senators for Derailing Wolf Delisting. . .Wildlife conservation group says the wolf would already be exempted from the Endangered Species Act if it had not been for Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester.
By Bill Schneider, 10-07-10
Peay is a big goldfish in utah…In Washington, just another used car salesman
Montana says settlement possible in wolf lawsuit
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_0f63d992-d240-11df-8428-001cc4c03286.html
Jon what do you do for a living? I grew up in Billings and I have a want to check the Gazette several times a day. You live in Maine, why in god’s earth would you check the Montana, Wyoming and Idaho papers several times a day.
Besides you missed a very good article in the today’s Gazette about searching for grizzly bears in non grizzly bears areas. Look again.
I have a want as well. Just because I don’t live in Montana or Idaho does not mean I don’t care what goes on there when it comes to wildlife related issues. I have a want as well, probably more so than you do. As for what I do for a living, why do you care? I don’t ask you what you do or anyone else. What I do is none of your business. I check out the missoulian and the billings gazette as well, but I don’t read every single article there posted and I might miss some from time to time.
It wouldn’t surprise me if someone already posted the link, but for some reason I couldn’t access the section of the blog from the end of September. The Wildlife Services kill report reminded me of reading this coyote article a few days ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/science/28coyotes.html?pagewanted=all
Kalispell newspaper report on the meeting informational wolf meeting: http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_4daf03b8-d1c1-11df-b6cc-001cc4c002e0.html
Hi – I received this from friends at GYC – Hope it helps the “Bear Story” going down up north the past couple of days. It’s a word document and I have no idea if I sent it correctly.
Region 3, 1400 S. 19th Avenue, Bozeman, MT 59718
Phone: 406-994-4042; Fax: 406-994-4090; Web: fwp.mt.gov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 7, 2010
Contact: Mel Frost, 406-994-6931
GRIZZLY BEAR SOW AND CUBS CAPTURED NEAR GARDINER
AND RELOCATED TO INTERIOR OF YELLOWSTONE PARK
BOZEMAN—Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologists recently captured and moved a female grizzly bear with two cubs.
The 8-10 year old sow and two cubs of the year were captured after raiding two separate chicken coops near Gardiner, Montana, on Oct. 5. During one of the raids the sow spooked a horse, which ran through a fence causing some injury. The sow showed no aggression toward people.
The three bears were transported to the FWP office in Bozeman so biologists could assess their health and overall condition. The sow was in fair physical condition. The two cubs were small and thin for their age and the time of year. Biologists are uncertain if they will survive the winter given their condition.
FWP Bear Management Specialists Kevin Frey said the sow had no previous management or research history and was not a known bear to officials.
“We have no way of knowing exactly where in the ecosystem this bear came from because she was unmarked,” said Chris Servheen, Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Rumors that the bear was from the Dunraven Pass area of Yellowstone have no factual basis.”
Based on grizzly management guidelines, the condition of the bear, and the nature of the conflict, a joint decision was made by officials from FWP and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to relocate the three bears. Yellowstone National Park agreed to allow relocation of the group into the Yellowstone’s interior.
“We hope the sow will stay out of conflict until she dens with the cubs for the winter,” said Frey. “If she returns to a developed area, we will reassess the situation.”
Under recovery program guidelines the bear had not been in enough conflict to warrant removal from the population.
“It is always a difficult decision for managers to balance what’s best for the individual bear, the welfare of the grizzly population as a whole, and public safety,” said Frey.
Frey added that their physical condition is related to the overall successful recovery of a healthy grizzly bear population and increased competition for available resources (i.e., habitat and food). Females with cubs and older-aged bears often lose out to stronger and more dominant bears.
Residents in developed areas can do their part to help avoid conflicts with bears by learning how to minimize residential and backyard food attractants such as garbage, apples, bird feeders, grills, and pet food. To learn more go to FWP’s Be Bear Aware webpage at http://fwp.mt.gov/wildthings/livingWithWildlife/beBearAware/.
I frequently browse this site and am very interested in the wolf issue, despite living far, far away in California. Anyway I have been researching for any sort of information on whether there are any plans in development to reintroduce wolves and grizzlies here in California. Thus far I have been unsuccessful, so I was wondering if any of you guys may know anything. The extinction of the California Grizzly is really such a terrible event, only made worse that it is our state animal. Hopefully that fact would create enough public support for the Grizzly to be introduced in certain areas, likely the N. Mountains and the Southern Sierras. Any information and/or opinions would be great
The Governator bought a bronze grizzly statue in Aspen, Colorado and had it placed outside his office!
I can’t seem to find much on any talk of reintroductions of grizzlies to California but Defenders of Wildlife shows a potential recovery area for wolves on the California/Oregon border.
Yeah I have seen that also. I think the prospect of wolves being reintroduced in California is a little less likely than grizzlies, although I would like to see both make a return. With wolves at least we can possibly expect a natural introduction as wolves spread south through Oregon (hopefully uninhibited).
Grizzlies are reportedly moving west down the Centennial Range towards the Beaverhead Range. From the Bearheads, they will move into central Idaho and the vast River of No Return Wilderness. From there they will continue west to the Seven Devils Range. I assume they could cross Hell’s Canyon and swim the Snake River. From the Wallowas, they could move northwest into the Blue Mountains. Once in the Blues, they could move southwest all the way into south-central Oregon and would probably be able to crossover into the Cascades in the vicinity of Antelope, Oregon. From there they could move into California.
This would all take about a century, however, and grizzlies are already moving down the Cascades from Canada.
Is that preferable, in your opinion, to human reintroduction? Selfishly speaking I would prefer to see it occur in my lifetime, but a more natural introduction may be better.
I would also like to see that in my lifetime. Wolves may do it in my lifetime but probably not grizzlies. I doubt grizzlies could make it to Colorado without human intervention. The Red Desert is too much of a barrier.
Big game outlook for Idaho
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/10/07/1370089/big-game-outlook-for-idaho.html#disqus_thread
Brian or Ralph, make this a new post, thanks
Federal officials deny Montana’s wolf hunt request
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7237017.html
Grizzly bear managers to meet in Bozeman
Standard Journal
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — With the Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bear population estimated at more than 600 bears for the first time since the grizzlies were listed as threatened, a grizzly bear group will talk about recovery and management at a meeting later this month.
[…]
The meeting will be held at the Homewood Suites by Hilton at 1023 Baxter Lane from 1 to 5 p.m. on Oct. 27 and continuing at 8 a.m. through noon on Oct. 28.
There will be time for the public to ask questions after some of the presentations.
Local, state, federal and tribal agencies are represented on the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee, and Steve Schmidt of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is chairman of the committee.
The YES committee continues to be pleased that the Yellowstone area grizzly population is doing well, he says in a news release. With a growing bear population comes added challenges. Our committee is focused on minimizing conflicts between grizzly bears and humans and grizzly bears and livestock.
[…]
The male mortality limit for the year has already been exceeded, according to a news release. With more females with cubs, the chances for conflicts are greater once major elk seasons open within the ecosystem. There usually is an increase in defense of life killings in years where there is a poor whitebark pine cone crop such as this year.
Given the similarities to 2008, it is also possible that the female mortality limit could also be exceeded, the news release says.
The meeting also will include a report on the Island Park bear education outreach program and updates on legal maneuverings regarding the grizzly bear.
Thanks Pointswest,
I had meant to post this.
I just heard on the local news USFWS denied Montanas request for a “conservatiion wolf hunt”
timz,
That is what jon’s comment above is about.
Federal officials deny Montana’s wolf hunt request
Sorry,should have looked. Got a little rush from the good news.
Hopefully Idahos request will meet the same fate.
Six accused of illegally picking 5,000 pounds of bear food — saw palmetto berries
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-palmetto-berries-arrests-black-bea20101007,0,3555960.story
Grizzly is safely removed from West Yellowstone neighbourhood
http://www.westyellowstonenews.com/news/article_68172f62-d2c2-11df-9a9f-001cc4c002e0.html
Lions (in Kenya) may be extinct in 20 years:
http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/lions-could-be-extinct-in-20-years-1.683161
This is sad news Peter. It would seem animals all over the globe can’t catch a break when it comes to farming and ranching.
Another grizzly issue
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_5b4112fe-d307-11df-a802-001cc4c002e0.html
That is four attacts so far this year in the GYE by my count.
1) Kitty Creek
2) Soda Butte Campground
3) Gravely Range
4) This one.
Am I missing any?
There were two attacts in the Gravely Range.
Yup…those are some hungry and cranky bears out there this year.
This article says there were two attacks in the Gravelly Range within one week….
http://www.examiner.com/bear-spray-in-national/two-grizzly-bear-attacks-on-hunters-one-week-the-worst-is-yet-to-come
…so there have been five so far this year in the GYE. This might be a record. I think the most that has ocurred in one year prior to this is four.
And this is not even counting Sahra Palin, the Mama Grizzly!
It’s the attack of the last one that would heave you in sorry shape. 😉
“it would take day’s for one of these flocks to pass over”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006120134.htm
Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by the passenger pigeon. It is incredible to think of their numbers. Some estimates say that at the time they made up 25% of the entire US bird population. Their nesting colonies were huge. They had an impact on the environment due to their large numbers. Trees and limbs would go down due to the weight of so many nests in a tree. The droppings in these nesting colonies fertilized and changed the pH of the soils. They also killed the vegetation. They could change old dense hardwood forests into early successional habitat with alot of snags that benefitted different types of wildlife than the mature forests did. Now all we have left are towns, lakes, creeks, and mountains named after this bird. We lost more than a species, we lost a key component of the eastern forest ecosystem.
Its interesting that the book 1491 presents a very different picture of the history of the passenger pigeon, arguing that the numbers seen in the 1800s represented a freak population irruption of a species that was normally found in low density througout most of history. I don’t have the book here to directly cite evidence but seem to recall it was based mainly on lack of remains of the bird throughout most of the record in excavated middens, etc. left by early people within its range.
Wildlife services spotting??
-Red unmarked pickup
-ATV in back
-Riflecase on ATV
-US Govt Plates
Ten miles further down the road an IDFG truck with telemetry equipment parked on the side of road… This was this morning on Deep Creek Rd west of Salmon, ID. IDFG was up Panther Creek a few miles from Deep Creek.
It’s easy to spot an unmarked WS agent in his rig.
The skunks are running like hell the other way….
That is some rugged, remote, and roadless country to be hunting wolves off from an ATV. Why would not the WS have their own telemetry equipment? When they decide to kill wolves, don’t they either trap them or shoot them from helicopters.
These aren’t policy issues, but here are a couple of interesting local news stories in today’s paper. One is the publication of a 140 page book on Romeo, the black wolf that was here for 6-7 years. OK, 140 pages on one wolf is a bit much, but the wolves that have replaced him are showing people perhaps a much more typical urban wolf experience (pet snatching and food habituation) that stands in sharp contrast to his interest in dogs as companions, while completely ignoring people and apparently fending for himself in the Mendenhall Glacier area on everything from voles to salmon and beaver to deer. He may have been an outlier in the wolf world but stood as an example that they are individuals and not all the same.
The second story is about a family boating down Stephens Passage south of here on Sunday that encountered four desperate button bucks (yearlings) swimming but out of energy and close to drowning. Rather than limit out and head for home, the guy took them all on board live, revived and released them at Taku Harbor. Most people here love their wildlife. Some great photos.
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/100810/out_717574483.shtml
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/100810/out_717573934.shtml
An article in the Dillonite Daily today:
Federal Officials Deny Wolf Hunt
Federal officials have denied Montana’s request to hunt endangered gray wolves in response to the predators’ increasing attacks on livestock and big-game herds.
The state hoped to use a loophole in the federal Endangered Species Act and hold a “conservation hunt” for up to 186 wolves this fall.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Deputy Director Daniel Ashe denied the request Thursday, saying that his agency supports sport hunting of wolves, but would not expect approval of Montana’s proposal to survive a legal challenge.
A federal judge in August restored wolves in Montana and Idaho to the endangered species list following a lawsuit from environmentalists.
In light of the fact, that some individuals hunters and stockmen sometimes open their own season.
This means that Guy Terrill and Graeme McDougal will have another season in the air.
This article…
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6545
…says there was another bear “incident” near Dead Indian Pass near Cody Wyoming (near the bottom of the article).
Is this a 6th grizzly attack or was this a black bear? I cannot find any news on it.
pointswest,
Maybe they updated the story, but now it says it was a grizzly bear. “Grizzly bites hunter on biceps.”
The article is about the man who had a bite on his biceps but they mention an earlier attach near Dead Indian Pass that resulted only in minor abrassions. They mention this near the bottom of the article. They do not state if the bear in this 2nd incident is black or grizzly.
Grizzly is safely removed from West Yellowstone neighborhood
http://www.westyellowstonenews.com/news/article_68172f62-d2c2-11df-9a9f-001cc4c002e0.html
As much as I complain about living with grizzly problems, this article makes me miss West Yellowstone. I’m not sure how I would feel about sending my kids to school there, however.
That old boar in the photo looks like he could use a hug…jon?
I think they killed this 15-year-old bear…according to this story…
http://www.examiner.com/bear-spray-in-national/officials-kill-another-yellowstone-grizzly-bear
…a bear was killed in West Yellowstone. It says it was too old and would probably not survive.
Age-wise, 15 is not really very old for a brown-grizzly bear, although I guess it is if they’ve lived a rough life — just early aging in humans. There is apparently a sow that frequents a bear-viewing area on Admiralty that is known to be in her early 30s. I knew a very distinctive sow, both in appearance (beautiful strawberry blond upper body and snow-white ears) and behavior, for about 20 years. I haven’t run into her in about 5-years, but occasionally see her traits (color and boldness) in other bears in the area.
We may lose the Mekong River to dams. This is one of the last great free flowing rivers in the world. Laos may dam the Mekong. Why? …for hydropower (period). Laos, with prodding from Western interests, wants to dam the Mekong knowing that it will threaten many species of fish and change a way of life for millions of people all for $80 million worth of hydropower a year. Its sick! Meg Whitman has spent $140 million of her own money on her run for California Governor, she is not done spending yet, and she’s going to lose.
Here’s the other thing: although hydropower on the Mekong might produce $80 million in revenue, the dam construction and financing need to be paid for and damming the river will cause economic loss to thousands of peasants along the Mekong in Laos who may depend on the river, though tourism, and/or fish. The total economic loss may be greater than $80 million. Amid the thousands of losers, there are two main beneficiaries, the Laos government and the Western corporations who will finance and build the dam. It’s sick.
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s3030225.htm
What a shame — there must be an Asian Floyd Dominy (a name my mother cursed when I was a child for reasons I didn’t fully understand). That’s one thing I don’t miss about the 60’s and early 70’s, the heartbreaking big dam and water projects in this country. I wish I could find her Bureau of Reclamation brochure promoting the Rampart Dam, including new recreational opportunities (photo of somebody water-skiing). It would have flooded seven villages, wiped out Yukon Flats waterfowl nesting (drastically reducing flights in the Pacific flyway), and wiped out probably 65-70% of the Yukon Chinook run (including world’s longest migrating stocks – 2,300 miles) and fall chums in the entire upper system — while the immense resulting lake would have changed the climate of interior Alaska. And, as with many of the big water projects, the major pushers were Democrats, primarily senator Ernest Gruening who wanted to make Anchorage an aluminum capital!!! It was said Anchorage couldn’t survive without the power past 1975. The specter of Rampart Dame (along with Project Chariot that would have constructed a harbor at Point Hope for people with nothing but portable walrus-skin boats, using 5 atmospheric nuclear detonations) was what finally prompted a few people in the state to organize an environmental group. In desperation, they pointed to Devils Canyon on the Susitna, much closer and an apparent salmon barrier, and it was studied for years and finally rejected. Anchorage still seems to be doing just fine after adding more local high lake hydro taps, etc.
It’s one thing we forget when we expect Democrats to put the environment at a high priority. They have a history of selling their souls to unions and grand water projects promoting short-term employment over the environment and existing farm land, just as Republican party’s soul is largely owned by private wealth/corporate interests. It’s at least one silver lining in the nation’s fiscal problems that projects like these are no longer seriously considered . . . .
Dam projects, at least those that block the course of a river, are probably about over in the US. They really do not make sense and many built should never have been built. Everyone in the civil engineering profession knows this, including everyone the Bureau of Reclamation. Most future dams and reservoirs built in the US will be off-stream sotrage where they find some basin away from the river to store water.
Even the large Three Gorges Dam in China was controversial. It was estimated that it would be 80% silted in in a century or something like that. Silting is a real problem. Engineers can trap and then route silt through tunnels, but I doubt they will do this in Laos. I’ll be it is only a short term gain for some western corporation.
They may, eventually, need to build a bypass tunnel at Lake Mead since it is silting in. Silt is also important below dams. After dams are built, the rivers will start eroding down into a channel since there is no longer any silt load from upstream being deposited. When the river erodes into a channel, it drops the water table in the riparian zone and all the trees in the river bottom die. A dam can completely change the ecology of a river for hundreds of miles downstream.
I can see, in some cases, storing water for agriculture but that is not reason for damming the Mekong. It is only for hydropower and this power could just as easily come from a nuclear power plant. Crazy.
Pointswest –
I agree, that choice would turn me into a fanatic proponent for nuclear power, like those Fusion Energy Foundation guys who hung out in the Seattle airport in the 1970s and would step right out in front of you with their signs “Sir, are you for nuclear power? We need it!”.
Actually, I’m not categorically against hydropower, even new projects. This city is isolated from the continental power grid and gets all its electricity from very low impact high elevation lake taps. The very first lake tap in the world was done here in about 1912 and still makes a substantial contribution, and a substantial new tap was brought online a year ago. But it only works well where you’ve got enough precipitation and topography. Our household isn’t even on that grid — we have our own micro-hydro system on a small, steep creek next to the house that provides all the normal conforts of home. We were glad for it a couple of years ago when avalanches took out five transmission towers all at once and put the town on emergency diesel backup for months at 5 times the $rate. Now, if I could just figure out how to use the surplus to produce hydrogen and use it in our outboard!
I predict that what we will see is solar panels at the home on the roof or as a patio or car port cover. They are getting more efficient and there are new battery technologies on the horizon that will really give solar a boost. People will be able to easily and economically collect and store their own power. With a battery, they can pay dump power prices instead of peak power prices even if they do occasionally need to pull power from the grid.
I think in five or ten years, anyone outside of a town or city can be off the grid. Rural Power is subsidized (like anything else for farmers and ranchers) by the feds or it would otherwise not be economical. I wonder how many anti-communist farmers and ranchers know the power lines that run 15 miles out to the ol’ farmhouse are heavily subsidized by the Fed.
🙂
You’re right, local sunlight is the most widely available energy source – just not as available here – and should be used and converted locally. System size and costs can be greatly reduced by designing in onservation which is getting more and more feasible with new lighting, etc. Our full-size Sunfrost refrigerator uses about 15-20% the power of a conventional refrigerator produced 10 years ago, although I think regular ones have improved substantially since then. Even when our system clogs and overdrafts (or if the grid went down in an urban setting) there is no urgency as we have days of battery storage.
The electric cars are coming onto the market this year. They all use Lithium-ion batteries that slowly decay. They will only hold 75% of their charge after about 5 years when people will need to trade them in. This means that there will be thousands of used Li-ion batteries on the market in a few years for pennies on the dollar. The second half of the battery life will last much longer than the first half…like maybe 10 to 20 years. One could buy up four or five of these used Li-ion batteries to store power for their house. They’re not that big. You could stick four or five of these batteries in a crawlspace under the house or in the attic or in a shed. A house in the country could easily be off the grid with some solar panels and a windmill with a few used Li-ion batteries.
I have been thinking of starting a company that designs and install some such system using solar, wind, and used Li-ion batteries. If some improved battery does come along (and I think it will) you could switch over to that. But the used Li-ion batteries that will soon be on the market will work fine for many years and will not cost that much.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013124846_apusidahosbatteredseaport1stldwritethru.html?prmid=related_stories_section
Is the Port of Lewiston really worth it? I bet they want that refinery equipment coming through their port pretty badly at this point.
Daniel Berg,
There has been a long running debate in Idaho and Eastern Washington whether a seaport at Lewiston, Idaho was worth it.
Its creation caused a huge amount of damage to fisheries and employment, although it created short term construction employment.
I’d say it was a classic 1950s-thinking pork barrel project. I think most folks in Lewiston are happy for a seaport and keep hoping for some activity at the port. Those who were damaged moved away or died.
Support for the Lewiston seaport falls off as you move away in distance. Idaho’s politicians, especially the backward thinkers, support the port.
Apparently even the director of the Utah DWR can’t follow the law. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=12759817 . But its OK because he turned himself in,right? I want to know why anyone hunts Sage Grouse in the first place because they are said to have such a strong flavor from eating almost nothing but sagebrush that they are inedible? I guess they just like to kill stuff.
Bryanto
++I want to know why anyone hunts Sage Grouse in the first place because they are said to have such a strong flavor from eating almost nothing but sagebrush that they are inedible? I guess they just like to kill stuff.++
Have you ever eaten a sage grouse? I bet that you have not. I went sage grouse hunting yesterday. I did not see or get any; I walked about 3 miles in the sage sea overlooking the Cennenital Valley just me and my little Spanish built 28 gauge side by side. Had a great walk. I have eaten sage grouse many times and they are not my favorite but they are ok eating. Blue grouse is my favorite.
I like sage grouse and have eaten it many times, of course you have to cook it properly, but if roasted correctly it makes quite a nice meal..
I’ve never had sage grouse, but like the hint of sage that comes through in pronghorn. We do most of our blue grouse hunting in the spring after they’ve been up in trees all winter eating just about nothing but spruce needles and I think they’re great, one is a good meal for two (with some leftovers for lunch). We’ve even cooked up a couple for Thanksgiving instead of turkey. I do, however, carry a couple of reduced 30-06 loads while deer hunting now and pick up the occasional blue that’s down eating berries, and they’re even better than spring birds.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html
If you ever wondered about how the livestock industry and mining industry evolved into what they are today in regards to the sense of superiority over everyone else just loook to history,
Amen. The Native Americans celebrate an “Anti-columbus Day” They recognize truth our society chooses to either hide, belittle as myth, obfuscate, or wrongly celebrate. It’s time we pulled our collective head out of our hind-ends and faced the world and our (and our ancestors’) crimes against humanity that we have been lying ~ to ourselves and others ~about to prove our self appointed superiority. And Americans are so shocked when these lies are exposed…
Have you read any history books? Conqueoring, genocide, and taking of land have been going on since the start of time. No reason to start apologizing for it now, espicially when no one alive today had anything to do with it.
Once again Ryan you completely miss the point.
No surprise there.
However just to make what I am sure is a wasted attempt I will try.
October 11 is Columbus day, so it seemed a good day to make an observation about a particular mindset that persists throughout the history of this country, (and yes other country’s, but try to focus), that being that a value is assigned an enterprise and because that enterprise is backed by superior military might, or money, or political influence,or all of the above, such enterprise becomes “acceptable” and is “sanitized” so as to deflect any chance of negative reaction that may some how jeopardize the continuation of such enterprise(s). And anything that stands in the way be damned.
The threads of that mindset are certainly traceable throughout the history of the vast majority of cultures on this planet, however would that make such mindset right? Within history or now? and that mindset is more than evident in the two enterprises I referenced; the livestock industry and the mining industry. Today the weapon of choice just happens to be money in the form of buying politicians, and IMO is more than on display by the regions politicians concerning the subject at hand; wolves.
anyway I could continue but am sure that it would be lost on the immediate audience, so humbly decline.
As an aside I peruse history as a passion, just not the sanitized version.
you may possibly want to give it a try.
(Columbus was a miserable son-of-a bitch; even by the standards of that time)
Without taking a side on this, why was Columbus Day established anyway?
So the Bankers and Postal employees could have another day off.
Ralph there was a link yesterday on this blog which was very interesting about Columbus; he was a son of a bitch. The Knights of Columbus wanted the holiday and in the 1930’s the holiday became law. I do like the day off but I have never been impressed with Columbus. In grade school we all had to sing the “Ocean Blue” song and remember the three ships. I remember the three ship question on a test.
Elk275
I remember something like that too in grade school.
In 1934 the Knights of Columbus were looking for a Catholic hero to be honored in this country and as a Powerful lobby group successfully lobbied congress and the president to establish the federal holiday now known as Columbus day. (paraphrased from the article)
http://www.ktvb.com/news/Hunting-sales-soar-amid-recession-104675704.html
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/10/09/20101009wolfrelease1009.html
I wonder why that link came out like that…
This whole issue is baffling! The USFWS has allowed the AZFG to take the focus off the wolves once again. I thought this was suppose to be about the wolves! It always turns into a ranching or hunting issue! What a disaster
USFWS delays release of wolves along Arizona-N.M. border until next year
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the planned release of eight Mexican gray wolves in the wilderness along the Arizona-New Mexico border planned within the next few weeks would not take place until sometime next year.
Arizona Republic (AP); Oct. 9
Taken from a regular column of the September 2010 issue of Africa Geographic Magazine:
The influence of trophy hunting (mostly by Americans – my comment!) on the population of the African lion. The column itself is not online but the full reference article “Sport Hunting, Predator Control and Conservation of Large Carnivores” is available at … http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005941
There is some comparison of numbers and facts with the North American cougar population in it and a lot of reference material is linked to this article – interesting to read and discuss.
I’ve read this article before.. Its basically a theory article with no facts. For example Oregon, which basically has no closed season for cougars with only a quota season, has nearly double the population of cats it had 15 years ago. No where in strong range (not fringe areas) are cougar populations in trouble. There are some interesting non hunting related factors that affect his theories trends in African lions.
“No where in strong range (not fringe areas) are cougar populations in trouble.”
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case (see abstract below). Note: “Sportsmen” for Fish & Wildlife have continually pushed for increased cougar harvest in Utah DESPITE documented population declines. I have spoken with employees and former and employees of the UDWR that admitted that this group, and Don Peay in particular, have kept up intense political pressure to reduce cougar populations to (ostensibly) increase hunting opportunities. Please note: this is the same group that has vehemently opposed wolves in the state, supports predator “derbies” to reduce populations, and worked to sabotage Utah’s wolf management plan.
The picture you paint is overly rosy, Ryan.
Stoner et al (2006) Cougar Exploitation Levels in Utah: Implications for Demographic Structure, Population Recovery, and Metapopulation Dynamics. Journal of Wildlife Management 70(6):1588-1600.
Abstract:
Currently, 11 western states and 2 Canadian provinces use sport hunting as the primary mechanism for managing cougar (Puma concolor) populations. Yet the impacts of sustained harvest on cougar population dynamics and demographic structure are not well understood. We evaluated the effects of hunting on cougar populations by comparing the dynamics and demographic composition of 2 populations exposed to different levels of harvest. We monitored the cougar populations on Monroe Mountain in south-central Utah, USA, and in the Oquirrh Mountains of north-central Utah from 1996 to 2004. Over this interval the Monroe population was subjected to annual removals ranging from 17.6–51.5% (mean ± SE = 35.4 ± 4.3%) of the population, resulting in a >60% decline in cougar population density. Concurrently, the Oquirrh study area was closed to hunting and the population remained stationary. Mean age in the hunted population was lower than in the protected population (F = 9.0; df = 1, 60.3; P = 0.004), and in a pooled sample of all study animals, females were older than males (F = 13.8; df = 1, 60.3; P < 0.001). Females from the hunted population were significantly younger than those from the protected population (3.7 vs. 5.9 yr), whereas male ages did not differ between sites (3.1 vs. 3.4 yr), suggesting that male spatial requirements may put a lower limit on the area necessary to protect a subpopulation. Survival tracked trends in density on both sites. Levels of human-caused mortality were significantly different between sites (χ2 = 7.5; P = 0.006). Fecundity rates were highly variable in the protected population but appeared to track density trends with a 1-year lag on the hunted site. Results indicate that harvest exceeding 40% of the population, sustained for ≥4 years, can have significant impacts on cougar population dynamics and demographic composition. Patterns of recruitment resembled a source–sink population structure due in part to spatially variable management strategies. Based on these observations, the temporal scale of population recovery will most likely be a function of local harvest levels, the productivity of potential source populations, and the degree of landscape connectivity among demes. Under these conditions the metapopulation perspective holds promise for broad-scale management of this species.
“Results indicate that harvest exceeding 40% of the population, sustained for ≥4 years, can have significant impacts on cougar population dynamics and demographic composition.”
JB,
Not to be a smart ass, but no shit removing up to 51% of the cougar population in a unit causes the population to go down. There is a large population of them in Oregon, Washington, ID, MT, and other states. No where in their established core range is there any worry about ESA listing etc. SFW may want to keep the population at lower levels than you want. (thats also not a suprise) but they are not in danger of being listed in any state currently.
Who said anything about endangered species protections? You said: “No where in strong range… are cougar populations in trouble.” The term “trouble” leaves some room for interpretation to be sure, but I would say substantial population declines under agency-directed managed with continued political pressure to further reduce populations constitutes “trouble” no matter what your definition.
JB,
Whats your definition of trouble?
I personally don’t see their populations being in trouble anywhere. The population getting cut back in certain areas, while not liked, is still controlled and doesn’t put the population as a whole, or even statewide at risk. I would surmise that the overall cougar population west of the missippi is 10 fold what it was 50 to 75 years ago.
If I used the example above about over hunting and replaced the human factor with wolves and mentioned elk in place of cougars, and focused on herds that were going down in population in areas. The hair on you back would stand on end and you’d be ready to tell me how wrong I am. That being said herds may be going down in population in areas due in some part to, but I wouldn’t say that the elk population overall is in “trouble”. Same as I wouldn’t say the cat population is in trouble.
Ryan:
The difference is that in millions of years of evolution wolves never managed to kill off elk in North America. This is especially notable given the substantial array of large carnivores that were on the ground in what we now consider the West some 8,000 to 20,000 years ago. In contrast, the list of species that humans managed to kill off (or nearly so) in North America is staggering. Moreover, we managed this feat in extremely short order. Thus, while I don’t see short-term population reductions associated with large carnivores problematic, I see concerted efforts to locally kill off large carnivores by politically powerful interest groups to be more than a little bit troubling.
JB,
So what your saying is that you have a moral issue with predator control, but I would also venture that when push came to shove, you’d agree that modern wildlife managers wouldn’t put cougars in threat of extinction, they haven’t in 50 years. Then again cougars are like the coyotes of the big cats.
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying the only legitimate threat to large carnivore populations in the US is human beings–we have proven that we can effectively and efficiently wipe predators from the landscape, and that is exactly what interest groups such as the SFW would have us do again. SFW’s (Don Peay really) political clout in Utah should not be underestimated.
Frankly, the same could be said for wolves in Idaho. The politicians of that state (including its wildlife commission) do not want wolves and are doing everything they can to make sure wolf populations are removed (or at the very least, minimized).
And to be clear. You are dead wrong in your claim that this article is “basically a theory with no facts”. The article used real data on population trends as well as some simulation modeling to help better understand the effect of hunting pressure on certain large carnivores.
“Over the past 25 yrs, the steepest declines in cougar and lion harvests occurred in jurisdictions with the highest harvest intensities (Fig. 3a). Similarly, hunting blocks with the highest lion offtakes per 1000 km2 in Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve showed the steepest declines between 1996 and 2008 (r2 = 0.26, n = 45 blocks, P = 0.0004). The Selous is the largest uninhabited hunting area in Africa (55,000 km2) and has long been the premier destination for lion trophies. Across jurisdictions, declining harvests were unrelated to habitat loss for either lions or cougars (Fig. 3b) or to snow conditions for cougars. We modified our population simulation models to estimate impacts of sport hunting in a changing environment and found that habitat loss only imposes an additive effect on the impact of trophy hunting (Supporting Information Fig. S4). Note that habitat loss in many African nations has been so extensive (Fig. 3b) that lion offtakes have failed to recover for 10–20 yrs following the peak harvest years except in Namibia.”
NOTE: This article isn’t “anti-hunting”, but rather is suggesting that hunting will not always work as a conservation strategy for large carnivores–particularly those that are prone to kill off the offspring of their competitors (e.g. African lions, and cougars).
Wolves Off-Limits To Hunters This Season
http://www.kxly.com/news/25360903/detail.html
“I don’t think that they should have brought the wolves back in the first place,” sportsman Bryce McTavisch said. “As a lover of animals and the outdoors, I think everything has its place. The wolves, we got rid of them, they were hunted out and everything. There may have been a reason for that like natural selection.”
Everything has its place, but not wolves according to this animal loving hunter.
I wonder when Mr Mctavisch’s book will be coming out. I think everything has it’s place, followed by except wolves! What a loon!
The strangest thing about all of this is that there are people who actually believe that human-powered exterminations are comparable to natural selection.
Do not sacrifice wildness for extremism on wolves
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_9024b238-d2fc-11df-82b4-001cc4c002e0.html
Wolves are not running for political office. They are wild animals seeking to regain their rightful place in the Northern Rockies ecosystem. As such, scientific facts should dictate wolf management policies, not political agendas. As a matter of fact, the terms “liberal” and “conservative” have no place in the wolf argument, though these terms are thrown around more often than productive discourse on the matter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8056289/New-carnivore-discovered-in-Madagascar-and-she-doesnt-look-very-happy-about-it.html
So many interesting animals and plants on Madagascar resulting from continental and genetic drift. Good to hear of a new species rather than another loss.
Wolves: Rehberg endorsing breaking law
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_dd7aab8c-d608-11df-a10e-001cc4c03286.html
A GREAT article.
Death Cults Among Us
The War on Wolves
http://www.counterpunch.org/genovali10122010.html
The aforementioned points reflect a disturbing but common trait among provincial, state and federal “environmental” agencies in jurisdictions throughout North America – specifically, an obsessive predilection that drives wildlife managers to reflexively default to the oxymoronic tactic of conservation-by-killing. Given the evidence (i.e., the body count), coming to the conclusion that government agencies which “manage” wildlife essentially operate as death cults is not difficult. Countless policies are designed to harm or kill wildlife, particularly large carnivores. The euphemisms used to describe and camouflage such killing – e.g., “cull”, “harvest,” “control” – speak volumes about the underpinning philosophy (i.e., the so-called North American Wildlife Management Model) of these agencies.
“i.e., the so-called North American Wildlife Management Model”
Jon,
If this is so fuckin horrible, then why do we have some of the highest total animal populations for any developed country?
“If this is so fuckin horrible, then why do we have some of the highest total animal populations for any developed country?”
Thanks Ryan. Glad to see you realize that predators aren’t cutting into big game populations.
RH
“Thanks Ryan. Glad to see you realize that predators aren’t cutting into big game populations.”
RH,
Really, I said that where? The truth is that they are a factor and can create downturns in game populations in some cases and do require control measures.
Words like “require” and “need”, in this context, are value statements.
You know what bothers me? Labels.
It’s human nature to label things. But it damages critical thinking.
Labeling elk as game animals devalues their importance to the ecosystems. Game animal? Just there to be hunted right?
Heck, even this community does it to itself. Hunters vs. non-hunters. Liberals vs. conservatives. so on and so forth. And it’s easy to dismiss people who aren’t part of your group.
Lets not label. Not the animals, and not people. If you look at the animal as an Elk, you are more likely to see its value.
“Death Cults Among Us. The War on Wolves.” Written by Chris Genovali and Camilla Fox at: counterpunch.org/genova/110122010.html (excellent article on the consequences of the war on wolves)
Article on Mexican Wolves.
http://www.wolf.org/wolves/news/live_news_detail.asp?id=5633
Idaho Fish & Game Director Among Elk Hunters Questioned for Trespassing
Cal Groen says he was butchering elk during his personal time on private property previously OK’d for access by his hunting party.
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/idaho_fish_game_director_among_elk_hunters_questioned_for_trespassing/C41/L41/
Ask First!
Let me tell you what Cal Groen did at the Kellogg IDFG meeting. Before the meeting started, he clearly read my and my friends shirts, which labeled us as pro wolf advocates; immediately got up from the table, walked right past us to the group BEHIND us and extended his hand to them, with the statement “welcome… you guys elk hunters? wolf hunters?…” and proceeeding to make friendly chit-chat with them. He made it undeniably clear his dislike of us. So I, for one, have no sympathy for him. He’s breaking the very rules he is in charge up upholding, yet if you read the comments after the article in the paper, alot of them were along the lines of “oh well-it happens”
and “no big deal” ?!?!?!
Railway spearheads effort to save grizzlies in Banff National Park
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/railway-spearheads-effort-to-save-grizzlies-in-banff-national-park/article1755954/
The Guy Idaho Ranchers Love to Hate
Jon Marvel sees two ways to get cows and sheep to stop grazing on public lands: Politics and litigation. He chooses the latter.
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/the_guy_idaho_ranchers_love_to_hate/C619/L619/
Top 10 land barons. More than a few with considerable holdings in the West.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/14/the-biggest-landowners-in_n_762628.html#s155736
http://coyotes-wolves-cougars.blogspot.com/2010/10/south-dakota-takes-sane-approach-to.html
South Dakota takes a sane approach to lion hunting banning the use of dogs in the hunt——however, when you hear that there are 225 cougars in the State and they want that number culled to 175………………you really wonder about us as a species……ok to have a million plus humans in South Dakota, but not ok to have 225 lions???????????We are out of control arrogant in our regard for other predators right to keep a toehold on this Planet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7614259/Dancing-polar-bears-one-of-40-best-nature-photographs-of-all-time.html
Protection for Bull Trout Expanded in the West
Good for wildlife, bad for ranchers and loggers.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9IQCNF03.htm
Texas Department of Agriculture Launches Program to Eradicate Wild Hogs
http://www.prweb.com/releases/HogVideo/TXFB/prweb4649434.htm
nearly 2 million wild hogs in Texas.
Good, they are a BIG problem in Texas..
sb, have you hunted hogs before?
Several times, down in the southern part of the US, in fact, I am hoping to head down to TN in a couple of weeks to hunt them again, Why?
Pelt incentive programme: , means: Coyote mass killing in Nova Scotia.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/camilla-fox/kill-for-cash-coyotes-tar_b_763593.html
Nice photo attached!
But if they didn’t continue with the mass killing how would the degenerate in the photos finish siding his structure with animal carcasses! Priorities!
Think it´s their way of insulating a building. They are just environment friendly :-))
One time I wanted to know how much money fur trappers made back in the 1830. I had one source that mentioned how many beaver pelts several trappers sold and how much they sold them for, and while I do not recall the specifics, I mulitplied the income per pelt by the number of pelts each trapper sold, and converted to current dollar value. Fur trappers in the GYE typically made between $200,000 and $400,000 per season in the 1830’s. It explained why so many were willing to suffer the hardships and risk their lives.
How many actually had anything when the fur traded ended. It is similar to today’s housing and mortgage crisis. Five years ago everyone thought that there house made them rich, where are those people today? Builders, real estate agents, subdivider’s, and mortgage brokers are broke and in chapter 11 then chapter 7. Foreclosures, bankruptcy and homes that the mortgagor owes more on than they are worth is legacy of yesterday’s foolishness. Fur trappers foolishness was whiskey at the Green River Rendezvous; I wonder how many trappers left the rendezvous with much more that a headache, enough powder and shot and supplies for the next season and maybe a new STD.
It reminds me of the Alaska Pipeline. Workers who were making a $1.60 frying tacos or working in a gas station now were making $12 an hour. They never had that much money before and when they left most of it was left in “foolishness”, I was there
At least a third of the trappers never made it out of the Rockies alive. We really can only guess since we only have written accounts of a few. Russell Osborne got religion after being shot up with arrows by the Blackfoot on Yellowstone Lake. He finally moved back east and was severely injured by a black powder blast while constructing a mill. It sounds like he saved some money. William Sublette retied after being wounded by the Blackfoot in the Battle of Pierre’s Hole (present day Driggs) but it sounds like he retired a wealthy man. The city of Sublette, Kansas is named after him. Joe Meek later was prominent in settling the Northwest and became the first Governor of Oregon.
I suspect that there were hundreds of young adventurous men that trapped the Rockies for a few years and went home fairly wealthy men. Many probably squandered their money as they probably entered the trapping business at 19 and retired at 23. Not many 23-year-olds are wise investors or good money mangers, but they found their adventure trapping and almost certainly enjoyed their money…while it lasted.
I think many enjoyed their free-wheeling days in the Wild West with thier Indian wives so much that they could not re-adjust to a paltry civilized life.
BBC Wildlife Magazine reports in the current print issue, that Band-e-Amir National Park has been established in Afghanistan, in the “safe” province of Bamiyan (remember, this is the site of the ancient Buddha statues, blown up by the Taliban). It is said the park area still contains leopards, brown bears, wolves, as well as a species of wild sheep.
Garbage-eating grizzly bear captured in Gardiner, euthanized
http://www.krtv.com/news/garbage-eating-grizzly-bear-captured-in-gardiner-euthanized/
I still think we need to enlarge Yellowstone Park and/or create some wildlife preserves where different rules apply inside and outside. Inside, towns like Gardner or West Yellowstone could be fenced off and residents on private land outside of towns would need to take every precaution to prevent bears from finding food. They could be given some finacial support to bear-proof their property but also be fined if they fail to obey ordinances to keep human food from bears. Some of the private land my be bought out or be be forced out with grandfather rights over the next couple of centuries.
Island Park, Idaho that ajoins Yellowstone, should be included in an expanded Yellowstone. It would be better for the local economy as a wildlife sancuary than allowing it to be the tree-farm/cattle-ranch that it is now.
That’s not such a bad idea, better than some I’ve heard.
You know, that elderly bear that was trapped, so the news article claims, in West Yellowstone was actually euthanized too, I knew it when I saw the front end loader heading to the location of all the commotion. Seems that anything that wanders out of the park is killed nowadays. Hunters wait at the borders to kill whatever they’re hunting, elk, deer, moose, wolves. Bears get in trouble just by being seen anymore. Stupid humans have some false sense of total security and entitlement and expect that no harm will or should come to them regardless of how stupid they are or behave. For them, guns are the usual answer, “just kill it”. That solution doesn’t require them to use any more energy in the thought process, which seems to be the goal in many cases. If it’s easy/convenient for the moment, think no further, just do it; if it takes some time and effort to come up with the best solution, most will revert to the easy way out, which often involves the use of guns or killing whatever they are confronted with. It’s a superior species we are defending here… The thought of humans being the offense in these cases is out of the question… we’re all victims of something so we have to defend ourselves. It’s a sad time for most of the life-forms on this planet, thanks to human victimhood….
Garbage eating..Gardiner should enforce the bear proof containers. Why animals have to pay the price for the humans ignorance..what is it going to take to start thinking that animals were the area before us and cows..
I know. These bears are dying because of human irresponsibility and nothing is happening to these people who are responsible for these bears dying. There should be huge fines and perhaps even jail time. As I said before, you know this world has truly gone to hell when the life of a cow or sheep is worth more than that of native wildlife. Native wildlife should always be put above livestock and cattle as being much more important and valuable. Not to say that cows, sheep, etc are worthless, but they are not wildlife and they are certainly not native.
And bears were here before us, but that doesn’t seem to matter to some. Humans are a selfish and ignorant breed.
That is actually not true jon. Humans migrated into American about 17 thousand years ago while grizzly and black bears did not migrate until 13500 years ago. Sorry.
Pointswest:
Where are you getting your information on bears?
“Fossil evidence indicates that black bears have been present in North America for at least 3 Myr…”
Wooding & Ward. 1997. Phylogeography and pleistocene evolution in the North American black bear. Molecular Biol. Evol. 14(11):1096-1105.
Pointswest, do you intend on answering jb?
Bad news for the first wolf reintroduced in the US:
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/10/feds-investigate-killings-endangered-nc-red-wolves#rfq
Public comment period for the ESA coverage plan on Washington’s wildlife areas.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/lands/landline/
Idaho officials deny Rehberg claim state will ignore wolf protections
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_f5fe2fae-d8d7-11df-8f2e-001cc4c002e0.html
But the comments didn’t sit well with Ben Lamb of the Montana Wildlife Federation, one of the state’s largest hunting and conservation groups.
“It kind of makes us look like mouth-breathing rednecks here,” Lamb said. “And it gives credence to everything the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and Defenders of Wildlife say about the hunting community. It really polarizes the issue.”
Yeti (the Russian Bigfoot) is on the move after this years forest fires:
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/10/11/25362914.html
Before the 88 Yellowstone fires the Park fielded “good” Big Foot sightings about every other year. After the fires it was ten years before the next.
I watched one from above, with it starting from about 50 yards away running through meadows and zig zagging from one sub alpine thicket to another picking up cover….back in the 70’s on upper Specimen Ck. Horses alerted me to it. It had been stalking a deer. So there!!
Bob, there are some very good articles about you.
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/in_animal_kingdom_are_bison_equal_in_value_to_humans/C38/L38/
Bob, you have a very interesting background. How many poachers have you caught while working as a ranger if you were to guess?
Jon,
Try the May-June issue of Frontier Airlines in flight magazine. Or Canada’s Nov. Western Producer magazine….or the Associated Press’s East and Mid West region April story on our “way” of raising bison…. or this weeks publication of Animal Welfare Fall issue’s feature story by your’s truly…or read the award winning book, Hawks Rest, by Gary Ferguson, a story I gave him most of the “stuff” on Thorofare’s outfitters. Or the one you won’t read is the front cover Photo and lead story in Men’s Journal…a story axed 3 weeks before it was to go to the press due to pressure from the Bush administration (something unheard of to change a magazine that close to publication).
Jon,
LA Times did some research before their story and said I’d caught more poachers than all the other Yell. rangers combined for the 30 years I was there plus for the forty years before that.
I didn’t notch the handles but can say I patrolled mostly outfitters and can say all those supposed tough, salt of the earth outfitters and guides I caught ALL cried and or bawled except one when they finally realized the gig was up. The outfitter who didn’t, I caught both for killing an elk in the Park and also a Mt. Lion. He was a clinical pathological lier. His case was fairly easy after having tracked him to camp. Went in the lodge tent to warm up and lo and behold on the opposite wall, written in bold felt tip, was the epitat, ” ….. gets pussy” and dated the day he had poached it three days previous.
http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/hbo/2010/oct/13/bloggy-why-fat-hunters-hate-wolves/
And thus we continue to go round and round, the comments on this blog for the most part are purely pathetic, no wonder there will never be a solution..
What a sick, stupid and dumb article, it is not even worth mentioning. Jon there is a good article about a wolf killed south of Missoula while killing sheep in Miller Creek. Get it posted, all the comments are for the landowner even in Missoula.
I am leaving antelope hunting in a few minutes. I have an 86 year old father, my mentor, who is going with me on his last hunt. He walks with a cane and 200 yards is about the limit and then I have to drive the truck and pick him up. He has a permit to shoot from the truck which he does not want to do. But how many 86 year old men are still out there in hills hunting. Go dad go.
Good luck Elk, glad you are going to spend some quality time with your father..
sb, shooting from your truck is not illegal in Montana?
Jon
What do you know about Montana law. Yes, it is with a handicap hunting permit which my father has. I have to have 3 orange stickers, about 2 inches by 2 inches, with a wheelchair affixed to my truck windows.
Elk, do you have any good recipes for antelope?
I have orange stickers on my vehicle and it is legal for me to shoot from it if I am so inclined, but as a bowhunter that uses a longbow, not very easy.
Most states have provisions for disable hunters to shoot from a vehicle…heck most states even have provisions for another to shoot your animal for you, if your blind…but if your not disabled, yes it is illegal to shoot from a vehicle…
Gotcha sb. thanks for answering.
sb, I believe you said you are handicapped from a past injury due to the war. Do you have any trouble what so ever when bow hunting because of your injury?
Jon
Gotta get one before the frying pan, it the same as cooking any meat.
SB. Then you are not allow to hunt without another license hunter accompaning you in the field. That must be hard for a bow hunter.
SB
I know if my father would wound an antelope then I have the right to track it down and dispatch it. In bow hunting if you wound an elk does your companion have the right to finish it off with a rifle or must it be archery only. Interesting
Elk, are you and your dad’s chances good getting an antelope? Are they harder to hunt than say elk in your personal opinion?
Jon
I just talked with my father and I have to drive to Billings in a minute, a 140 mile drive. I have some work to do but I have spent to much time on this forum and the Internet.
Antelope are easy to get. The hard part is access to land. There may be thousands of acres of public land but one has to cross private land to access public and that requires permission. In the late 60’s when I got my driver’s license and the boys when hunting. Permission was easy to get and most of the time we just went hunting, no one cared, today it is a different situation landowners care.
I hope that I can find a ranch that charges a small fee and has not been hunted then things are easier. It is to be seen.
You and your dad have a great time elk.
Elk,
I have enough mobility , that I have never had to have anyone finish an animal off for me, I can walk, but not for a long time, I have never had an animal go farther than about 100 yards from where I shot it, I don’t take risky shots and I am very good with my bow, my upper body is fine, no problems with my bow at all, and I still compete in competitive archery tournaments. I am not chair bound, I simply have an impediment. I have had my hip replaced, so it slows me down quite a bit, but I am still mobile..
Who’s Afraid of the Big Wild Wolf?
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s3037641.htm
“I think if the devil had an animal it would be the wolf – no question about it. In my thinking Bin Laden is a classic example of a foreign terrorist. The wolf is the wildlife terrorist.” RON GILLETTE, HUNTER & ANTI-WOLF CAMPAIGNER
Bison’s last stand against Yellowstone wolf
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/bison-wolf-standoff-yellowstone.html
Salle and I went looking for the kill, but couldn’t find it.
Here’s a link to a friend’s photo web site. He got a picture of the wolves and bear at Otter Creek.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14328406@N06/5078307933/
Salle
That bear looks about as large as the bison did.
Has anyone on here ever seen a wolf pack taking down and killing a bison?
Yes Jon,
I have personally seen it and it has been documented, although not common they do take down bison..
Yellowstone bison, elk easy to spot; wolves are more elusive
http://www.azcentral.com/travel/articles/2010/10/11/20101011yellowstone-bison-elk-wolves.html
Yellowstone’s future to be discussed at 10th biennial scientific conference
http://www.examiner.com/yellowstone-eco-travel-in-national/yellowstone-s-future-to-be-discussed-at-10th-biennial-scientific-conference
Oops, I meant this comment to go here instead of below:
Too bad it wasn’t more widely advertised earlier, I would have liked to attend that one, could have made it too. It would be interesting to see what was discussed and who was there and hear what they had o say…
Bison face the storm and the cameras
http://www.montanakaimin.com/arts-culture/bison-face-the-storm-and-the-cameras-1.1667855
Too bad it wasn’t more widely advertised earlier, I would have liked to attend that one, could have made it too.
West Yellowstone Police Report Summary Oct. 6 thru 12
Oct. 6
— A woman reported that someone slashed all four tires on her car.
— A vehicle was speeding backwards, failing to stop at the four-way stop sign at Gibbon and Geyser, inside a school zone. The vehicle also had plates that were assigned to another vehicle.
— A maroon sedan was disabled after hitting a deer.
— A person was reported driving into oncoming traffic.
Oct. 7
— An Amber Alert was received from Washington for two males, 10 and 8, possibly with a 33-year-old male with blonde hair, blue eyes and driving a 1996 dark green Chevy Monte Carlo.
— An attempt to locate alert was broadcast for a possible murder suspect who might be headed toward Montana. Subject is considered armed and dangerous and possibly suicidal.
— A Sage fly rod was lost.
— West Yellowstone police assisted in an eviction of employees.
— A wreck between a car and an elk was reported 3.5 miles west on Highway 20. The elk is dead and off the road. No passenger injuries were reported, but the vehicle will need a tow.
— Two black bears were seen around the Povah Center, heading down Geyser and into the back lot of Westmart.
Oct. 8
— Vandalism was reported, involving some moving one of the fiberglass buffalo sculptures into the middle of Yellowstone Ave.
— A dog was reported running at large around downtown.
— A dead cow elk was reported to be laying on the side of the road.
— The Hebgen Basin Fire Department was advised of a planned burn of a pile of debris.
— A female black and white Boston terrier mix with a red bandanna was found. She’s very nice and snugly.
— A person reported their neighbor was harassing them by banging on the walls.
— Police received reports of license plates being stolen off vehicles.
— A semi-truck was reported driving recklessly in Yellowstone Park.
— The Montana Highway Patrol was advised of a reckless driver in an older two-tone red Ford truck with no plates. The truck was swerving and could not stay within the lines from Four Corners all the way to Big Sky.
— A shepherd dog with a blue collar was killed when it ran in front of a semi-truck in town.
— Two bears were reported to be in the alley by Bullwinkles’ housing.
Oct. 9
— A grizzly bear sow and cub were reported to be at a campground in town.
— Someone called in to report a box of fish guts and bones in front of a building. They were concerned about the bears that have been in the area and the “low intelligence” of whoever left it out.
— A person reported threats received from a neighbor’s boyfriend. No weapons were involved. The reporting party does not know the names of the neighbor or the boyfriend, they are new to the building.
— A 911 hang-up call was received by dispatchers. A woman said she was trying to dial an outside line.
— Two suspicious trucks were in front of a person who reported they both took off really fast and went down the Madison Arm Road. The reporting party said “At this hour, they can’t be up to any good.”
Oct. 10
— A woman asked for assistance of a police officer.
— A person who recently moved into an apartment last week with children wants to know what to do about the person downstairs that keeps banging on the floor.
— Another 911 hang-up call was received.
— Criminal mischief was reported, indicating someone is messing with an ex-employee’s vehicle.
— A black and white Australian sheepdog was found.
Oct. 11
— After police stopped a male driver for an equipment violation and careless driving, he became uncooperative and began yelling.
— A wallet was reported lost by a woman about two weeks ago, probably in town. It is a thin, white bi-fold wallet with poppies decorating the front.
— A cat was reported lost on Oct. 9. The black male cat is 6-years-old, weighs 12 pounds, has green eyes and a few white hairs. It was last seen on Yellowstone Avenue, across from the Rendezvous Ski Trail.
— A burn permit was activated on the end of Yellowstone Ave.
— A general fire alarm went off at the Wyndam Resort on Gray Wolf Avenue. Burnt toast was the culprit.
— Some called to complain about noisy neighbors upstairs.
— Someone reported a food storage violation. On the east side of the Crows Nest there is an open garbage can with garbage all over the ground.
— Dispatchers received a 911 hang-up call.
Oct. 12
— A bicycle was reported to be parked outside of the Firehole Fillup for 10 days. It is teal/light blue in color and has a registration sticker.
— A woman called to report that she struck an elk with her vehicle on the previous night in Yellowstone on Highway 191. A park ranger took a report but she was notifying the police department.
— A man walked into the police department to report the door to the medical clinic was unlocked but nobody was in the clinic.
My personal fave is:
Oct. 8
— Vandalism was reported, involving someone moving one of the fiberglass buffalo sculptures into the middle of Yellowstone Ave.
It would take some determination to move them suckers, they are quite large(Lifesized) and have to be pretty heavy!
Actually they are made of fiberglass, the pedestals they are mounted on probably weigh more than the actual bison structure.
Russian tiger summit offers ‘last chance’ to save species in the wild
Last 13 countries with wild tigers to meet in St Petersburg, as deforestation and poaching push animal to extinction: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/17/tiger-summit-russia
Thank you. Peter Kiermeir.
I’m sure we all hope for a successful tiger summit.
Hiker killed by Mountain Goat in Olympic National Park.
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20101017/NEWS/310179991/man-killed-by-goat-in-olympic-national-park-was-experienced-hiker
Sb
Doesn’t that make them more dangerous than wolves in the lower 48? Kill them all, they must be punished; show them who is in control; goats will be attacking kids at school bus stops next.
Sorry, my cynical side leaps forth on occasion.
Barb,
Don’t shoot the messinger, I simply posted the article, which I found quite interesting as it is such a rare event, and I have never once said a wolf was going to kill children at bus stops, Christ!
sb, not to change the subject, but do you watch Casey Anderson’s show expedition wild at all? His show from last week was about the recent fatal bear attacks in Montana and yellowstone. He had Jim Cole on his show. The guy who photographs bears. Did he pass recently do you know?
I caught the last half an hour of the show, yes Jim passed away a few weeks ago, the footage of Jim was taken not long before his death…
Save bears
It was the type of reponse I would expect from those who want wolves removed and always comment on how the wolf is going to take a child at a bus stop; I know you have never said that. In no way was I shooting the messinger. It was an interesting article; thanks.
Barb,
Exactly what came to my mind too!
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity starts Monday in Japan to set targets for 2020
* Many rainforests and coral reefs already at a tipping point, says the U.N.
* New Strategic Plan to be agreed along with new protocols to sustain ecosystems
* Not one government met 2010 targets which were set back in 2002
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/17/biodiversity.un.summit.briefing/index.html?hpt=T2
Unfortunately, the governments and multinational corporations ~ one and the same-? ~ have managed to use BS and outright mass propagandist lies to defeat any action that remotely resembles significant change for so long now that it’s probably too late. A projected 2020 target date is yet another delay that will ensure that nothing is done to stop the destruction of the ecosystems that may be salvageable at present.
Has anyone heard any evidence regarding: http://savewesternwildlife.org/wordpress/yellowstone-park-has-been-closed-for-being-a-bad-neighbor/comment-page-1/
Seems it would be in the news by now.
Sounds like a onion article to me, but knowing what I know and what I have seen, I would not put it past ID, WY and MT to try..
It’s a bunch of emasculated whiners, go to the home page, they have a clip from an IDF&G Kellogg event. A prime example of ignorance on display, the whole website that is.
Well, you have to consider the source.
Which is why I’m banging my head on the computer screen … we’re surrounded by paranoid-schizophrenic idiots. ( You know who you are)
Then again , Yellowstone Park is closing for the season fairly soon .
Perhaps the rabble over in the Anti-Wolf camp see that seasonal closing as ‘customized’ proof of the Great Conspiracy , having ruled out all other explanations as testament to Occam’s Razor in action. We all know that those great thinkers and social dynamicists of our time, the Anti-Wolfers , are particularly adept at using Occam’s Razor to blame wolves for everything, after ruling out all other reasonable explanations for [ Fill In The Blank ].
Barb,
notice the date Aug 22. This is just Todd Fross trying to emulate Toby Bridges,and a poor attempt at it. Fross occupies a whack-a-doddle class nearly all his own. probably his only cell mate would be bruce hemming. there’s a pair to draw to.
fross posted here for a couple of days under freecoyote. Supposedly an outfitter in Wyo that thinks elk have” horns”.
This is just an example of his delusional rants; problem is I think he really believes them.
http://savewesternwildlife.org/wordpress/undocumented-wolf-pack-in-potlatch-idaho-obliteration-of-elk-on-film/my-beautiful-picture/
Claims to a possible collar on the lighter colored wolf as proof that IDFG isn’t reporting territories of all known wolf packs in idaho ( in this case Latah County)
Barb,
Do you think that all known packs are really getting reported?? I don’t — and I had a personal experience that proved it to me.
I’m not sure just who does do the reporting these days, is it strictly Fish and Game or is the tribe still involved?
Finland’s wolf population has collapsed in the last few years
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Finland%E2%80%99s+wolf+population+has+collapsed+in+the+last+few+years/1135260922925
Peter –
http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.php?t=107358
Is part of the problem with wolves in Finland due to the fact that reindeer are not really considered wildlife but livestock?
Maybe! The reindeer people have much influence in Finland. I know a few of those Saami people personally and they always assure me of a pragmatic attitude towards wolves. That population collapse comes as a surprise to me and obivously also to the scientists there. Let´s see what comes out at the end. Finland is of course part of the travelling route for wolves from Russia to the troubled Swedish/Norwegian population.
Valley Forge National Park needs some serious Deer thinning , and some folks want Coyotes, not hunters to do the deed ,says this article from the Philadelphia Inquirer :
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20101018_Let_coyotes__not_hunters__control_Valley_Forge_deer__animal-rights_advocates_say.html
I’m linking that article here on Wildlife News as a counterpoint to all our friends in the Anti-Wolf rabble who constantly blather that if wolves are so desireable and efficient at wildife management that they need to be reintroduced ” back East” in places like Central Park NY and Washington D.C. etc.
Well, anti-wolfers, here’s your big chance. Valley Forge National Park needs wolves to thin the deer herd, from an estimated 1275 down to 175. I’m not sure coyotes are fully up to the task at hand. Perhaps Wildlife Services in Wyoming-Montana-and Idaho could begin live trapping of certain naughty western wolves instead of shooting them , then relocate them to Valley Forge NP . Win-win, and Wildlife Services can show their compassionate side instead of their ruthless killer face. Great PR opportunity !
Tough issue. In the long term, coyotes could help control the populations. In the short term, there are probably alot of unemployed (or disadvantaged) people within a 100 mile radius, that could use a deer in the freezer for winter.
The red wolf would also do well in areas like that. Afraid our big guys out here are more suited for elk and cattle.
Cody:
I don’t think that will happen, as the wolves you all have out West are a different subspecies (anyone know if eastern Pennsylvania falls within the red wolf’s historic range?). Regardless, our eastern coyotes are considerably bigger than those you have out West and may indeed be up to the task!
I wrote that facetiously , of course.
But the next time I read in the Casper Tsar Trib or some other blotter of anti-wolf comments that wolves need to be reintroduced back east or Kalifornica or Central Park , ad absurdum , I’m gonna send Valley Forge right back at them anyway.
p.s. I am about to be appointed to the City of Cody “Urban Deer Commission ” to work our own citywide deer situation.
Any suggestions for nonlethal town deer repellent that works ?
I know there has been some success with using different types of pepper for deer repellent, most of the garden centers carry various types.
When I was looking at that sort of thing some folks were using Cayenne pepper; but that was some time ago. I understand that some of the egg-based products work pretty well, but, like all repellents, they’re gone after a good hard rain. Frankly, physical barriers (i.e. fencing) work best. Urban hunts can work too, but can be tricky to manage (though easier than culls).
Not a lot of very good options I’m afraid.
One of my neighbors uses a motion activated sprinkler system in her garden, but I don’t think that would be a practical solution in an urban environment..
Fencing works just fine. It will cost you some money however. I wish people in Cody would worry about something more serious.
Posted on here already, but it’s good to see it on other websites.
Who is Not Willing to Compromise?
Governmental Disdain for Wolves
By KEN COLE, RALPH MAUGHAN and BRIAN ERTZ
http://www.counterpunch.org/cole10182010.html
Now it should be clear that the one not willing to compromise has always been Butch Otter.
And then their was that article by Bill Schneider in New West that said conservationists could have cut a good deal?!
Otter actually followed through with his word.
Is this the start of an unmanaged killing spree on the wolf?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013195295_apidwolfmanagementidaho1stldwritethru.html
I had a feeling this might happen. Not a surprise. It is clear that Idaho does not want wolves and don’t kid yourself, Idaho wouldn’t have done squat even if wolves were delisted. Do you think they would have wasted their time investigating illegal wolf kills even if wolves were delisted and a hunt was allowed? I don’t think so. They would put virtually no effort into the investigation I bet. Those who kill wolves, all I can say i I hope karma gets them sometime down the line!
Where’s Bob “action” Jackson when you need him!
Save Bears. Mr. I’m always right know-it-all has been exposed as a bull-shiter and a fraud.
How so Mr. Timz, because I thought one thing would happen and another did? I have never once claimed I was right or wrong, in this particular instance I was wrong, but guess what a lot of other people in wildlife management was wrong as well, which is why we find ourselves in the position we are now, ith a state governor telling the fed’s to go to hell.
Now if you have evidence of me being a fraud, I would sure like to see it as I am sure anybody else here would, please post it…
Blah. Blah you and your “sources”. Your a fraud, no wonder you won’t use your real name.
Blah, blah, blah Timz,
Ralph, the owner of the blog knows why I don’t use me real name, in fact we discussed it on the phone a few days ago, so it really does not matter what you think..But I am flattered you spend so much time worrying about what I have to say Timz..
And now we all know it’s crap.
How so Timz?
I have no intention of using my real name and I have explain the reason in the past..
Maybe more illegal killing but less by WS. After all these very folks Otter has thumbed his nose at are the ones that he has to get permission from to kill wolves. And I suspect USFWS would do a better job investigating illegal kills than IDF&G
If they have the resources, which based on what I am hearing, they don’t have at this time..
Who are you hearing this from sb? So, if they don’t have the resources, what do you think is going to happen? Is Montana taking the same stance as Otter?
Jon,
From my friends and former associates in the USFWS, I don’t think Montana is far from taking the same stances, I honestly think, shit is getting ready to “hit the fan”
And before anyone says it, I didn’t not say it is right and I didn’t say I condone it, I am simply being a realist..
sb, I think shit has already hit the fan. Otter taking this stance should not shock most. I don’t think the usfws is just going to stand there and do nothing while wolves are illegally being killed. Who really can say.
On June 27 SB wrote — “I know there are a lot of people that think that Molloy will re-list, but from what I am hearing on both sides, I seriously have my doubts”
Today– “if they have the resources, which based on what I am hearing, they don’t have at this time..”
I hope these are better sources than what you had last time.
Oh Timz,
Really what I was hearing back in June, I didn’t think they would relisted, so what. I also realize there is no predicting what can happen in a court room, in this situation, we are not talking about a court room, we are talking about what is going to happen in the real world..
sb, the court room is the real world.
Jon,
The court room is where they settle disputes, what happens in the court room, does not mean it transfers to the field..A judge in a black robe can make all of the rulings they want, it does not mean those in the field are going to follow that…Otter has basically said, we don’t care what the judge ruled, we are not going to enforce action against illegal wolf killing.
I think you don’t hear ^&*, it’s just a bunch of wishful thinking on your part.
Timz,
Who cares what you think?
Of course Timz,
I already know you don’t care what I think or post.
sb, you said
we are not going to enforce action against illegal wolf killing.
What do you mean we sb?
Jon,
Otter has said “We” are not going to enforce action in illegal killing of wolves, as I am not a resident of Idaho, I am not part of “we” or any other group…Otter said “We” not me..
Remember all those months of Idaho’s MSG’s insistence of ongoing “proper” game management of wolves. Even if he was poor at concealing snow jobbing, the embarassment and slap in the face to this crap espoused by him and his superiors to supposedly “bring the TRUE info of legitimate wolf management” …. to the ignorant peasants (us) is seen as it is …a G&F dept. totally sucking at the teat of the politicians.
Actually what Idaho’s governor says today destroys any credibility that states G&F operations and policy making contributed to date. If I was MSG and his administrative cohorts I would be looking to another state for employment…soon. Tell me where they will have any strength in dealing with any wildlife issues when they have to capitulate to politican supported radical red neck prejudice. Can’t you see it so happening…G&F having to try to suppress a very embodened irrational group of bubbas. ….folks who will ram their unscientific conclusions for every issue …..from wildlife count numbers to warped ideas of how to manage wildlife and fish populations.
Why didn’t the state biologists and administrators see the results if they lay with those types? Why did they go to the camp of the “commoners”? Go to bed with them and the offspring will have knobs coming out of their heads. Why did they? It was so easy, that is why. Careerism replaced professionalism. Shades of how it happened in Nazi Germany. And who is Idaho G&F left with? … worse than now. And what about the law enforcement game wardens. With a governor dripping oil on any kneeling bubba ready to spring up to flaunt all those rules they always wanted to do anyway, what does this do to law dog morale.
Hang your heads my cohorts in law. You have the same two choices that worked for rangers in Yellowstone…become apathetic or become bitter. Then as a final statement to your career go to the state supply depot after hours…use that master key copy you never turned in…and come out of that door with a big box of toilet paper. You can carry about a three by three foot box of it to your pickup or suburban if your arms are long enough. Take it home and with every wipe in the coming years you will remember what it was like…to have everytrhing you thought you stood for go back to Dark Ages.
You will then be duplicating what my first district ranger did when he retired….a big scandinavian type of guy with wavvy blond hair…and a deep voice to go with it to boot.
I’d say its time for the feds to come into Idaho no different than needed to be done with racial permeated culture of the Deep South in the ’60’s. What does Otter have on George Wallace?
++He-Man Butch writes: “History will show that this program was a tragic example of oppressive, ham-handed ‘conservation’ at its worst,” Otter wrote. “Idahoans have suffered this intolerable situation for too long, but starting today at least the state no longer will be complicit.”++
You know that he has a point here. If the extremists such as you, jon, had your way, we would have wolves in the suburbs of Western cities protected by a goon-squad of gun-toting conservation officers all at tax payer expense.
The real solution is to set some areas aside for large predators.
Why don’t you answer jb’s question mr. he only points west, but doesn’t actually go there.
To answer your question pw, no, I don’t want wolves in suburbs, but I would like to see them move into other states. Wolves don’t belong in cities or suburbs because it is only going to cause problems for the wolves.
To add on what sb already posted.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101018/ap_on_re_us/us_killer_goat
Gashes on Bones Suggest T. Rex Was a Cannibal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20101015/sc_livescience/gashesonbonessuggesttrexwasacannibal;_ylt=AlH4c4qLkMgUE3lIQHvZHrBH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTRsbmN2Z2oxBGFzc2V0Ay9zL2xpdmVzY2llbmNlLzIwMTAxMDE1L3NjX2xpdmVzY2llbmNlL2dhc2hlc29uYm9uZXNzdWdnZXN0dHJleHdhc2FjYW5uaWJhbARjY29kZQNtcF9lY184XzEwBGNwb3MDMTAEcG9zAzEwBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDZ2FzaGVzb25ib25l
Many today beleive T-Rex was not a predator but a scavanger. So T-Rex may have only scavanged other T-Rex’s.
I think he was both. What do you think pw?
I think where T-Rex’s forelimbs had evolved to be so small and useless, it must be a scavenger. T-Rex conserved energy being bipedal so it could roam far and wide searching for carrion with its sensitive nose. Forelimbs would only be a burden to a scavenger so evolving small forelimbs would have been an advantage.
If T-Rex had been a predator, the forelimbs could have evolved to help take down prey. It could have used the forelimbs to pin prey to the ground or to claw the tendons in the hind legs of prey it was pursuing. I cannot imagine a T-Rex pursuing prey and attempting to take it down with its head where the prey might kick it in its sensitive nose or gouge out one of its eyes with a slashing tail. Also, any time a T-Rex had gotten into a tumble with a prey, it would have broken one of those tiny arms.
How many bipedal predators do we have today that try to take down prey with an unprotected head. Predators need to keep their eyes and nose well protected.
T-rex was pretty fast for an animal his size and there is no doubt he would have been able to run down prey and kill it. His prey most likely would have been a bit faster than him. Given his size, he was very capable of scavenging as well.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jc-pztDUpcyeV2QTeN44A6JX2djg
T-Rex running at 20mph? Imagine what would happen to those tiny little forearms the first time it stumbled and fell to the ground while running at 20mph. Those skinny little arms would snap like toothpicks. As the article states, many dispute that T-Rex could run at all.
PointsWest Says:
October 18, 2010 at 4:05 PM
++He-Man Butch writes: “History will show that this program was a tragic example of oppressive, ham-handed ‘conservation’ at its worst,” Otter wrote. “Idahoans have suffered this intolerable situation for too long, but starting today at least the state no longer will be complicit.”++
Always amazes me when politicians take liberties when grandstanding on an issue. “Idahoans have suffered” as that should somehow automatically include the feelings of everyone in the state, regardless of how others might feel about wolves and their place on the landscape.
Idahoans have certainly suffered while he has been governor, but the suffering is the economy and Otter’s lack of ideas how to do anything but maybe cave in to international oil companies.
Ralph, it seems to me Butch is doing this to try and win over the wolf haters in Idaho. From what I have seen written about Butch, he is not well liked by wolf haters.
I thought this video of Russian wolves running down the highway was strange. A lot of hyperbole in the reporting for sure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39723578#39723578
I was afraid I would see more of that video.
Could they have reported the story any more hyper-dramatic.
No, the reporting was ridiculous, but typical of most media outlets. Maximize shock-value to draw in the most viewers and generate more profit.
What happened to the shy and secluded wolf theory? Wolves were supposed to be so reclusive and afraid of people and civilization. They are more afraid of us than we are of them…I was told on this very blog.
The one wolf almost collided with the cop.
Has anybody watched a little bit closer? Those “wolves” look like a pack of domestic dogs! Their movements is also not very “wolf pack like”. Stray dogs are quite common in Moscow and you better get out of their way!
OK…I watched video again…very closely. I watched in full screen mode…a few times.
They’re wolves.
There is another equally dumb video going viral at the moment with that digitally mastered “Wolf” pack attacking again! This time a supermarket parking lot!
Good Morning America
PW, take a look at the video again. Atleast two of them (especially the last one closest to the camera) look like collie/shepard cross – white tipped tail and black back.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Moscow-Crackdown-On-100000-Stray-Dogs-After-Savage-Attacks/Article/200807115023485
This is a common problem with feral dogs and wolf/dog hybrids ~ some feral dogs may have meted with dogs and produced some of these. Many cross-bred wolf/dog hybrids are far more dangerous and aggressive, though they look like wolves they are not necessarily so. Feral dogs, in particular, are quite aggressive and behave in this manner, I think it’s not wild wolves but feral dogs and wolves get the bad rap due to huimans’ inability to tell the difference by sight alone.
Thanks to MSNBC for misreporting, not checking facts, to get viewers’ hackles up and feed the frenzy of ignorance that is rampant in our society ~ because it pays. Talk about ethics problems in the media…
So which is it then?
1) They are shepard/collies?
2) They wolf – dog hybrids?
3) They are digital wolves?
It is very unlikey they are all three. One of these three denials must be wrong!
The thing that sucks about this video is that there is no way to really tell whether they are hybrids or not. A couple of them look suspect.
I just don’t know where this video was taken either. Feral hybrids usually run in larger packs than most wolves and are also a greater threat to humans. The animals in the video could fit either bill.
What I do know though is that the reporters didn’t have any way of knowing that those were pure wolves and shouldn’t have represented them that way in the story.
UN Conference Confronts Dramatic Loss Of Biodiversity
http://www.rferl.org/content/UN_Conference_Confronts_Dramatic_Loss_Of_Biodiversity/2193667.html
http://www.urlesque.com/2010/10/15/russian-cop-leaps-into-drivers-car-to-escape-pack-of-wolves/
Two different clips of the same event. Notice in the second clip (taken from inside the car) he gets a driver’s license? Don’t see that in the first clip thats all over the internet and probably all over the anti-wolf, hunting blogs by now.
You are right. The second (the inside car video) does not match up with the security (overview video). Something is fishy.
First of all, the inside-car video is a little strange. The cop does not even acknowelge the camera and who shoots video of a cop during a pull-over? The driver does not really acknowelge the camera either. It is also good video and good audio…too good for an amuatuer with a personal video camera.
The cop is holding the registration and radio to his belly with hs left hand in the inside-car video. His arm is down to his side in the overview video. Also, a car goes by in overview video (the small dark car moving away from the camera) and it should be visible in the inside-car video but is not.
I doubt this is digital editing. If both video are fake, they were staged. It is possible that only the second inside-car video was faked and the overview-video is real. But the whole thing is suspect now.
Russians are famous for this kind of trickery. Whoever made these videos spent some money doing so.
I’m confused as to what benefit there is in Russia to pull something like that off? Wolves are not protected in the country so there’s nothing stopping someone from killing them, right?
I do not see where this video is particularly damaging to wolves. For all we know, the video was shot on a road 200 miles from nowhere and they run right past the humans anyway hardly noticing them. What is the point, wolves are bold and are unafraid run on a highway?
I don’t see how wolves running on the highway is a serious threat anyway. You’d think those types of wolves would have a tendency to eliminate themselves from the gene pool rather quickly.
Not a recreational activity I would recommend for any animal!
I had my wife, who is Russian, listen to the inside-car video.
The cop asked for the documents (ie registration) but then after looking up the road orders the driver to open the door. The driver repsponds with, “you’re breaking my door handle.” When the wolves go streaming by, they both remark something to the effect that “yikes, they are wolves.”!
You would think the ace cameraman who was so interested in capturing real life on video could have exerted the effort to rotate his body to shoot video of the wolves running on down the highway. This second video was obviously staged.
PW, if you locate the comments on the site and wade down thru them alot of people not only figured out they were fake but also noticed both videos were post within a short period of time by the same person.
I thought it odd that they ran down the highway towards a person and a vehicle, rather than across it. Almost like they had been turned loose in the shadows and were being called by someone off camera.
Maybe it was a spoof on the hysterics going on out here in the west?
They could have been made for some innocuous reason like a television comedy or commercial but then were published on YouTube by someone as a prank. Where the driver is yelling at the cop that he is breaking his door handle seems to be an attempt at humor…Russian humor (not to be confused with real humor). 🙂
Mountain goat gores and kills hiker in ONP.
http://peninsuladailynews.com/article/20101019/NEWS/310199988/hiker-died-while-warning-others-of-aggressive-mountain-goat
Ya, I posted that one a couple of days ago, really rare situation, although all wild animals can be dangerous, I have to say, I don’t know that I ever remember a Mountain Goat Killing anyone before..
Again why are we opening ourselves up to more big corporation mentality when solar and wind could be set up on an individual scale?
http://baucus.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=218
RMEF Urges Hunter Restraint Toward Wolves
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Tags: MontanaRMEFRocky Mountain Elk FoundationWolf HuntingWolves
RMEF Urges Hunter Restraint Toward Wolves
http://www.ammoland.com/2010/10/19/rmef-urges-hunter-restraint-toward-wolves/
The BS keeps rolling along: hunters are authorized to kill elk in the NP areas east of the Snake. I guess they’re too many elk after all, no matter the “fact” wolves are killing them all. http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6587
Taz,
There has been an elk hunt going on in GTNP since the park was created, this is nothing new, it was part of the negotiated agreement when the park was being set up..
They should just bring wolves in, problem solved.
Jon,
There are already wolves there, Grand Teton is run completely different than Yellowstone..
Jon,
Buy an Almanac, GTNP is right next to yellowstone.
Taz,
They also allow hunting in parts Mckinley and a few other national parks.
Oops, That should be Gazetteer not an Almanac.
Jon, you have to be the most ignorant individual who posts on Ralph’s blog concerning the matters in the west. Have you ever been out here before? And my offer still stands to have you come and hang out with me for a day while hunting, you will be crying like a little baby before noon of the first day!
There are already wolves present in Grand Teton National Park, and there has been for quite a long time.
There also has been a hunt going on in the park since 1950 when the park expanded to include the portion east of the Snake River. The hunt is not much different today than it was then. Trophy bulls have always been the draw for people to apply for this hunt.
The only difference now days is the Jackson Hole Valley is infested with a bunch of anti hunting crusaders who don’t like the hunt and they want it stopped. There are articles about someone in the valley getting their panties in a wad every year when the hunt starts.
Oh and Taz for the record who on here has claimed that wolves were killing all of the elk in the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming?
I don’t know of anyone on here, but wolf haters on other sites are the ones that are saying wolves have wiped out all of the elk in Jackson Hole. Most of the people who post on here are pro wolf advocates with a few hunters. One wolf hating hunter named Todd Fross who is I believe one of the ceos of a non-profit anti wolf organization called savewesternwildlife, has said time and time again that wolves have wiped out the Jackson Hole elk herd. And to answer your question, no, I wouldn’t spend one minute with the likes of you.
Well gee wyoming native, have you ever thought that some maybe don’t like seeing animals being killed in national parks?
Jon,
I don’t give a rat’s ass what people like or don’t like seeing in Grand Teton National Park. I think they should be respectful and honor the history regarding the conception of the park. Besides, unless they manage to change the law that created GTNP they don’t have a leg to stand on with this issue.
Now read and learn Jon,
Grand Teton National Park Act was passed and signed into law on September 14 1950. In this act is a provision that allows for the controlled reduction of the elk herds if they are above the carrying capacity of the park. These hunts are limited to only the east side of the Snake River, where the park borders the Gros Ventre, and are to be conducted by deputized hunters through the Secretary of the Interior that have purchased sufficient licenses from the State of Wyoming.
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anps/anps_4c.htm
No where in this law does it state that the elk killed have to be cows. In fact it is up to the Wyoming Game and Fish to come up with the management plan regarding the herd. And as long as elk population are above objectives, and the bull to cow ratios our in order, this hunt will stay an “Any Elk” hunt.
Oh and I have no clue who this Todd Fross is, or the so called non-profit he is associated with, so you will need to provide me with some links showing me where he has claimed that wolves have killed all the elk in the Jackson Elk Herd.
Taz,
I think the problem is more one of lack of winter range adjacent to the parks, a problem which many NP’s have. The adjacent lower elevation areas have either been built up with tourist services, residential development or grazed off by those pesky welfare ranchers.
WM – yeah, the elk are getting squeezed as usual. Too many of them, but my point is that there is all this screaming about wolves “decimating” elk herds. Here we have hunts going on to control over-population in an area where wolves range, so apparently wolves are not wiping out entire elk populations. Plus these elk are being fed at the elk refuge. I don’t like elk being managed as cattle in a NP, and no matter the original rules of the park, I don’t think hunting should go on in NPs as extensive as the YNP/TNP area where natural pop control is possible.
Idaho elections: Otter huffs and puffs, again, about wolves
Read more: http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2010/10/20/krichert/idaho_elections_otter_huffs_and_puffs_again_about_wolves#ixzz12vlOjQCf
Bighorn sheep reappearing in Rock Creek after deadly pneumonia outbreak
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_c2851b4a-dbfe-11df-9fc1-001cc4c002e0.html
Counterpunch.org – “Killing Carnivores for Cash” by Camilla Fox/Chris Genovali. Camilla and Chris write an excellent article about the plan to devastate the coyote population in Saskatchewan and the scientific reason why it is such a bad idea.
Over time for Idaho State Police escort of megaloads on highway 12 approved one year before any public meetings were held.
More evidence of the elected officials of Idaho trying to cover this project up for as long as possible leaving little time and opportunities for the public to object.
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/xom_isp-escorts-for-loads-ok-d-in-09-1242485.html
Should Montana Follow Idaho’s Lead and Refuse to Manage Wolves Under ESA?
http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/should_montana_follow_idahos_lead_and_refuse_to_manage_wolves_under_esa/20189/
Secret GOP Donor Network Plans Meeting to Fight Policies That “Threaten to Destroy America”
by CBS News
It is now known that, “included among previous guests to such events are Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas” who help makeup the conservative Supreme Court who ealier this year allowed secret and unlimited campaign contributions from corporations and billionairs.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20020184-503544.html
Tea Party movement: Billionaire Koch brothers who helped it grow. Industrialists who own private company with annual revenues of $70 billion have channelled millions to estabish the Tea Party. The Tea Party is not a grassroots movement. It is a corporate plot to buy government and deregulate polution laws and head off global warming laws.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/13/tea-party-billionaire-koch-brothers
“The Tea Party is not a grassroots movement. It is a corporate plot to buy government and deregulate pollution laws and head off global warming laws.”
That statement deserves repeating!
The Global warming deniers are facinating to listen too. Either they are quoting the Bible and saying that God told them to utilize natural resources, while others claim Global Warming Science is unproven with references to the debunked “Climate Gate” Faux news covered reporting. Meanwhile the idiot sons are laughing all the way to the bank and will certainly have the private jet ready to go when Manhattan falls into the Atlantic Ocean.
Having Supreme Court Justices (ie Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) involved in a political movement such as that of the Koch brothers unprecedented in American history. It is not illegal but it has always been considered to be unethical and unamerican for Supreme Court Justices to be politically active.
Two Puppies Doing Well After Being Poisoned, Abandoned
http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/25457793/detail.html
Not wildlife related, but still a story everyone should see. What kind of sicko poisons puppies? I hope they find the dirtbag(s) and make them pay!
That is just down the street from me. I buy gas there every once in a while.
Seems to be a lot of non wildlife related topics being posted as of late, perhaps you should start up a non-wildlife blog Ralph, then we could really have a party!
LOL
The politics of global warming and polution is wildlife related.
I was not addressing you PW, I was talking to Jon.
http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/25457331/detail.html
I heard this on the local news last night and thought they had the figure wrong. Seems a paltry sum for what they hope to accomplish.
Bear attacks surge in Japan, climate change blamed
http://green.yahoo.com/news/afp/20101020/wl_asia_afp/japanenvironmentanimalbear.html
Japan still has black bears and brown bears
Officials move grizzly from Cody area
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_6cd8d028-dc4a-11df-ae72-001cc4c03286.html
It is so refreshing to see that anti-wolf agitator “Marion” is as active as ever in the discussion section and takes the opportunity to remark that those bears need to go outside YNP for food because of all those wolves…….
It’s a cruel world. The official reports says, “grizzly bear that was damaging apple trees.” It was probably starving to death and was eating apples to survive. It may have broken a few branches but is now charged with damaging private property.
While it lucked out and was only relocated, I’d guess that it will continue to starve and may not survive the winter. Even if it does, what if next year is another screwy weather year as this one was and food is again scarce.
The Rhino poaching crisis:
http://www.africageographic.com/newsroom/index.php/2010/10/18/the-second-big-bust/
It is crystal clear that game farm operators from South Africa will do anything for the US dollar. They need to be stopped. I hope one of them rolls over and blows the lid off the whole operation.
http://www.rhinoconservation.org/2010/06/02/syndicate-bust-links-trophy-hunting-to-rhino-poaching-in-south-africa/
A recent rhino poaching syndicate bust has revealed yet another link between trophy hunting and rhino poaching in South Africa – a further indication that rhino industry insiders are behind the increasing carnage.
Busted: Sandhurst Safaris
Although trophy hunting supporters are loathe to admit it, the lucrative rewards for rhino horn and easy access to guns have made the industry a natural breeding ground for rhino poaching and horn smuggling activities.
Biggest problem seems to be the poaching for Rhino horns going to Asia. Economy is booming there and more and more middle class people can afford Rhino horn. It’s a tragedy. They say this year already 210 Rhinos have been poached in SA. In 2009 they lost a total of 122.
My apologies if this has been posted previously. It appears that at least one of the plaintiffs in the wolf delisting suit before judge Molloy has figured out wolf reintroduction has some possibility to take an unpredictable and nasty turn that would upset goals of some wolf advocates.
Ralph, any comment or observation on this developing matter?
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6592
“300 in Wyoming, 400 in Montana, and 500 in Idaho.”
I’m curious as to how the population densities in Idaho & Montana effect the rate of migration to areas in Oregon and Washington.
Daniel Berg,
I don’t know because it is so hard to disentangle the variables. For example a state with a high population might lack migration corridors, but it’s obvious that Idaho is the source of almost all the wolves the show to its west.
WM,
I’m glad to see this development and the moderate hunting groups that have been increasingly shrill, now condemning wolf poaching.
Idaho and Montana need new wolf management plans, and they need to be created with conservationists sitting at the table. They have always been excluded, this accounting for the unhappy article by me Cole, and Ertz.
The conservation groups, if included, are going to have to understand at the start that there will have to be wolf hunting as part of any management plan. Hunting at the appropriate level does not destroy the wolf population. It is the wolf population that counts (to me anyway).
Hunting groups have to understand that plans to reduce the wolf population by a substantial amount will be as popular as plans to deliberately reduce elk populations.
– – – –
I’ve since gotten email indicating that they is no substance to the story. Perhaps the reporter misinterpreted a stray email or alert.
Ralph,
Cory Hatch has seemed to be a pretty reliable and objective reporter in the past. His story remains on the Jackson Hole News website, so if it is misinformation it persists.
Maybe it would be worthwhile if someone with actual knowledge of the of the status would let him know, so he can pull the article or retract.
Sad, really, as it would be nice to see some progress toward a rational solution.
Probably the best one to contact would be the Exc Director for the Coalition, then the information would be coming from the Horses mouth. It would seem if the story was incorrect, he would have immediately put out a statement to that fact..
Save Bears,
My email came from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition
Well Ralph,
Then I am surprised that they have not made a public statement to the effect the article had no substance..I know if I was the director of an organization and they information appearing in the news was incorrect, I would be the first one countering it in public statement.
It’s confusing as GYC has a link to this article on their website with the mild disclaimer that the story came from emails theys sent out seeking $ from members:
http://www.greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=585
Ralph and everyone,
Today, October 21 the Milwaukee Journal posted a video taken by some bear “hunters” of a pack of 13 wolves near Rhinelander, Wi. which is in the northeastern part of the state. They say it is the longest and clearest video ever of wolves in Wisconsin. GREAT VIDEO!!!! It is posted on You tube under “Pelican – Wolves”. I thought you all might like this one. The Milwaukee Journal website has an article which goes with the video. http://www.jsonline.com
My boys and I were camping about 30 miles northeast of there in late August and heard a bunch of wolves from the Morgan Lake Pack which supposedly only had a couple wolves previously – but from what I heard there were alot more than couple. The Wisconsin Dept of Natural Resources also has a great Wolf section and also has maps of the wolves rerritories – very interesting!!
Ralph thanks again for your great website!!!
Jim from Wisconsin,
Thank you.
Here is the exact URL
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/105461283.html
Allred: Resume Wolf Management To Speed Delisting
http://cbs4denver.com/wireapnewswy/Allred.Idaho.should.2.1974316.html
Allred: Otter’s timing, decision-making about wolves “terrible”
http://www.kmvt.com/news/local/Allred-Otters-timing-decision-making-about-wolves-terrible–105484363.html#tvg
Gubernatorial candidate Allred called Governor Butch Otters’ timing and decision-making “terrible”. He says that this no time to be giving control of the wolf population to the federal government.
Allred said, “It’s kind of beating your own chest and it feels good for a minute or two and then you think about, now where are we and how are we going to solve the problem.”
New Documentary on Wolves in Idaho.
ABC Foreign Correspondent – Whos Afraid of the Big Wild Wolf (2010)
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s3037641.htm
Information
Who’s Afraid of the Big Wild Wolf?
Broadcast: 19/10/2010
Reporter: Michael Brissenden
Under the blazing Idaho sun, he wears a Stetson and a t-shirt that reads ‘Smoke a Pack a Day’ but he’s no Marlboro Man. His pick-up offers up another hint – another slogan as he slams the tailgate shut and reveals a licence plate that reads ‘No Wolfs’.
Ron Gillette is one of a number of outspoken hunters taking aim at an animal that is returning in number to the wilds of his western state. The Canadian or Gray wolf.
“I think if the devil had an animal it would be the wolf – no question about it. In my thinking Bin Laden is a classic example of a foreign terrorist. The wolf is the wildlife terrorist.” RON GILLETTE, HUNTER & ANTI-WOLF CAMPAIGNER
The wolf all but disappeared from the spectacular countryside but a long stretch on the endangered species list offered protection from shooters and re-introduction and regeneration programs have meant that the wolf has once again become a significant predator in the forests.
For Ron it’s a menace growing out of control.
For others like Nancy Taylor it’s a magnificent creature that should be allowed to roam wild in the woods. Nancy runs a preservation project called Wolf People and breeds wolves in captivity.
“The Little Red Riding Hood stories from Europe really, really hurt the wolf and they’re still hurting him today. They make the wolf out to be a monster, a snarling evil creature which he isn’t.” NANCY TAYLOR ‘WOLF PEOPLE’
Nancy, conservationists, courts and the local Indian tribe the Nez Perce have all managed to stare down the hunters. After the wolf was dropped from the protected species list a hunting season was set and would have been well underway by now but an appeal relisted the wolf, the season suspended and hunters were forced to lower their sights.
In this breathtakingly beautiful Foreign Correspondent shot by cameraman Louie Eroglu and reported by Michael Brissenden all sides – ranchers, Indians, conservationists and hunters – square off, for and agin’ the wolf.
“You know if there was ever a time for civil disobedience its now and it’s over this wolf problem.” RON GILLETTE
“If somebody were to threaten my wolves I would step in front of them and take the bullet.” NANCY TAYLOR
Technical Specs
Duration: 27mn 14s
Filesize: 376 MiB
Format: Matroska
Video Codec: x264 core 93 r1542 5b86182
Video Bitrate: 1 800 Kbps
Video Resolution: 1008 x 568
Video Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Frames Per Second: 25.000
Bits-(Pixel*Frame) 0.126
This is very high quality video. It is available for a torrent download at…
http://forums.mvgroup.org/index.php?showtopic=36976
This was an Austrailian production. Interest in the conflict is going global. This video may be edited and broadcast in other english speaking nations. The documentary tried to tell all sides of the story, but, in the end was mostly sympathetic to the wolf.
Antiwolfies should pay attention to this international trend. They may win over Idahoans, they may stand up to the federal government, but even if they manage defeating the American pro-wolf forces, they will still need to deal with the international community.
Guess it depends on where you live, if you are going to pay for illegally taking public resources..
This one ties in with the headline news about the official in Idaho stealing public timber…
In Montana, this guys has to pay..
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MT_ILLEGAL_LOGGING_MTOL-?SITE=MTKAL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=ap_template.html&CTIME=2010-10-22-02-01-12
Guess the country with the largest wolf population at all.
Is it Canada? USA (Alaska?) Russia?
It is Kazachstan, on of the lesser known countries on earth, albeit one of the largest!
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2007/Romanias-Wolves-In-the-Crosshairs-of-Conflict.aspx
(scroll down to the Kazachstan part of the article) They are talking about an almost unbelievable number of about 90 000 to 100 000 wolves. Not unlikely however.
Good article Peter.
Borat (from the movie) was from Kazakhstan. His sister was the ‘Number Four’ prostitute in all of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is a lot like the Western US. Much of it is arid or semi-arid and there are many high mountain ranges and vast areas of nearly roadless wilderness. Arable land is spotty, often along rivers that run from the high mountain ranges with some on the northern plains. It is also booming with the exploitation of its oil and mineral wealth.
The new capital city of Astana is a boom town. I expect westerners will start hearing more and more about Kazakhstan and about its wildlife issues.
http://www.fivian.info/custom/Collagen/astana%20kasachstan.jpg
Kazahkstan is also light years out ahead of everyone trying to deal with the Brucellosis issue. Their work towards developing specific B. vaccines for specific affected domestic species is well beyond the progress of American researchers.
My former State Editor at the Casper Star Tribune , Nadia White, got a fellowship to spend a year researching and writing about Brucellosis in America and Kazahkstan. That was in 2002:
http://writingmatters.lee.net/articles/2003/04/10/front/wrote/z170-white.txt
http://abcnews.go.com/US/spirit-bears-environmental-superstar/story?id=11872214&page=2
It’s too bad this story hasn’t captured more attention nationally due to the elections. Kim Murphy is from the LA Times so I’m assuming this is where that article origininated from.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013226210_wolves22.html
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/10/22/1388949/poaching-charge-against-anti-wolf.html
Oregon Cattlemen’s Assoc. denounces Wenaha wolf killing, supports “sustainable wolf population” (whatever that might mean). Could this happen in Montana or Idaho (I won’t mention Wyoming)?
http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/2010/10/ranchers_and_wolves.html
I really worry about this country sometimes. There is a new right-wing push to teach creationism in schools and now the Endangered Species Act is at risk. This country seems more and more reliant on religion and superstition to make decisions and find its way and less reliant on history, science, philosophy, and reason. Education is being marginalized, our health is going from bad to worse, and our political system is looking more and more like an oligarchy similar to those found in the third world.
As the emerging oligarchy strips the populace of rights and exploits their labors, we’ll start to see the mass poverty and desperation found in the third world too. Wildlife and natural places will have little value to an impoverished nation trying to feed, clothe, and shelter itself. The next evil in the oligarchy’s sights will be public lands. The right wing will come up with biblical arguments as to why God commands that it be exploited for monetary profit in a free market and why wilderness is evil. They will log it, they will graze it, and they will dam all the streams with some crazed rationalization of freedom, the American Way, our forefathers, and the goodness of greed.
America, believe it or not, is the most religious of the developed nations in the world. Research shows that nearly 85% of Americans attend church regularly. In Great Britain, the number is 45%. In France it is 40%…less than half of the rate in America. By some measures, America is more religious than is Turkey, a Muslim country and is as religious as Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Some say the religion issue is driving a wedge between America and Europe. Frankly, I do not see America become less religious soon and can certainly see education falling off a cliff. We now have a network of religious, media, and political leaders in this country who act as if they are on a mission from God. Rupert Murdoch’s company News Corporation (owner of Fox News) has every contender for the Republican presidential nomination on their payroll as contributors or as hosts on Fox News save one. News Corporation is even trying to make inroads into Europe. It is also complicit with conservative government recently swept into power in Great Britain and they are behind an effort to diminish funding for the BBC. News Corporation, will, of course will step in to fill the programming void after the productions by the BBC are cut. They will undoubtedly replace programming on science and history with that of religion and right-wing ideology.
I do not see the end in sight. This formula works. Oligarchy gets control of the media and starts brainwashing the population with their special programming. They get support from the wealthy and wield more political influence that, in turn, allows them more control of the media. What is going to stop them? It’s like a bad, bad computer virus turned loose on the world and it won’t stop until the entire planet has been destroyed.
I meant this as a response to Daniel Bergs post about the Endangered Species Act above…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013226210_wolves22.html
points,
I’d say the same discription would have been noted by America’s Indians when all their lands were being taken over and the kids were forced to go to religious boarding schools…. to rightfully become “Americanized”.
Religon, to me, is just another measure of dysfunction. The more the religon means the less blood related family structure in place.
Now spiritualism, that is another thing.
PW – have you been to this site? The 2008 movie is worth the watch. Pretty much covers what you were talking about.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
I do not have too much problem with Christianity per se. I wished people could see it for what it is (a mythology intended to help people live in civilized society). It, along with the other great religions, teaches humans to prioritize what is in the heart, to strive to be calm and at peace, and to have compassion for other human beings, even those they do not know. This is important anytime you live in a social group larger than about 5,000. Prior to the urbanization of the Mediterranean, people seldom lived in social groups larger than about 1000.
What I have a problem with is corporations or a few wealthy families twisting Christian dogma in a media blitz to brainwash the masses that greed is good and that God commands us to exploit the world and each other. Jesus said “love one another.” Not profit from one another. Jesus told the rich man, “give everything to the poor…everything.” If you read a modern historical account of the rise of Christianity, it is pretty clear that Christianity grew, along with other monotheistic (mostly solar) cults, in direct conflict with the Roman political/economic system. Christian converts were mostly the poor and disenfranchised of Roman society. Many early Christians were slaves. The last to convert were the Senatorial class of wealthy Romans in the city of Rome.
Now we have this ridiculous neo-conservative movement wielding a billion TV sets and trying to brainwash the masses that God intended the world to be dominated by the wealthy and by the corporation…that any social/political entity that which forms to promote the common good or common welfare is only a form of heathen communism and is forbade by God. Their mode of operation is to label anyone who is not in line with the God-hates-common-welfare rhetoric is labeled a “liberal” and needs to be attacked, subdued, and punished as a threat to the state and as a threat to God. I thought the most interesting portion of Michael Moore’s movie ‘Capitalism’ was that he made it very clear, through interviews with priests and clergy, and through statements made by Christian leaders that nearly all Christian leaders believe capitalism is evil. No wonder the right wing hates Michael Moore so badly. I think he is off base on some things but the right wings hates him with a passion. Politically, I am moderate but it seems to me a dangerous far-right political movement in underway.
I need to stop watching Fox News late at night. It only scares me and gets me worked up.
I am downloading Zeitgeist.
http://piratenews.org/rupert-murdoch-commie-chinese-wife-wendi-deng.jpg
American patriot and owner of News Corporation and Fox News Network Rupert Murdock who gained American citizenship in 1985 to satisfy laws that only Americans citizens can own US television stations. Here the 79 year old American patriot is pictured with his 30 year old Chinese wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch.
I am so relieved that Fox News is having so much influence on American politics when I read about what an upstanding American patriot and family man Rupert Murdoch really is.
Maybe that’s the answer, a bad computer-like virus…
As far as the right-wing neo-religious pomp, I think that organized religions are population control devices based on fear and guilt to control those who would believe the dogma. Spirituality is personal, religion is dangerous, regardless of the flavor/denomination. It’s a cloudy lens through which to see the world/life. But that is my opinion… not to be confused with anything else.
The Zeitgeist movie sounds interesting…
Ever read Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine; The Rise of Disaster Capitalism? It’s a good and scary read about how and why things, like corporate controlled media and other scary realities of life in these times, came to be.
I read ‘None Dare Call it Conspiracy’ by Gary Allen about 35 years ago. I just finished watching Zeitgeist. It was very interesting, especially its treatment of the development of Christianity. Very nice. Zeitgeist treatment of modern times is similar to ‘None Dare Call it Conspiracy’ except Zeitgeist does not single out the Jews as the treacherous international financiers behind the scenes pulling the financial strings of nations. Zeitgeist’s thesis is that there are simply a few power hungry individuals who have been pulling strings and driving to world towards financial enslavement.
A couple of musings. There is no doubt that the early Christian writers and developers borrowed heavily from earlier religious symbols, myths, and traditions, especially from Egypt since Judea was a client state of Egypt and its culture derived from Egyptian culture. Judeo-Christianity was not developed in a vacuum. I think the evidence is pretty convincing that Jesus was a historical figure. Most of Christian dogma was developed later by Paul, John, and other early Christian writers. They are the ones who pulled into Christianity the earlier symbols and myths. What separated Christianity from all earlier solar religions was that Jesus, the son of God, was a commoner. The ‘Madonna and Child’ symbol in Christianity are commoners as where the ‘Horace on the throne of Isis’ symbol were royalty, for example. While Christianity may have been some of the same old solar mythology wrapped in a fresh new package, there was something very new and distinctive about it, even if we did make Sunday (solar day) a religous day.
There is no doubt that powerful men manipulate societies but that does not mean that every powerful man who manipulates is part of one conspiracy. FDR may have manipulated Americans to support the war against Hitler, for example, but his reasons were not nesasarialy conspiratorial. I believe FDR realized that Hitler had to be stopped and that the longer America waited, the harder it would be to stop him. We were supplying Russia with arms but Stalin pressured the Americans and the British that Hitler would falter if the Allies opened up a 2nd front in the west.
I do not believe there was anything unusual in the way the buildings collapsed during 911. I am an engineer and have worked on quite a few highrise buildings. The notion that there were explosives planted inside of any of those buildings, is very, very far fetched in my opinion.
I enjoyed watching Zeitgeist however. I’m sure much of it is true.
“This country seems more and more reliant on religion and superstition to make decisions and find its way and less reliant on history, science, philosophy, and reason.”
Pardon me for my right wing Christian beliefs but was not this ‘country’ founded on a belief in God? Founded on a moralistic principal? I’d call that a part of this country’s history,but maybe I’m just too narrow minded to see things correctly.
And ya know what, if I’m wrong in my beliefs, nothings going to happen to me, at least, according to you who do not believe. But if I’m right… I shudder to think what will happen to you.
++Pardon me for my right wing Christian beliefs but was not this ‘country’ founded on a belief in God? Founded on a moralistic principal?++
No it was not. Most of our founding fathers were atheists or were deists. I know that may be hard to believe with the nearly constant brainwashing by the Christian right but don’t take my word for me (or Fox Network) turn off the TV and look it up yourself!
++And ya know what, if I’m wrong in my beliefs, nothings going to happen to me, at least, according to you who do not believe. But if I’m right… I shudder to think what will happen to you.++
So you’ve been terrorized into your beliefs? You only believe them because you’ve been told that you’re really going to get it if you don’t? Who told you all this? God? Are you God’s representative on earth?
Religion of our Founding Fathers…
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html
…I’m sure this attempt to deprogram you will fail, however.
Hmmm, what do you think of this – wolves on the freeway?
http://wimp.com/brokenheadlight/
Taz, you must of missed this link.
http://www.urlesque.com/2010/10/15/russian-cop-leaps-into-drivers-car-to-escape-pack-of-wolves/
Yeah, it was in Russia, but they look like German shepherd mixes to me. Pretty amazing pack of dogs.
If you click on the ‘PREV’ button, the silly animals video is pretty good!
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/russian-vodka-co-takes-responsibility-for-viral-wolf-attack-vids/
When I first tried to find the wolf video I clicked on a couple of news links that carried it, you had to sit thru a commercial before the video came on.
Peter Kiermeir,
Thanks for posting the information about the truth (or lack of it) of this video.
Hunters Exchange Fire Over What’s Fair Game
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704518104575546253717892686.html
“The effort faces formidable opposition. The Citizens to Preserve North Dakota Property Rights group enjoys the support of the National Rifle Association, the National Deer Farmers Association, Safari Club International, North Dakota Stockmen’s Association and the North Dakota Farm Bureau.
Rather than debate the ethics of hunting, the opponents are framing the proposed ban as a violation of personal property rights that would force ranches out of business and owners off of their property.”
So which matters more? Private property rights or ethical behavior? What ever happened to the idea that with rights come responsibilities… to be ethical(?) or do rights now suddenly apply only to personal gratification regardless of how harmful ~ on numerous levels ~ your actions may be? Rights/freedoms do not imply that you can do whatever you damned well please and to hell with everyone else, it doesn’t work in society… that is after all the manner in which we interact as a group or nation or what have you. It seems that the personal/private rights/freedom gang that you hear from and about these days are only interested in doing whatever they please and everyone else can jump off a cliff, no consideration for others and their rights/freedoms. There’s something dangerously wrong with this social malaise we are caught up in, I’d like to know how to shift that into something more compassionate and positive but it might not be possible anymore. The only thing that seems to matter is money now, it’s become the standard for free speech which translate to power for those who have it and feudalism for everyone else… scary.
PW said:There is no doubt that powerful men manipulate societies but that does not mean that every powerful man who manipulates is part of one conspiracy.
If you found Zeitgeist interesting PW, google the Bilderberg Group when you have time. Talk about powerful people……..
Don’t miss the new PBS Nature series A Murder of Crows. It aired tonight here in LA on KCET. I’m sure it will air again later this week.
Pretty impressive. I always knew crows were some of the more intelligent of animals but I had no idea they were in the top two or three. In some respects, they are as intelligent as young children. They mate for life and live for up to 20 years and it is believed they grieve for their dead and even have a ritual funeral.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/introduction/5838/
If I had the option of picking good stations like PBS, I’d sign up for Dish or Direct but I don’t, so I’m stuck with the two stations I pick up with the antenna on the roof PW.
Bison grieve their dead also. In fact I’d say all herd animals do so. Why “we” don’t “see” it is because just about all herd animals today have their social structure artificially put in disaster mode. Allow an animal to build up infrastructure and they WILL show it. I had an old cow in my herd….didn’t calve anymore but took on the responsibility to gather all stray dependent members under her wing and deliver these youngsters to their mothers. When she died, for 4-5 years the whole herd (in groups) would travel to and visit and sniff her bones…no different than documented with elephants. They paid homage first thing when I put them in that pasture.
I can also say every buffalo from a well infrastructured herd has one buddy who will stay with them through thick or thin. I’d say all herd animals have that “potential”.
To compare to humans, if we lived in the mix and match slums, were put in dissaray by crippling wars or endured catastrophies where members of a group or family were shattered, unrooted and moved across the landscape how many of them would you see showing supposed “advanced” species characteristics?
And intelligence levels are a crock when judging whether a species is superior or not. It is not that important in well functioning systems. Roles may include individuals with more brain power within that group but one needs to realize it is the team that functions well together that wins.
The need for “superior” intelligence becomes skewed for it when infrastructure is shattered and individual survival becomes paramount for species survival. This is why we have the “wily” buck or bull elk. It is too bad applied science is closeted in academia because the perceived importance of achievement in school starting at kindergarden warps what those perceptions are of success in test scores of fellow humans or animals.
And if one wants to go a step further and realize how percarious a situation the human species has put themselves into think of how much energy and fuel is needed to power that incinerator. Take the food away and todays “civilized” human species becomes VERY VERY dysfunctional.
And as far as crows…or any animal or human intelligence…..I do not feel our perceived level of this is fundamental to any superiority of one species over another. It is just ability to “watch” similar behavior, and this watching is directly dependent on how close that species is in behavior to us. So my day starts.
Pointswest –
Recently I read an article (can’t remember where), that was discussing whether crows could possibly be self aware or not.
They have discovered crows using many different tools and apparently they have the ability to distinguish one human face from another. Even as a little kid I was impressed by the cleverness of the crows that hung out around my neighborhood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow
Crows and ravens are also good at understanding that people in the house, behind the window, are real and merit watching.
The PBS program made quite a bit out of their ability to recognize human faces in a crowd of humans. They can do so for up to two years. They can also learn to fear a particular human from another crow so whole flocks can learn to fear a dangerous human. The program also said something about the DOD (or some gov agency) taking an interest in this research…presumably because crows could recognize terrorists or other enemies in a crowd of people.
This ought to provide some pause for thought. Lack of enetic Diversity in the NRM would now appear to be a lesser claim, or maybe even completely rejected in the delisting suits if and when they go forward again in a couple of years. Recall we are always trying to play catch up after the data are collected, analyzed, peer reviewed and published. All the right folks are authors, too. What is the next step?
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_69e2d15a-dff3-11df-bacb-001cc4c03286.html
__________
Ralph, maybe this is worthy of a separate topic post.
The issue isn’t whether genetic diversity is currently adequate, but rather, are the enforceable population objectives adequate to maintain genetic diversity? Mike Leehy (of Defenders) alludes to this:
“This study is a step toward the science we would like to see to help determine how many wolves are needed for the long-term health of the wolf population in the region,” Leehy said.”
JB,
Point in fact, this is a HUGE scientific finding.
The scientific – legal issue in the first NRM delisting suit before Judge Molloy (as well as the second delisting suit although not addressed because Molloy siderailed the case summarily with the DPS isse for the moment) was adequacy of genetic diversity at the time, for delisting to occur. Judge Molloy, himself, stated this in his ruling in the first delisting suit. The vonHoldt et al. study was used, several reliable sources would say improperly, to make plaintiffs’ case. Dr. Mech and others called into question the plaintiff’s use of the data and their interpretation of the study, as well as some extrapolation of modeling projections for a worst case scenario. The non-scientist judge bought it anyway.
There were subsequent rumblings that vonHoldt et al., felt they and their study had been, in fact, mis-used in the litigation, and bad feelings resulted. The new study, just released, would be their opportunity to rebutt in a scientific way what had been misrepresented, as I understand it.
The result – the defendants in the suit can call bullshit on the erroneous lack of genetic diversity through 2004 as was represented in the 2008 lawsuit by plaintiffs.
Now let’s fast forward from 2004 to present day. Wolves are still moving and mating, so there should be no doubt whatsoever that the diversity factors are in place, even in light of (modest in some people’s view) management efforts that attempt to control numbers with hunting and lethal control of problem wolves to date.
And, yes long-term health of wolf population will always be at issue among parties which disagree, depending on how the numbers plays out. One management solution for lack of genetic diversity will be to move some around instead of killing them off, or bring in a few from Canada. This is why this genetic diversity argument, in my view, is so absurd in the first place.
“Now let’s fast forward from 2004 to present day. Wolves are still moving and mating, so there should be no doubt whatsoever that the diversity factors are in place, even in light of (modest in some people’s view) management efforts that attempt to control numbers with hunting and lethal control of problem wolves to date.”
You’re missing the point: The regulatory mechanisms put into place need to be adequate to ensure continued genetic diversity (else plaintiffs will claim the population is threatened by inadequate regulatory mechanisms); thus the focus on minimum numbers (see Leehy’s response) rather than the current population.
And I will add, I don’t appreciate your continued assertions that scientists who testified in the case “improperly” portrayed the results of the VonHoldt study. These folks gave testimony under oath; they don’t deserve to be slandered just because their testimony doesn’t agree with your preferred policy position.
JB,
I think you are right. Wolf genetics are very good now. The question is about the future not the past.
Ralph: If I recall correctly, this research group gave an early rendition of this paper at the NA Wolf Conference in 2008 (which, Mike Leehy indicated to me recently, will be the last)? I remember thinking then that the genetics issue would ultimately come down to whether minimum populations were sufficient to support wolves in the long-term.
JB,
Do recall there were two vonHoldt studies, one dated 2008 and the other 2010 which is the one just released. Perhaps after you have read the newest vonHoldt, et al., study, and the accompanying commentary by Hebblewhite, Musiani and Mills you may rethink your accusation of me. Both appear in the most recent issue of Molecular Biology.
Certain assumptions and scientific conclusions were drawn from the first vonHoldt study of just YNP and extrapolated to the GYE (apparently boldly incorrect ones as it turns out) that because little genetic exchange was showing up in YNP, there was none in the GYE. In the battle of the scientists, and use of their written declarations certain liberties were taken by the plaintiffs lawyers (they can and tend to do that you know). The legal advocacy on the science at that time was patently wrong, as the new analysis of broader data sets from that time period and the NRM population characteristics now show – by some of the same authors. In science we are allowed to do that, refine findings based on more work. It is part of the process.
The incorrect part is that the flawed science was used in a legal proceeding, maybe through the use of advocacy science (we have already discussed the risks of that dual role JB) and by lawyers in summary judgment practice.
May I suggest you read carefully the Hebblewhite et al., commentary, paying close attention to the previous several paragraphs (in which one problem with the vonHoldt study was that no gene flow into YNP was recorded because it was basically saturated with wolves and no opportunity for new ones to come in), but especially this one, as well as the discussion which precedes it:
“In vonHoldt et al. (2008), the VORTEX simulation of the effects of inbreeding depression on wolf viability was also flawed by some key assumptions about wolf ecology and behaviour, including underestimating gene flow to the GYA subpopulation, exaggerating estimates of the deleterious effects of inbreeding on demography and overestimating the levels of gene flow required to avoid inbreeding depression. For example, the number of immigrants required to prevent ‘significant decreases’ in heterozygosity and increases in inbreeding was based on an arbitrary threshold of 1% over 100 years; because 100 years represents about 25 wolf generations, this threshold is 25 times higher than, for instance, the 1% per generation threshold used to derive the effective population size of ‘50’ in the famous ‘50–500’ rule (Soule´ 1980). Overall, the analyses from this most recent study (vonHoldt et al. 2010), in concert with other findings of genetic rescue in wolves (Vilaet al. 2003; Hedrick & Fredrickson 2010), obviate the concerns raised by the earlier vonHoldt et al. study about isolation of YNP wolves.”
Furthermore, I find some indignation in your accusation of slander. It is ok for many on this forum to time after time, summarily trash Dr. Meche, Dr. Geist, Dr. Creel; administrators Bangs, Jiminez, Sime, and host of others whose scientific works or policy statements (their own or that of their employer) with which they disagree.
My comments are confined to those who put their works out there as scientific truth in published form, while sometimes, they or others on their behalf, play the role of advocacy scientist (often without disclosing their bias, which is another conversation we have had). This is a role which I find repugnant in many respects. I am also inclined to challenge the use of published written works or written testimony (in the form of Declarations under oath) may be incorrectly interpreted by advocate lawyers, as seems the case of the first NRM delisting suit. That is the way legal system works. In short, it is put up your best case and let the other side shoot it down, while advocating your own position. Not pretty, but that is the way it is.
“Furthermore, I find some indignation in your accusation of slander. It is ok for many on this forum to time after time, summarily trash Dr. Meche, Dr. Geist, Dr. Creel; administrators Bangs, Jiminez, Sime, and host of others whose scientific works or policy statements (their own or that of their employer) with which they disagree.”
You’re right; I am definitely guilty of holding a double standard with respect to the criticism of scientists. I won’t waste my time debating people who attack the person as opposed to the science–there really isn’t any point in it. Please consider it a complement that I value your opinion enough to hold you to the higher standard. 🙂
You are also right in asserting that science is self-correcting; which is exactly what happened (or is happening) in this process. What is important to remember is that scientists were asked to give their opinion–their best “guess”–in the absence of solid information. Of course there was disagreement! Academics disagree about everything. [In fact, some have argued that being disagreeable is what we are best at.] Accusations of impropriety under these conditions don’t surprise; rather, it was the source of the accusations that surprised me.
FYI: No scientist is perfect in their predictions. Under similar conditions (an absence of good data) Dave Mech predicted many years ago that wolf populations in southern Minnesota were poised to explode because of the near unlimited source of prey–he was wrong. Wolves are still almost entirely confined to the northern half of the state.
Scientist discus the future of yellowstone with global warming effects.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2010/10/warmer-drier-crowded-grizzly-less-and-lots-thistle-yellowstone-future7103
More game farm issues. Lots of denials by out of state owner. Escaped Russian boars also an issue in some parts of UP.
http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/554904/Game-farm-probe.html?nav=5006
There’s a pair of ravens that nest in the willows on the meadow across from me and for a few years, they (or perhaps their offspring?) show up in the yard, early spring, early morning, for the worms. They know I’m watching them from the window but are gone in a flash if I open the door. Same thing with a pair of magpies. (I suspect its because alot of people consider them pests and shoot at them)
I enjoy watching both ramble around the yard, almost like robins, with heads cocked and then suddenly they pluck, what looks like a foot long worm, out of the ground, bashing it abit and then they are off to the nesting site.
The ravens don’t return later in the spring with babies in tow but the magpies do and its fun to watch the their babies strutting around with tails in the air, complaining to the adults – feed me! Feed me! While the adults are trying to show them how its done!
City people miss an awful lot when it comes to nature!
I believe Native Americans, in general, thought highly of crows and ravens. Europeans seemed to think crows were a little spooky. Being black does not help. I remember from my English literature courses that, in the middle ages, many people feared dying and being left out in the open where the crows could pick their eyes out. I remember the ballad “The Twa Corbies and I’ll pike oot his bonny blue een.” In modern English: The Two Crows and I’ll pick out his pretty blue eyes. Crows were probably also pests to farmers stealing garbage and any unattended food. I think there were also problems with them pulling newly planted seed from the ground and eating certain crops of fruits and vegetables…hence the scarecrow.
Those attitudes may change as people learn how intelligent crows are.
I’ve also heard rumors PW, that ravens will pick out the eyes of young livestock if left unattended by their mothers. Others on the site might have more insight into that rumor..
My wife’s uncle had a crow when he was growing up, taught it to talk and it was basically a part of the family, its name was Joe, very intelligent bird with a streak of mischief in it. My Grand Aunt also had a crow when I was growing up, it was a cool bird, could talk to you, knew how to answer the telephone as well as invite people to come into the house, in addition it would bark at dogs and meow at cats to torture them.
Back in the 60’s, when I was about twelve, I was with my friends Jack and Jimmy down to the river (Henry’s Fork) one day where we spotted a crow that couldn’t fly. After a truly epic chase through hills and fields and brush patches, we finally caught it and brought it home. We never did figure out why it could not fly. When we first saw it, it was with other crows. We kept it in Jack and Jimmy’s shed which was one of the old fashioned types that was tall and had a steep-pitched roof. The crow seemed to like it since it could sit up high up in the rafters. We also had a little platform clubhouse up in the rafters at one end of the shed so that we shared the rafters with our new pet crow.
Jack and Jimmy were from Jackson, Wyoming. They had moved to the Mormon community of Ashton, Idaho after their mother had divorced for the 2nd time and after she had apparently decided that the grass on the other side of the Teton Range must be greener. She did not really fit into the Ashton community being from the wild cowboy town of Jackson. She did send Jack and Jimmy to the local Mormon Church (with me) and tried to show interest in some of the nice civilized Mormon bachelors around Ashton, but still liked going to the bars and flirting with the few true cowboys that managed to survive in Ashton. Every now and again, she would bring one or two home.
Jack and Jimmy would regularly get cigarettes, chewing tobacco, or beer from one or more of these cowboys. These cowboys tended to be sorry excuses for men…at least by Mormon standards. About two weeks later, Jack and Jimmy came down to my house to get me and were excited about something. They had three bottles of Coors in our rafter clubhouse obtained from one of their mother’s cowboys. It was my first taste of beer and I could hardly make myself drink it. We all three sat their drinking our bottle of Coors on one end of the rafters looking at the crow who seemed to be very curious as to what we were up to. Jimmy suddenly came up with the idea of giving the crow some beer. I didn’t think it would drink it. That stuff was too nasty. The bird’s dish was empty and it was probably thirsty. Jimmy reached over and poured in a little beer.
The crow, without hesitation, hopped over to its dish and began to drink. The dish was one of those square Tupperware dishes made to store a sandwich in. To drink from it, the crow had to chomp away at the liquid with its beak. That may seem difficult but since it could turn its head sideways and lower it into the dish, it could scrape every last drop from the flat and square bottom without trouble. It chomped up an eighth cup of beer in about 20 seconds. I was amazed. We all laughed with astonishment and excitedly poured another round for our beer chomping crow. Just like one of the guys, that crow drank down the second round too. We couldn’t get over it. We, as 11 and 12-year-olds, were beside ourselves. We laughed and joked and congratulated each other on having such a cool pet until we finally poured even more beer into the dish. The third go round, however, the crow did not drink. He was full. He had, after all, drunk a lot beer for having such a small stomach. He hopped back to the middle of the rafters to watch us again.
We continued challenging each other to take sips from our bottles of Coors. I was thinking that I’d never be able to finish my bottle but was not about to reveal this to Jack and Jimmy. I was hoping Jack and Jimmy would lose interest before I did but knew that they, being from Wyoming, were not likely to do so. I was just starting to imagine something else fun to do go when out from the crow came a long and loud, “squaaaaawk”! It was unusually loud and unusually long. We all looked at that crow and he just looked back. In studying him, I noticed that he seemed unusually comfortable and placid. He was kind of sitting down on the rafter with his feathers slightly puffed and his head pulled back so that his head was resting on his body and his eyes were half closed. “Squaaaaawk”! He did it again. This time it made us laugh a serious laugh. The sound of it was seriously funny. He looked funny. Then that crazy bird got up, hoped over to his dish, and took a few more chomps of beer and gave another loud “squaaaaawk”! We all knew then that that our beer drinking crow was getting drunk.
I was more than happy to pour my beer into the bird’s now nearly empty dish. I filled it nearly a third full—most of my bottle. The crow continued chomping at his beer and starting squawking more frequently and at an even louder volume. After several rounds, it began flapping its wings and ruffling its feathers and hopping around like a merry dunk in a ruffled black tuxedo. He only lacked the top hat and cane. I did not know a bird could ruffle its feathers so. It was classic. It was hilarious. Just like a drunk, he seemed emboldened by the beer too. He came close to us, looked us up and down, and hooted a loud “squaaaaawk” at us oblivious to our irritation with him. Alcohol is apparently liquid courage to a crow just as it is to a human. It went on for over an hour. I’ve never seen an animal, let alone a bird, have so much fun.
Actually birds getting drunk is not all the uncommon, there are several species that wait until the very end of the fruit season to start eating berries and fruit, which in turn will ferment in their stomachs causing intoxication. I watched a raven the other day, eating the pulp and drinking the juice from a very over ripe apple and then about 30 minutes later stumble around like a bum on 5th avenue..Crested Jays and Magpies are two other species that seem to enjoy a little libation from time to time, I have seen them do the exact same thing.
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/haarp_mind_weather_control.htm
PW, more “food” for thought.
Some dirtbag killed a mountain lion and her kitten in Wyoming. I hope they catch this person and throw the book at him/them.
http://www.littlechicagoreview.com/view/bookmark/9984795/article-Game-warden-looks-for-killer-of-lion-and-kitten?instance=news
I agree, this was plain and simple a needless act, I hope they catch the party or parties involved and throw the book at them, I sure wish they would make all poaching incidents a felony! Make them pay the price for the rest of their life..
What else can you call people like this other than redneck. It’s a mentality that is based in a contempt for animals. I don’t get it. Give a redneck access to a gun and probably one to many at the local watering hole and there you go- dead animals. Probably the worst new hunting show on TV today is this show Gun It with Benny Spies. This guy can’t hit the side of a barn with a shot, and he is filmed taking random shots at Prairie Dog families in the Dakotas I think. Now that’s entertainment for youngsters- to show that it’s OK to just shot at anything for the hell of it
sorry I meant to say “shoot”
“What else can you call people like this other than redneck.”
We call them criminals around my area…
Hunters off to slow start
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20101025/NEWS01/10250303/Hunters-off-to-slow-start
Florida Panther:
http://magblog.audubon.org/new-traffic-warning-system-aims-cut-florida-panther-road-kill-deaths
Grizzly bear: 2010 Known and Probable Mortalities in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/science/igbst/2010mort
Peter Kiermeir,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention — mine at least. I should probably make this a post.
More on this:
Have Yellowstone grizzly bear deaths exceeded mortality limits for 2010
http://www.examiner.com/bear-spray-in-national/have-yellowstone-grizzly-bear-deaths-exceeded-mortality-limits-for-2010
http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/gyrobase/bearing-down/Content?oid=1308566&showFullText=true
Good article, especially the last few paragraphs. To bad that kind of approach can’t be applied to other forms of wildlife like coyotes and wolves.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/blythe-solar-project-gets-blm-approval.html
Again, it makes no sense to me to tie up huge areas and destroy natural habitat, when mass production of home solar panel setups (bringing the cost within reach for the average homeowner) would be a much better way to go.
Think of the thousands of factories that are now sitting idle across the country (because of outsourcing) that could be re-worked to produce solar setups, think of the job creation……………..
I always think of Altamont pass when I picture these massive new power setups. I agree that individual home set ups would be ever so much better but then the big mega power conglomerates would not be able to charge us for that now could they.
http://marlimillerphoto.com/images/Res-61.jpg
Evil Idaho Landowner Survey of Attitudes Towards Wildlife
http://www.rexburgstandardjournal.com/news/article_70d390b6-e0bc-11df-857a-001cc4c03286.html
Hey PW,
I was looking for that information you posted the other day about when humans and wolves can to the America’s and I don’t seem to be able to find it, could you contact Ralph and have him give you my email address and send it to me? If so, thanks in advance.
SB
SB
I have not read or seen much specifically about grey wolf migration to North America. While I’m sure there are papers published in scientific journals specifically about the grey wolves, the scientific literature available to the general public is mostly about human migration or about general mammalian migration. Within this is information about the grey wolf, however. This is mostly where I got my information and I am sure it is good information. After all, inside of the story of human migration is the story of the megafauna (bison, mammoths, etc.) migration since humans followed megafauna into North America. Inside the story of the megafauna migration is the story of large predator migration including grey wolves migration.
So I can point out where to find the info on wolves but I cannot do so directly. You have to read about human migration that mentions mammalian migration or you have to read about mammalian migration that mentions grey wolves.
Some important distinctions is that there are two migrations to consider. There is the Eurasia-Beringia migrations and there is the Beringia-South migration. Also, there was more than one migration period. The migration period we are talking about was just after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) about 20,000 BP (before present). There were earlier events at earlier glacial maximums where Beringia formed but was later re-submerged beneath the bearing sea . The LGM is the period we are interested in since it is when humans and wolves came from Eurasia.
So I will post this link that is entirely about human migration…
http://www.tahg.org/module_display.php?mod_id=151&review=yes
I like it because it has nice pictures. It is actually outdated a little. There has been a lot of research on the ice-free corridor in the last decade. I believe they now have it pinpointed to having been open 14,500 BP. No earlier. But this corridor only allowed migrations from Beringia to the interior of North American south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The migrations into Beringia from Eurasia were several thousand years earlier.
One more fine point is that they have found human habitation sites that predate Clovis Culture (Clovis came via the ice-free corridor) by a few thousands years. There is strong evidence that there was an earlier coastal migration (human only…by boat) about 17,000 BP and it is corroborated by genetic studies of Native Americans conducted recently…ongoing. So humans were in the interior of the Americas south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet prior to the Eurasian-Beringia-South mammalian migrants such as bison and wolves.
To verify that wolves, elk, bison, etc. came with the Clovis Culture 14,500 BP, just google a few keywords such as “ice-free-corridor wolves migration beringia” or the sort and you will see all sorts of publication that verify that wolves came with Clovis via the ice-free corridor.
As with any scientific theory, there are those who will dispute it (ie creationists) but I think the evidence is pretty strong. Two things that have strengthened the theory most recently are the genetic studies and advances computer climate modeling.
Wolves, bison, elk, deer, grizzlies, black bear, and humans all came via the ice-free-corridor 14,500 BP…except there was an earlier coastal migration of humans by boat about 17,000 BP
This 6-Part BBC documentary on Prehistoric America covers it…I think. (I watch so many of these documentaries that I cannot keep them all straight.
http://forums.mvgroup.org/index.php?showtopic=6709
Here is the same documentary that is available for direct download on rapidshare.
http://www.mytvblog.org/?p=269
The part 5 of this BBC Incredible Human Journey series has about the most updated information about the Clovis Culture and the evidence for a coastal migration. It was first aired just last year.
http://forums.mvgroup.org/index.php?showtopic=30291
Hunters: Watch out for misleading bear spray propaganda
http://www.examiner.com/bear-spray-in-national/hunters-watch-out-for-misleading-bear-spray-propaganda
Some encouraging news and a call to action!
We need to act more aggressively to preserve biodiversity and save fellow planet sharers from peril.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101026/ap_on_sc/us_sci_animal_extinctions
Comment to the Black Bear Blog I did go to WISE.and read the article. No study was in evidence only conclusions arrived at by the manager of OX Ranch, Casey Anderson. This corporate ranch is located on 7784 acres NW of Council Idaho. You can read about their forest management plan, including Seven Devils Outfitters operating in the area, along with the movement of cattle on the ranch and on grazing allotments in the Payette National Forest at http://www.fws.gov/idaho/home/OX%20Appendices%20112608.pdf .
While looking into the OX ranch I came across a reference that reminded me of a rather lengthy exchange last spring part of which I am now repeating
http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2010/05/25/idahos-version-of-wolf-reintroduction-timeline/
comments:
Lee: Tapeworm eggs would not be found in cattle since they are not the definitive host of these parasites; they only harbor cysts which contain NO eggs. Cattle are not definitive hosts for tapeworms and therefore to not have eggs in their feces.
jes on June 1st, 2010 7:08 am : “Lee, if the “fecal reports”, like you ASSUME, are from cattle, they would not contain E-Granulosis,” & jes on June 4th, 2010 9:45 am “And Lee, you might admit, that the study in question could well have been misreported, and that the fecal matter mentioned was, in fact, wolf scat, not cow crap! Especially since the study was done on both collard wolves and cattle.”
Tom Remington: “Therefore we don’t know if Anderson actually said that the worms found in his cattle feces contained the worms from Echinococuss (wolves). However, the way it is written it is easy to jump to that conclusion.” And then Tom related correspondence he had from Drs. Geist and Kritsky also saying that the cattle would not have these eggs in their intestines.
Today (Oct. 26, 2010), while searching for information on the OX Ranch I also came across this in the Outdoorsman written by George Dovel, 5-2010 http://rliv.com/pic/Outdoorsman%20May%202010.pdf
Manager of the OX Ranch, Casey “Anderson said the wolves have created handling and distribution problems in the cattle on the ranch and, even with humans in the pasture, the wolves manage to sneak in and kill a calf. He also said reportedly because of wolves spreading the eggs, fecal samples of his cattle now reveal tapeworms in almost every test for the first time ever, despite a good worming regimen.
West Yellowstone Police Report Summary!
Oct. 13
• A woman reported seeing a black bear sow and cub in an alley.
• There was a report of two black bears running southbound across Lewis Avenue near Electric Street.
• There was a report of a deer being hit by a car. There was slight damage to the car and no injury to the driver.
• A Bozeman Safe & Lock operator reported a false burglar alarm at the Dairy Queen located at 40 N. Canyon Ave.
• A man lost his money clip. The money clip contains a Colorado driver’s license and credit cards.
• There was a report of illegal camping in a tent.
• There was a report of a running vehicle. A semi truck crashed near Three Forks. No license plates or further description was reported.
• Someone wants to file a no trespassing order on two individuals.
• A person reported that they have a friend that was supposed to be on a bus going to Bozeman. The friend called the reporting party stating he didn’t know where he was and that he had been drinking. He was quite intoxicated. The reporting party stated that sometimes his friend gets into trouble when that happens.
• Two trespass warnings were served.
• A disturbance took place between a male and a female in an apartment. There were complains from other people about the noise and profanity.
Oct. 14
• A door was open after hours.
• A warrant from the State of Montana for suspect Travis Wayne Meyer was issued due to Failure to Appear. He was originally charged with disorderly conduct.
• A child pulled the fire alarm. It was not an emergency.
• There is a semi truck running. It is questioned if the driver of the semi truck is camping overnight.
• A sports car was going about 90 mph heading southbound into town.
Oct. 15
• Someone lost keys with a stretchy cord.
• Tourists are getting really close to an elk herd. The bull elk is getting angry and aggressive.
• A guest reported that the hotel has many non-bear proof garbage cans outside all around the building.
• A female cat was reported lost. The cat is white with peach blotches.
• A man in a gray Jeep went off the road near the old airport and Iris Street.
•There is a large number of cattle on the road on Highway 87. A semi truck hit one of the cattle. The reporting party clipped one of the cattle with their vehicle mirror.
• A black bear was reported on the north side of town.
• A black leather tri-fold was found with cash and bank cards inside.
Oct. 16
• A person was cited and released for a DUI.
• Mutual Aid assistance was requested in response to a DUI.
• Someone saw a grizzly sow and cub.
• A vehicle hit a bison about half way between Madison Junction and West Yellowstone. There was considerable damage to the vehicle. Both the driver and the passenger state that they do not need an ambulance to respond.
• A bartender is way too drunk to be working.
• A small, black Canon Powershot camera was lost. It was with a black case with a shoulder strap. It was lost at either the Freeheel & Wheel or near the Food Roundup in the parking lots.
•A woman reported that her boyfriend is not letting her into the car and requests assistance. The husband later called to say his wife is having trouble in West Yellowstone with some man in her room.
Oct. 17
• There was a 911 hang up call.
• A vehicle was involved in an accident with a bison yesterday. There is a request for a officer to take a look at the damage to see if the vehicle is street legal.
• A purse was left at a cafe. The cafe was supposed to open at 7 a.m. The person cannot wait any longer and has to leave town.
• There is a pair of blue shoes hanging from a lamppost halfway between Faithful Street and Geyser Street. The reporting party learned from a home makeover show that this is a possible sign of drugs being sold in the area. The reporting party would like the shoes removed immediately.
• A highway patrol trooper spotted a woman walking her dog out at the old airport late at night. The woman was warned of the recent bear activity and was advised to return home.
Oct. 18
• There is a report that a business is illegally dumping cardboard. Two Seasons Recycling only accepts residential cardboard.
• An alarm call came from the sewer lift station.
• A burglar alarm went off at a residence. The alarm was located on the garage door. It was a false alarm.
• A person reported that someone is being verbally or physically abusive with an employee’s wife.
Grizzly bear sow, three cubs shot after eating livestock
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/terracestandard/news/105713828.html
Looks like they have another trouble spot over there.
Grizzly bear:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Grizzly+cubs+caught+Bella+Coola+trap+given+stay+execution/3729389/story.html
Bella Coola area again
http://www.countrymusictattletale.com/2010/10/25/troy-gentrys-video-of-bear-killing-released-to-the-public
Needs no comment!
That happened at the same location:
Sheriff’s Office: Wolf That Bit Girl to be Euthanized
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S1803319.shtml?cat=0
Now there’s a hunter you all can be proud of! He doesn’t sing much better. He is a real inspiration to the potential canned hunter!
Further to an earlier article by Cory Hatch of the Jackson Hole newspaper, it appears he is on to something about some kind of developing compromise on an NRM wolf management/delsting scenario. Much too early to know whether the proposal has legs.
Here is the latest:
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6614
I’ll say it again: the politicians are making it next to impossible for wolf advocates to agree to any sort of meaningful compromise.
“Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal indicated he would not support a plan that requires the state to have more wolves than was required at reintroduction: 100 wolves in each state and 10 breeding pairs or packs.”
JB,
Freudenthal is going away. I wonder if the new governor (it will be Matt Mead) will as a Republican be able to do what Freudenthal can’t, or won’t. Mead is a traditional Wyoming Republican. His grandpa was governor and senator (Cliff Hansen). The Tea Party doesn’t hold sway in Wyoming.
– – – – –
I should note that the Democrats have a very good candidate, Leslie Peterson. Unfortunately her party makes her election hardly possible this year.
Here’s a good Dark Horse for you , Ralph. There is a third candidate running for Gov in Wyoming who actually has traction , even though he’s running as a write-in . Dr. Taylor Haynes. He’s sorta trying to pass himself off as sympathetic to the Tea Party or at least a hardball conservative.
Point being, if enough disgruntled Republicans write in Haynes instead of giving Mead the straight ticket nod , then Leslie Peterson has a fighting chance to pull an upset The only reason Matt Mead won the Primary election was he outspent all the other candidates combined, using his own family fortune.
Stranger things have happened than a generic Democrat coming from behind to win the Wyoming governorship…
http://trib.com/news/state-and-local/article_3252eba8-1565-5d29-8b34-49f614a4aa9f.html
Petersen has criticized Mead for what she says is a lack of a track record on conservation issues. He shot back that no one should underestimate what it means to be a Wyoming rancher.
“I would say being a fourth-generation rancher, that’s a great record of conservation because, as many people have said, ranchers are the original conservationists,” Mead said.
Hogwash
Mead’s first and foremost a lawyer and was appointed as Wyoming’s US Attorney by Dubya when Freudenthal was elected as Governor. Mead resigned as US Attny to run for Governor. He’s a rancher in name only. His older brother Brad Mead has been running the family ranch between Jackson and Wilson, such as it is. However, neither is a conservationist in any meaningful way. Both are members of Wyoming’s livestock/political oligarchy thanks to their grandfather Cliff Hansen, who got his real political start opposing the Jackson Hole National Monument, the forerunner of the expanded Grand Teton National Park, when it was created in 1943. At the time, Hansen was a Teton County commissioner and a general all around asshole like his buddy Millward Simpson, who also got his political start with the Monument controversy.
It is very likely that Mead will be the next governor of Wyoming. Not good news for the environment or wildlife. However, Peterson is way overrated–if elected she’d be as much a useless Republicrat as is Freudenthal.
I’ve met Taylor Haynes and he’s actually a nice guy, but his politics are way whacked out. There’s also a Libertarian candidate on the ballot.
I will say that there are a lot of Taylor Haynes signs posted here in Crowheart.
RH
Grizzly numbers hit new high in Yellowstone region
http://trib.com/news/state-and-local/article_ab6b959e-9087-5e18-b017-42787f1983d8.html
Nonsense.
Numbers good for opening hunting weekend
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_50a68f96-e0a3-11df-a15f-001cc4c002e0.html#user-comment-area
Opening weekend for the general hunting season turned up relatively solid numbers at check stations across Northwest Montana.
A total of 3,146 hunters stopped at the stations with 136 whitetail deer, 25 mule deer and 31 elk for a 6.1 percent rate of hunters with game.
Of the whitetails checked, 95 were bucks and 41 were antlerless.
October 27—new Brucellosis outbreak in Wyoming cattle . Just up the road from me, actually, in Park COunty WY but the location is no more specific than that.. Whereever , it’s in an area not previously afflicted nor anywhere near an elk feed ground. There is a very high B. abortus serological quotient in migratory Elk in Sunlight Basin that spend the summer in Yellowstone Park. Hmmmm….
Jeff Gearino has the story at the Casper Star Tribune:
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_fad6eeb6-e1ed-11df-a869-001cc4c03286.html
Brucellosis found in Park County, Wyoming cattle herd.
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_fad6eeb6-e1ed-11df-a869-001cc4c03286.html.
I’m trying to find out which ranch. I have my suspicions, but can’t prove them yet.
RH
Sorry to duplicate CC’s posting. But he’s right–where brucellosis has been found in Wyoming’s Park County is in the Clarks Fork Elk Herd, which inhabits the Sunlight Basin/Crandall Creek /Beartooth Front area north of Cody to the east of Yellowstone National Park.
One of the major developments in this herd over the last decade has been an increase in elk on private land on the Beartooth Front. These elk are no longer migratory. The other major development is elevated brucellosis seroprevalence.
The ongoing Absaroka Elk Ecology Project has been studying the Clarks Fork Herd. Here’s the 2010 update:
http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/RegionalNews/dh-elk%20ecology%202010.pdf.
RH
Interesting study.
Compare the graphs for survival of Yellowstone NP tagged calves 1987-1980 to 2003-2005; note that the loss to winter malnutrition is much lower with the increased population of bears and wolves.
RH
I, of course, think both of us are right. Masses of dysfunctional animals means refuge camp conditions and disease becomes rampant. Now if those “masses” are actually made up of multiples of functional extended families, all keeping their liyyle space from others, then there is little disease.
So what are those private lands elk “herds”? They are mostly escapees from the rebel (hunter) plundered villages, all huddled together with NATO troops (ranchers) guarding them. The condition on the surface appears the same but the difference is actually like night and day.
Keep the pig farming up and one has diseased pigs to eat.
Two men face poaching charges for killing ‘unusual’ deer near Corvallis
http://ravallirepublic.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_ae4b8de8-e0af-11df-bf0a-001cc4c002e0.html
Thorium in Idaho…enough to power the US for 1000 years. This article says the deposits are near Stanley but that is not correct. The deposits are at Lemhi Pass.
http://www.kpvi.com/story.php?id=30487&n=15206
The largest veins were owned by the Last Chance Mine. The owners have formed a new company called Thorium Energy Inc. and have a web page…
http://www.thoriumenergy.com/
I had read before that Throium Reactors were the way to go. I read some article interview of an Idaho Falls (where our wet reactors were first developed) physisist who was still angry at Nixon for not letting the Atomic Energy Commision (now INEL) develop Thorium reactors.
It sounds like the mines Lemhi Pass would be enormous. That is too bad. I love that area out there. But I too think Thorium reactors might be the way to go. They do not produce plutonium so there is no danger of nuclear wepons being made from byproduct. They also do not melt down…are much safer. We might already have had them if it were not for Nixon.
As long as it is not an open pit mine and if they do something environmentally friendly with the tailings, it may not be so bad. I just don’t know.
PointsWest,
This is a surprising article. The presence of thorium deposits is only news to those who don’t follow these things. I heard it 30 years ago. The value near Lemhi Pass is the critical deposits of Rare Earth elements there. I wonder if they stressed energy because the average American doesn’t know what a Rare Earth element is? It wouldn’t surprise me because I doubt most even have a clue what the Periodic Table is.
China now dominates 97% of the supply of these critical and rare chemical elements: lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium, yttrium and more.
I doubt mining of these Rare Earth can be stopped (or should given the real need). What will be interesting is whether American interests or China gets control of these.
There is talk (heated rhetoric) that this election is being bought by foreign interests. If China gains control of these, we will know the answer.
Ralph,
I looked for the article about the old AEC physicist living in Idaho Falls who said he was still mad at Nixon for diverting resources away from development of the Thorium Cycle reactor but could not find it. I believe I read this article in one of the local on-line papers like the Post Register (Idaho Falls paper) about two years ago. They guy was still bitter. I got a chuckle from it. The mention of a Thorium reactor is what caught my attention in this article that I posted.
My reading on the issue is that the recent buzz is about physicist and Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) who published papers touting Thorium Cycle reactors. Several large newspapers picked the story up, such as the Telegraph in the UK….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html
…the story has had traction with readers and made it to Idaho.
If the potential is so great, the entire international community should pitch in and help develop a Thorium Cycle reactor.
The thorium sounds like it is relatively concentrated and I would guess that the mines would be hard-rock underground mines. I read (and it is also in the above article) that a ton of thorium has a power equivalence of 200 tons of Uranium so the mining may be a little easier on the landscape than Uranium mining. I do not like mining but it might not be too bad in this case…for what we get. The Lemhi Pass mines would also produce the rare earth minerals as you mentioned. They might make plenty of money to keep the mines environmentally friendly and of low visibility.
PointsWest,
A couple questions. Are you saying the Rare Earths would be, or have to be a by-product of the thorium?
Won’t these mines have a radioactive tailings waste problem, especially if the thorium is not extracted?
How far are we from a thorium reactor?
I am not sure I can answer these question completely. The Thorium Energy Inc. page says that the mineral veins contain rare earths along with thorium. Other articles I’ve read indicate that that thorium is a byproduct of extracting rare earth elements from some minerals. Maybe both are true. The thorium may be in different forms in different minerals. It sounds like you have thorium bearing ores along with rare earth bearing ores at Lemhi Pass.
As for radioactivity, it is slightly radioactive when refined into pure thorium metal. This metal will oxidise in air and thorium oxide was used in toothpaste for awile. It could be too dangerous. It sounds like it is only slightly dangerous in pure metalic form and not at all dangerous when in still locked into mineral bearing rock…although I know it might be possible that water will leach it out of mine tailings and concentrait it.
That should read: This metal will oxidise in air and thorium oxide was used in toothpaste for awile. It could NOT be too dangerous.
Oh…on the thorium reactor, India has one. I think they may come in different efficiancies, however, depending on process used. So to really make them competative with coal or LWR reactors (Uranium reactors), some development needs to take place. Some said just three to five years…basiclly build to some proposed designs and see if they yeild the theoretical efficiencies.
Thorium is 4X more plentiful than uranium. And much , much safer. I recall from my college days that Canada had a thorium reactor research program at one time but ran out f money efore building an comemrcial tech from it …the US cancelled theirs, but Russia and India are still at it.
Here’s a rief blurb from Wikipedia that encapsulates much of thorium’s appeal:
(quote) According to Australian science writer Tim Dean, “thorium promises what uranium never delivered: abundant, safe and clean energy – and a way to burn up old radioactive waste.”[15] With a thorium nuclear reactor, Dean stresses a number of added benefits: there is no possibility of a meltdown, it generates power inexpensively, it does not produce weapons-grade by-products, and will burn up existing high-level waste as well as nuclear weapon stockpiles. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, of the British Telegraph daily, suggests that “Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium,” and could put “an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years.”
(endquote)
I like that last line. A lot. Few people realize that when any form of coal is burned, the leftover fly ash has an incredible array of heavy metals , more than just our old friend mercury , other toxic metals ( including uranium and other radioactives ) , and some nasty organic compounds.
I made my peace with nuclear energy many years ago . It need not be harmful nor produce immortal waste. In the interests of military expediency and that little thing called WWII , atomic research made some bad choices early on that have been difficult to get past. But we can , and should. Thorium is very promising. By the way , it has a Half Life approximately the same as the age of the Universe, 14 billion years , so it will not decay into something more evil.
Actually , thorium has already been used in metallurgy and industrial chemistry quite a lot, even some household products.
It’s been a record year for Grizzly conflicts in Wyoming, some 251 so far in 2010 ( but detailed records of such things have only been kept since 1989 , fifteen yeas after the bear was listed as Threatened ). There’s a sparse story and a lot of comments from Wyoming Game Fish’s chief bear wrangler, Mark Bruscino of Cody , who has trapped more G-bear than ever this past year. It’s the lead story in the Wednesday Oct. 27 Cody Enterprise newspaper
http://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_c37a1482-e21c-11df-b1d2-001cc4c03286.html
There is no mention ( yet) of a Grizzly that Bruscino trapped at the Park County Landfill last weekend having the feeding frenzy of its life. (Shades of the Old Faithful dump nightly ear expo in Yellowstone, pre-1970). If my information is correct, that would be the dump 2.0 miles due south of Cody and 11 miles from the low timberline on Carter Mountain ( sayeth Google Earth) , only 2.5 miles to a golf course, 2.2 miles to the nearest ranchette subdivisions, and just 1/4 mile from HWY 120 which is the boundary of the Grizzly Primary Conservation Zone.
I might footnote by saying the Cody Enterprise is very antagonistic towards grizzles and wolves in nearly all its reporting of same.
Wildlife Services Dodges Disclosure on Animal Killing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-keefoverring/wildlife-services-sucks_b_774426.html
Now Anti-Wolf Groups Are Blowing It
The pendulum swings. Pro-wolf groups pushed too hard and too long, but now, anti-wolf hunting groups are taking extreme positions that worsen an already almost unbearable situation and make any reasonable outcome even more unlikely.
By Bill Schneider, 10-27-10
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/now_anti_wolf_groups_are_blowing_it/C146/L41/
The wolf delisting controversy is much more than numbers, but the number of wolves does seem to be a key sticking point.
Anti-wolfers don’t want any “surplus wolves” around eating elk and deer, so they insist that the original recovery goal of 300 wolves (100 animals or 10 breeding pairs per state for Idaho, Montana and Wyoming) is all we need, period. Well, guys, that goal isn’t even close to reality, so give it up.
The last female brown bear native to the Spanish Pyrenees is thought to have died, signalling an end to the species.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8090129/Last-female-native-bear-in-Spanish-Pyrenees-has-died.html
How dare that brown bear search for food while hunters were nearby? “But the bear charged us and we were in fear for our lives” blah blah blah
It’s always about the hunters and “shepherds” Meanwhile now there are no more animals in that region- see a pattern here?
They needed to set aside a preserve. Just asking people to behave the way we might want them to will never work. Even preserves do not work all that well sometimes.
Russian bears treat graveyards as ‘giant refrigerators’
A shortage of bears’ traditional food near the Arctic Circle has forced the animals to eat human corpses, say locals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/26/russia-bears-eat-corpses-graveyards
Hunter kills grizzly near Cody
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-an…
So this is grizzly attack No. 7 so far this year in the GYE by my count. I think the previous record was 4 attacks in one year.
Someone can correct me if these counts are in error.
Points West, there have been 46 Griz killed this year and a reported 251 conflicts with humans, as in maulings, getting into garbage, livestock issues ect,,
Last I heard it was 47 probable, but take into account 3 of those are currently residing in the Billing Zoo, they were not actually put down, but they were taken out of the ecosystem, which sometime they count as mortality.
http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/science/igbst/2010mort
SB
Any bear removed from the population for any reason is listed on the IGBST Mortality Report, as the impacts on the population are the same.
RH
Robert,
I know what they are suppose to do, but I also know of cases that they have not listed on the mortality report. Hence my comment of sometimes.
I mean attacks on humans as in maulings in the GYE. I think there has been seven.
Is the 47 probable in the GYE or in the USA?
The link I provided only deals with the GYE, which in reality is on the only place that Grizzlies inhabit in the lower 48
Dramatic photo of grizzly bear chasing bison
http://www.krtv.com/news/dramatic-photo-of-grizzly-bear-chasing-bison/
I rub my shins every time I see this picture. I’ve always said being a wild animal is not for the faint of heart:).
The bison in this photo is clearly done for. It looks like it has already been attacked by something, large sections of bone are visible etc. But, it reminds me of something I witnessed a couple of years ago. A young grizzly (I won’t estimate weight; that’s always such a joke!) came running out of the woods and started chasing this healthy looking bison bull. The bull started running like a bat out of H***. Up on the road and past a small group of cars, with the bear right on its tail. The chase continued for about 500 yards right down the middle of the road like this one. Then, suddenly, like a light bulb switched on, this bison stops and turns around. Like, “What the heck am I doing? I weigh 2000 lbs.!! (his estimate, not mine!!). The bear stopped in its tracks and they were face to face. Like, “Oh cr*p!” Then the bison starts chasing the bear right back along the same route and into the trees!
I watched the same sort of thing years ago, only the “predator turned prey” was an obnoxious little Jack Russell terrier and the “prey turned predator” was an extremely old pronghorn buck. I have a place that includes an old lake bed that, since the last Ice Age has become a grassy meadow/pasture, a little more than a mile across and framed on the east, south, and west with juniper and pine. My pens and troughs are one side of the meadow and this old buck had stopped regularly migrating, just stayed as a meadow resident most milder years, using the trees as winter cover and coming over and barking/coughing at me to throw hay out toward him when I fed my stock. I had the local rancher/contractor/welder come over to weld a rusted pipe in one of the troughs and he always kept this feisty little terrier in his truck. When the terrier spotted this semi-tame old pronghorn about 30 yards out, he jumped right out the truck window, rolled over a couple of times on impact, and got up chased that pronghorn nearly a half mile across the lake bed. Then the pronghorn did a quick 180 and chased the stupid dog right back to their original positions, with the pronghorn in pretty much the exact same spot about 30 yards out and the dog panting under the truck. Thinking about it, I actually miss that old buck; he had a trophy rack and I just liked seeing him.
Mexican wolf: Lawsuits filed
http://azstarnet.com/article_3bc32cb2-e31c-11df-9323-001cc4c002e0.html
http://naturalresourcereport.com/2010/10/quarter-million-sheep-killed-by-wolves/
Killed by…..what?
Thank you Peter,
The name of the article is “Quarter million sheep killed by wolves.” However, the article is entirely about coyotes killing sheep. Wolves are not mentioned.
The article is from the Farm Bureau. Aside from the mistaken headline, it has statements like, “The U.S. sheep population once numbered more than 50 million head, but is only about 6 million today. Coyotes and other predators are not entirely to blame for the steep decline, but they play a significant role.”
No they didn’t play a significant role. The decline in sheep numbers was entirely due to changing market conditions and subsidy levels from the government.
Election 2010: Rehberg, don’t worry about wolves
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_de17897a-e364-11df-87a6-001cc4c002e0.html
Thank you to Bert Bentley, the rancher from Duck Lake, for providing some common sense to the wolf issue (Missoulian, Oct. 3). He runs livestock east of Glacier Park and cares for them 24-seven and has never lost an animal to a wolf.
Jon, did I miss a few posts? I was under the impression no one has managed to locate a Bert Bentley in Duck Lake as of yet.
I know many who have tried, and so far, he is a no show..
Scientists Find ‘Liberal Gene’ (no Joke)
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/weird/Scientists-May-Have-IDd-Liberal-Gene-105917218.html
Be Very Afraid…scary new warning from economic guru Paul Krugman.
For those who do not know who Krugman is, he gained national attention for predicting the financial meltdown months before any other economists. He is a Nobel Prize laureate and a liberal but was on Regan’s Committee of Economic Advisers many moons ago.
I have been reading his articles for about three years. Many people do. He has correctly predicted every step of the financial crisis and resulting recession. After predicting the initial crisis, he predicted that Gietner’s plan would stave off collapse; he predicted the high unemployment that followed. He predicted that the stimulus package was too small and, while it would create jobs, it was not enough. Now he is giving a warning to be afraid.
==============================
Divided We Fail
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
Published: October 28, 2010
Barring a huge upset, Republicans will take control of at least one house of Congress next week. How worried should we be by that prospect?
Not very, say some pundits. After all, the last time Republicans controlled Congress while a Democrat lived in the White House was the period from the beginning of 1995 to the end of 2000. And people remember that era as a good time, a time of rapid job creation and responsible budgets. Can we hope for a similar experience now?
No, we can’t. This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness.
[ … ]
Now, the government shutdown ended up hurting Republicans politically, and some observers seem to assume that memories of that experience will deter the G.O.P. from being too confrontational this time around. But the lesson current Republicans seem to have drawn from 1995 isn’t that they were too confrontational, it’s that they weren’t confrontational enough.
Another recent interview by National Journal, this one with Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has received a lot of attention thanks to a headline-grabbing quote: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
[ … ]
Beyond the politics, the crucial difference between the 1990s and now is the state of the economy.
When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the U.S. economy had strong fundamentals. Household debt was much lower than it is today.
[ … ]
Today’s situation is completely different. The economy, weighed down by the debt that households ran up during the Bush-era bubble, is in dire straits; deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger. And it’s not at all clear that the Fed has the tools to head off this danger. Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap.
But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts.
So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
End
Full article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/opinion/29krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Here is my unsophisticated read on economics and politics:
We cannot protect wildlife and wild areas unless we have a downturn in the economy and people who are planning second homes and others who plan to move into the wilderness fringe simply can’t afford it . . and millions of people who plan to have babies put that off because they are not rich enough. We can’t stop energy consumers for going to semi-green destructive new energy sources unless they can’t afford it. The uncomfortable truth the way I see it is the upward, ever growing economy that we all think we need is not necessarily good for us.
“We cannot protect wildlife and wild areas unless we have a downturn in the economy and people who are planning second homes and others who plan to move into the wilderness fringe simply can’t afford it . . and millions of people who plan to have babies put that off because they are not rich enough.”
What is going to happen when the economy swings upward, which it will eventually do? What happens if the downturn continues and the we reach an unemployment rate of 25% similar to 1932? If 25% of the population is unemployed and out of work, I think that poaching would become very prevalent and the homeless would start to make permanent camps on public lands. Is it in our good interest for babies not being born as the population ages and immigration increases with a populous that has very little interest in preservation of wild places or wildlife.
elk,
++…and immigration increases with a populous that has very little interest in preservation of wild places or wildlife.++
Don’t you want to rethink making a politically incorrect statement like that on this forum? It is those {illegal} immigrants who are making one of the largest contributions to new US population, and whose rate of births do not seem to be appreciably reduced due to the foundering economy, unlike some other socio-economic classes, and contrary to Linda Hunter’s prediction.
Afterall, emergency room pre-natal and post-natal care is “free,” and a baby born on US soil {even if one or both parents are illegal} is still eligible for various welfare benefits, and it makes it much tougher to return parents to their country of origin to wait in line to come in legally. And, where are the social values of preserving wild places and wild things to come from? Certainly not from country of origin.
These are not racist comments; they are hard facts that neither political party nor most voters want to deal with. Cheap labor for the R’s and a social taboo for the D’s, and the Catholic Church gets to expand its power base on the shoulders of the new, unquestioning, faithful.
Nearly everybody wins it seems, except the US is being turned into a third world country and its population grows much faster than not having and additional 10-12 million illegals in the base, in their highest reproductive years, with the contribution of their numerous progeny. Former Democratic Colorado Governor Richard Lamm tried to give people a wake-up call on the environmental effects of this developing issue a few years back. Wise words fell on deaf (and maybe dumb/ignorant) ears. The issue was too contoversial and complex, so just ignore its impacts. Kind of like they are doing with social security – a shift from D’s to R’s in one or both houses of Congress and the issues will remain unaddressed, once again.
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/ImmigrationCSR26.pdf
The real unemployment rate in California is 22% and yet I am not seeing even one white boy at the lettuce patch in in the mornings to lineup for a 10 hour shift of picking lettuce.
JB,
The Hanson paper addresses the R side of the economic equation. He is a hard core economist and you didn’t see anything in his paper about indirect impacts of illegals, and what happens when they stay, and likely you won’t in his other writings. He is prof at UC SD. He extolls the virtues of illegal immigration as a needed source of cheap labor, and surely it is. That is his thing as an economist: depressing US native wages, and all that helps the US to be competitive, and that part is OK if we take it for what it is. But few are looking comprehensively to the future and what it all means, say twenty years. To my knowledge his writings do not do that. Also, any time I see the name Maurice R. Greenberg, on or near anything, I get suspicious. Look at the last page of the report. He is a CFR member and also has his own policy center – which CFR associated authors write for. He was the guy that headed AIG (they began outsourcing functions to India nearly two decades ago). You recall AIG almost failed and was behind some of these off the books unregulated insurance products that wasn’t really insurance – credit default swaps. Get the picture. The Council on Foreign Relations and Greenberg’s center are not unbiased and objective. Count on that. They are about the future of mega-corporations, and Greenberg was in the top 100 richest Americans before his downfall.
Do you honestly believe these folks give a sh%t about middle class America, and where this country is headed?
__________
PW,
++..not seeing one white boy in the lettuce patch…++
And you probably won’t. See comment above to JB.
I am no economist or even a psychologist but I think if we quit paying Mexicans, they would have no reason to come here.
The thing always is, however, that the conversation falls quiet whenever we start discussing ways to prevent employers from employing Mexicans, like maybe developing some less forgeable citizenship documents (you know like those super expensive ski lift tickets with that million dollar metal strip) and applying harsh penalties for knowingly hiring illegal aliens. For some odd reason, these simple remedies never materialize. The ideas come up every year or so but then fall between the floor boards or evaporate in the hot sun. It is almost as if many people actually WANT Mexicans to work here because they work hard and they do not cost us a lot of money….sort of bargain labor or something….like a class of sub-humans we can treat like animals (snicker). We can even compare them to vermin! Wow! What a superior type of #*X@ing concept.
Of course, where it is clearly established that they are sub-human, any cultural or social problems that might arise from our employing hundreds of thousands of them can be pasted securely onto their foreheads (even if they do get along fine in the interior of Mexico) and we get to be mean and nasty to them…like a dream come true!!! I feel better just thinking about it. Maybe I will go buy myself a Perrier Water.
WM:
I am unsure how to answer your question. I am not trying to argue in favor of illegal immigration–far from it. Rather, I am trying to understand the scope of the policy problem. In this particular case, the problem is vast.
Behavioral economists argue that behavior can be understood in terms of incentives. Personally, I think this oversimplifies many behaviors, but the model works well in the case of illegal immigration. The incentive to provide illegal immigrants with jobs are there (and with the recent health care bill, probably just grew); and the incentive for illegal immigrants to pursue those jobs are huge. It is almost impossible to remove the latter, as this incentive stems from the disproportional wealth in the US compared with Mexico. Removing the former (employer incentive) will ultimately mean an increase in the cost of many products–ESPECIALLY FOOD. You can imagine how politically popular that would be. Thus, nobody wants to deal with the problem. [The only reason the far right of the Republic party keeps raising this issue is that they know it appeals to the racist radicals on the fringes of the party.]
Personally, I think increased food costs could actually benefit society–especially if meat products were not so heavily subsidized. The number 1 killer of men in the US is heart disease, and our over-consumption of meat and animal products is a direct contributor. Obesity is causing a huge increase in type two diabetes that will put huge strains on our health care system in the future.
The point is, rhetoric that focuses blame for illegal immigrants on those immigrants themselves is biased insomuch as it does not deal with the ultimate causes of illegal immigration (e.g., economic disparities, the desire for cheap food and labor, etc.). Thus, we (I mean we collectively) conveniently wash our hands of any blame, which is placed squarely on the illegal immigrants, themselves. This type of rhetoric–which is by far the most common–is racist, in my opinion.
– – –
I also disagree that the long-term economic effects of illegal immigration will necessarily result in a net loss to our society. And people who argue that illegal immigrants and their offspring will not support conservation miss the point that, per capita, illegal immigrants consume far fewer resources than your average American.
JB,
I agree with you say about why people come. There is no shame in trying to better one’s life. Both legal and illegal immigrants usually come or want tocome for good reasons. Mexico (where I have spent a fair amount of time over the years), is a country of huge and growing economic and social problems, as are other Latin American countries, whose residents are drawn here. BUT, there is something wrong when the home country -Mexico – makes little effort to deal with its own economic problems, and actually encourages (permanent?) out-migration. Remittances, or the money that immigrants send home is, I understand, the second largest source of revenue for Mexico, which has a negative GDP of -6%. It also has a very small middle class. There are super-rich who make the decisions and then a huge cluster of its population hovering just above and below the poverty line. Who do you think is making the decisions to send those near the poverty line out, and why? And then there is the drug issue, with product origin in Mexico or just passing through to reach a thriving US market – heroin, meth, mj. That is another problem that both countries must address. And, we can see from recent news headlines the drug cartels have the upper hand – Mexico waited too long to act, and on our end little has been successfully done in the US to stop supply or use.
Illegals should stay residents of their own country. Let them come to work here – legally with proper documentation- and take their money home, with the hope that they can improve life in their own country. It actually worked this way for over thirty years from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. Overly simplistic, I know, but, the people who have the motivation to come are those most likely to create change. That is why the wealthy class in Mexico and its government endorse and encourage out-migration which stands at about -3% (officially, but it is probably higher).
Learn more about Mexico and its economy, people, etc.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html
If they are gone they are somebody elses problem The US has made it far too easy for illegals to stay, and therein lies the problem from an economic perspective. The wiser argument is to take advantage of the cheaper labor, seasonal or longer, eliminate the automatic citizenship advantages that come from dropping a baby on US soil, put in place the social service network for documented workers that deals exclusively with those legally with proper documentation. Seek strong enforcement programs to deal with illegals (and those who employ them)in a very consistent manner, that encourages repatriation to country of origin.
Mexico is long overdue for a revolution (non-violent would be good). It is not going to happen if the young and motivated just move. Mexico will continue its decline, as we are beginning to see, with these massive drug wars in border towns, now spreading through the country. Do we think this will get better over time? Even if it has a chance it, it will take time, and it needs those who demand change in the population.
—————-
++illegal immigrants consume far fewer resources than your average American.++
That may initially be true when they first come, but your assertion is only on a per capita basis and just for the initial population. Progeny or the base, assuming discretionary income is available for purchases will consume like any other American. I have seen a lot of expensive power sucking big screen TV’s in places they probably should not have been, so the values and vehicles to stimulate consumption are there if $$ is.Who is also driving the older, gas guzzling cars, because they are cheap to buy? Also remember we just plopped an additional 10 million person base in the US, which still consumes (Walmart loves that). So, ultimately the US population grows faster and thus consumes even more. So, I’ll very strongly disagree with your statement.
Then there is that pesky wildlife “value” comment that started this conversation off. During the time I spent in Mexico – big and mid-size cities and rural – I have seen little wildlife or desire to preserve it. Spend some time around Mexico City, the second largest city in the world, and you will know exactly what I mean. What environmental values? There are few. Go figure.
WM,
Do you know who the Virgin of Guadalupe is? If you traveled Mexico, you must have seen her shrines and icons everywhere. Do you know her story or how she fits into Mexican culture and history and how she fits into the Catholic Church?
I have spent a fair amout of time in Mexico, too. A $60 a night hotel room is a $60 a night hotel room, whether in the USA or Mexico. In Mexico the maids make a dollar an hour, in the USA maids make around $7.00 to $8.00 an hour that that is what is wrong with Mexico. The rich owners do not want to share. Fresh produce from Mexico is sold at market price in USA stores the same as fresh that is grown in the USA later on in the summer. It is sold at market price. With the same wage difference.
PW,
I do know of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and have been to the Cathedrale Metropolitano on the Zocalo in Mexico City (largest chapel in the Western world and believe me it is massive, miraculously surviving the earthquake in 1985, despite having its floor drop something like a foot in spots). The Catholic Church (and its pervasive dogma) plays a huge role in the history of Mexico. Over 75% of the population is Catholic, which contributes financially and disproportionate to their incomes to perpetuate the church. Hence my earlier comment about the mindless faithful. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has advocated amnesty for illegals, since it brings renewed power to the church (bashed most recently in the US by the lawsuits over abused choirboys and knowledgeable parishoners challenging the faith).
But, do tell us more of the legends of Lady Guadalupe and her important role in Mexico’s history, under the colonial dominance of Spain and to some extent France, which utilized the church in its political conquest of the country.
You can read about the Virgin of Guadalupe (wikipedia has a nice intro) but to understand Mexican culture, you have to understand their history from the Conquest and resulting adoption of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their most prominent religious icon. She represents the native Mexican’s acceptance of the Conquest and the alignment of their native Aztec faith with that of Christendom.
Octavio Paz, Mexican thinker, writer and Nobel prize recipient said, “When Mexicans no longer believe in anything, they will still hold fast to their belief in two things: the National Lottery and the Virgin of Guadalupe. In this I think they will do well. For both have been known to work, even for those of us who believe in nothing.”
Similar to the Mexicans, the Jews are a conquered people. The Judeo-Christian religion is that of a conquered people. You might read the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s treaties on Judea Christianity someday. One success of Christianity is that conquered peoples can identify with it and be absorbed by it. Beginning in the Renaissance but most fervently during the Enlightenment, Europe began diminishing Christianity and adopted what many call today Secular Humanism along with science and materialism. As an interesting side note, the NAZI’s were great admirers Friedrich Nietzsche’s and quoted him often as the NAZI’s decided that Germany would NOT be a conquered people in the wake of World War I. Nietzsche was the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag of NAZI Germany.
Mexican culture was not nearly so affected by the Enlightenment as was Europe and the British Colonies. First of all, Spain was not so affected by the Enlightenment. It was much more interested in Catholic conservatism. Only a couple of centuries earlier, Spain had bloody civil wars expelling Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. Spain was still repressing Islam in their culture and had incentive to maintain staunch Catholicism. There was also a racial component to class structure in Mexico. The ruling class was Spanish (white Europeans) while most of the population were either native American or a mixed race known as “mestizo.” So due to Catholic conservatism and the desire to maintain power of the populace, the Spanish basically kept Mexico locked in a Middle Age culture of illiteracy and near serfdom with a religion of the conquered. Yes, there have been revolutions but there is still this incentive for the ruling Mexican upper class to maintain a culture and religion of conquest.
What happens when Krugman is right and the far-right idealogs begin to blame their continued irresponsibility and fiscal failures onto the “enemies of business” and, with a News Corporation media blitz, begin fingering ecologists and conservationists as “enemies of business”? The ideological faithful will want to clear-cut American forests, dam American streams, and pollute American air and water with NO concern for wildlife all in the name of a “free market” economy, patriotism, and God.
The ensuing political war will only add to the financial pressure of keeping the far-right in power. They will market political favors in the form of exploitation of natural resources and the wholesale of the national trust. Use of public lands and natural resources will be clandestinely auctioned off to the highest corporate bidder and all wildlife issues will be a matter of business and profit.
Dramatic grizzly chasing bison photo down highway explained….you’d never guessed.
http://www.ktvq.com/news/the-bison-got-away/
This photo was in April. That is not very much snow for April in Yellowstone. The bears emerged from the den in March. The heavey snow fell in May and early June. This is why there has been so many problems this year with hungry bears.
Great interview in the Billings gazette with the guy who took this series of photos. And quite a gallery of the ones you haven’t seen yet. It was taken by Alex Wypyszinski, 63, who works at the Old Faithful post office. The best photos of Yellowstone’s dynamic natural history are taken by those who are fortunate enough to live and work there (such as Steve Fuller).
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/gazoutdoors/article_f1b8d25a-e3b3-11df-a370-001cc4c03286.html
This somewhat reminded me of then-Wyoming writer Annie Proulx’s visual metaphor in her amazing story “The Half Skinned Steer”. She never wrote a story about a charging Grizzly Bear before she moved to Santa Fe from tiny Centennial WY.
Great, somewhat surreal photos. That bison, with the hair loss running down the highway with the bear chasing it, sort of has that eerie look of an ice age relic rising from the permafrost – reminds me a little of the whole steppe bison (apparently killed by Ice Age American lions 36,000 years ago) unearthed near Fairbanks by a hydraulic miner years ago. Dale Guthrie sampled a little for dinner but discovered it is possible to over-age a steak.
http://www.alaska.edu/opa/eInfo/index.xml?StoryID=180
“Scary Chupacabra Monsters More Victim Than Villain”:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101021190621.htm
I found this interesting. A couple of cows put the hurt on a black bear looking for a steak dinner.
If you are interested to see how others are doing with these great bears, view the latest news brief of the Slovakian Project Medved (bear): #14: More berries, a big bear and preparing to sleep
http://www.stunningslovakia.com/briefarchive.html
A howling success: encounters with Yellowstone’s wolves
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/oct/30/walking-with-wolves-yellowstone-park
Now we have negative wolf ads funded by ag interests and used to sell Carharts. Hope this turns into bad PR for Carhart.
I think we, the biological inhabitants of the planet, are in big trouble. Here’s one example… one of many:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/nov/01/deal-to-save-the-natural-world-never-happened
Another bad dam idea. This time on the upper Green river by Pinedale.
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6644
Grand Teton Park rangers kills bear
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6632
Rage Against the Machine – Doug Peacock re-visits why Edward Abbey’s book Desert Solitaire is still the best book ever written about the importance of preserving wilderness.
http://www.counterpunch.org
—here’s a jolly good video clip. MSNBC.com / Today Show
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39723578#39723578
A traffic cop in Russia pulls over a guy for having one headlight, and while talking to the driver a pack of wolves comes out of the shadows and zooms by. The commentator said 11 wolves, but I think I counted 14. No matter…the cop was never in any danger…those wolves were hightailing it. However, the verbal commentary was all about wolves becoming a huge problem in Russia ( like stealing food in supermarket parking lots !?!? ) You’d never know that Russia’s 30,000 Grey Wolves were problems from this video, though…
Don’t ever trust cable news. This has been debunked as a hoax put on by a Vodka company.
CC—-I thought those wolves looked a little too good to be acting naturally
Thanks for the smokeout. It was originally sent to me by someone anti-Wolf who knows I’m pro-Wolf as “proof” wolves are indeed dangerous.
Nah . But Russian ad agencies besotted on too much of their client’s product ( vodka, in this case) might be dangerous . This thing has gone viral.
http://www.kxlh.com/news/hunter-recalls-encounter-with-flathead-wolf-pack/
Just made the local news here but happened last Saturday?
The Best Republican Congress Money Can Buy Says New Republican House Promises Investigation Of Global Warming Fraud
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-republican-house-promises-investigation-of-global-warming-fraud.html
Hunter shoots federally protected wolf in Montana.
http://www.kxlh.com/news/pack-of-wolves-reported-in-northwest-montana/
The hunter felt threatened so he says.
I hope they throw the book at this hunter.
I agree! They really need to make an example of the stupid ones that turn themselves in.
So you don’t think he should get even a tiny bit of credit, whatever the validity of his expressed fears, for going to see the warden instead of SSS?
On this very forum. roughly a year ago, I asked Carter Neimeyer, former FWS and Nez Perce wolf coordinator, whether wolves would feed on a hunter killed elk carcass.
If I recall correctly there were skeptical comments on the possiblity from some wolf advocates, to the effect that wolves were too shy, or they simply would not eat an elk killed by hunters. Hang a hat or a tee shirt around the area, or even urinate around the harvest site, and that will keep them away.
Neimeyer, I believe, said he was not personally aware of incidents of it, but that he could see that it would/could happen.
So, now we may have one more data point on apparently new witnessed behavior (but we do need to see the results of the FWS investigation on the wolf shooting – maybe even an autopsy to see if this wolf had actually been feeding on hunter’s elk). Gee, maybe Dr. Valarius Geist was right afterall, in his advice suggesting wolf behavior will change as they test humans.
here’s another article on the incident:
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_7548d0fa-e88e-11df-a517-001cc4c03286.html
I can’t put my finger on it but something just doesn’t sound right about this incident. This guy claims to have hunted for years yet didn’t do anything to protect the meat he couldn’t haul out? (other than placing an old hat on it?) Did he think that would work to ward off bears?
Nancy: Let me help you:
“Obviously, a claim of self-defense is more believable if an animal is shot in the chest rather than in its rump…”
“The [hunters]… were introduced and accompanied by several vocal critics of federal wolf management who advocated removing Endangered Species Act protections and returning wolf management authority to the state of Montana.”
“There’s just too many wolves,” Appleby said. “We’ve got to hunt them because it’s just getting out of hand.”
Also, the investigators noted that the carcass had been fed upon by wolves and a grizzly.
– – – – –
“Gee, maybe Dr. Valarius Geist was right afterall, in his advice suggesting wolf behavior will change as they test humans.”
Hmm… Certainly he is right in suggesting wolves behavior may change–not a controversial suggestion for one of the most adaptable species on the planet. It is the “…as they test humans” piece that gives me pause. It is quite vague and highly provocative. What sort of tests do you think they have planned? [I’m not going to be happy if they make me take the GRE again.] 😉
JB,
Yes, GRE or LSAT.
Dr. Geist, who observed his first wolf in 1959, has been writing for years about wolf behavior, although his primary research interest is ungulates.
Beginning on page 3 of the 19 page attached essays (from an RMEF publication), is an article by Dr. Geist, which I recommend for reading. I had seen portions of it before in another more detailed paper in which he described his close up and personal experiences with wolves on Vancouver Island, in the late 1990’s. If I can find this other paper, I will link to it.
http://rliv.com/wolf/WolvesND09_LOWREZ.pdf
If they killed the elk on Friday why didn’t they retrieve the meat after the kill! Why did they wait until the next day? Unfortunately wolves and grizzlies do not know about the hunter etiquette of not touching someone else’s kill. They felt threatened- How convenient! They use that one a lot!
Its not uncommon to leave meat in the woods overnight after a kill, but these guys screwed up by not properly hanging the meat, in NW Montana, when you get your hunting license you are encouraged to read the relevant literature about proper storage techniques for a downed animal..if it has to be left in the field over night..
In hunters safety class, you are always told if a predator has claimed your meat, then they own it, if that happens the proper procedure is to report the kill sight to the local game warden, after investigation often times they will issue a replacement tag for the animal you lost..
But again, leaving an animal in the woods overnight is not uncommon, especially and animal the size of an elk. These guys just messed up by not storing it properly. The meat should have been hung in a tree, at least 10 feet up and 10 feet out from the trunk.
Maybe they did not have access to horses until the following day. Anytime one deals with horses things can and will get difficult; horses have their own mind. If would kill an elk by myself it will and would take several days to get it out of the woods.
It can take up to 10 trips and several days to pack a moose out in Alaska.
Excuse me, at least 15-20 feet up and 10 feet out from the trunk(have not had my coffee yet!)
I think they felt more threatened that the wolves were eating their kill.
William,
A mature bull elk can weigh about 600-800 pounds; field dressed (minus entrails + blood) will weigh about a hundred pounds less, and the hide and lower legs maybe another 50-80, head and antler another 50-70; heart, liver and tongue about another 15-25 lbs.
That means each “elk quarter” (minus hide but with bones) will weigh about 80-120 pounds.
Maybe as many as half of all elk killed by hunters will be very late afternoon or near dusk. So the combination of shear weight, time of day of harvest + field dressing (about an hour), and travel time from harvest location to get a horse, backpack or other carry system and additional persons to help, and return travel back to the location of the elk are the reasons they are sometimes not immediately retrieved. Recall that some hunters may hunt several miles off a trail, adding to travel time, and some harvest sites are not easy to get to with a horse (like in the brush or in cris-crossed downfall trees).
Some hunters will try to get the quarters up in a tree, but trees are not always around, and again lifting a 100 pound elk quarter and tying it off 10 feet above the ground by yourself is no easy task, in fact nearly impossible, especially in the dark.
A hunter may also not want to be carrying a bloody elk quarter in the dark in griz country. That is a sure fire recipe that could be bad for bear and/or hunter.
Hope this explanation helps.
http://www.mtstandard.com/news/local/article_3c176ed4-e89a-11df-9f32-001cc4c03286.html
Obviously, a claim of self-defense is more believable if an animal is shot in the chest rather than in its rump,” Satterfield continued. “But it’s going to be up to the (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) to determine if the shooting was justified.”
hmmmmm………
The thing is that anyone who hunts and dislikes wolves can see a wolf or a wolf pack and shoot them just because they don’t like them and claim self defense or claim they were threatening them in some way when they weren’t. You will be seeing this tactic used more often by those who have a deep hatred for the 4 legged predators.
It’s basically a way to cover your ass when you know you broke the law by shooting a federally protected wolf you don’t want there in the first place.
WH
Thanks for the explanation. I guess my point is that hunters that either do not have horses available or make their kill later in the day should not be upset when natural predators help themselves to carcasses that are left on the ground. If I’m not mistaken this “Hunter” made a comment that he was mad that they had to leave the meat. I also question the credibility of the claim that these wolves chased these hunters. That is not typical wolf behavior
William,
Changing expecations in the new presence of wolves will be a challenge. Critics should also acknowledge that wolves on the landscape and in larger numbers are a new risk to harvested game that hunters have not faced in nearly a century (I am not sure what, if any, conflicts arise in the Great Lakes wolves and harvested deer). To some extent this is true of griz, though not widely found on the landscape, as well.
Depending on how the investigation plays out on this reported incident, the story will make it into an upcoming issue of the RMEF Bugle, elk Foundation magazine, as well as some others.
The guys on the bad bear blog will no doubt pick up on it too.
This sort of thing -wolves being opportunistic and feeding on a harvested elk/deer/whatever- will be on the increase over time, and hunters generally will not tolerate wolves eating on someting that cannot be quickly removed from the woods for the reasons stated above.
It will be just one more area of tension in the continuing co-existence equation.
Personally, in nearly many years of hunting I have not had a problem with leaving an elk or deer over night – even on the ground. Just lucky, I guess. Nor have a number of people I hunt with, and that has been in several states, in areas where predators are common. Coyotes will come in overnight and slick up the remnants of field dressing, but leave the carcass, especially if you take precautions like leaving things with human scent around. I guess a gut pile is easier, better than a hairy carcass, if you can fill up on that first.
The only experience that comes to mind was an incident in which my parents had hunted moose in British Columbia many years ago. A harvested moose, covered and in a utility trailer, became the target of a hungry black bear one night when my folks had pulled into a Provincial forest campground. The bear, no doubt habituated to people and the things they leave around in campgrounds, was shot at dark out of necessity to keep the meat(don’t recall if they had a tag), and the incident reported to RCMP (Mounties) the next day. No big deal for RCMP’s perspective, and the moose meat was mostly saved.
Distasteful as you may find it, I do recommend reading Dr. Geist’s accounts of Canadian wolves over his lifetime, as I recommended to JB, above. Don’t be so quick to summarily say wolf behavior is one thing or another. Generalizations tend to get one in trouble, as we are seeing played out as their numbers increase.
I have always found that raven and magpies to be the biggest danger to an elk left over night.
I think that a little Clorox sprinkled around the radius of the animal would kept wolves away. I have done that in Alaska several times before.
Re: Great Lakes wolves helping selves to harvested deer
Every hunting season I’ve heard of this happening at least once in some part of UP…really don’t think it happens alot as: easier to remove a 120-180 lb whitetail, most hunt not far from their deer camps, not as many terrain issues
I’ve never had occasion to interact with wolves over a carcass but I know they don’t always take it lightly when you set up camp in their rendezvous area, although it’s mainly just hanging close, howling and hoping you’ll leave. Years ago on a field trip on the Dudidontu River (Taku headwaters), I unwittingly set up camp on a gravel bar that seemed almost completely covered with wolf scat. It was by far the best choice for camping along a section of marshy oxbow river. We had little clue about wolf behavior (or echinococus) and proceeded to kick all the scat off into the river and set up tents (After reading Dr. Geist’s admonition, I guess if we’d had a clue we would have been wearing respirators, but so far – 23 years later – none of the three of us have been found with cysts). Anyway, they continued to howl right next to camp, sometimes on both sides of us for about 3 days (I’m guessing for 8 hours total out of 24) and then tapered off. It was even transmitting through my radio conversations with office and other camps — people wondering what the heck was going on out there. We of course, simply concluded the valley was chock full of wolves. However, for all the racket from all-around often within 100 yards of camp, we seldom actually spotted them. I remember drifting quietly around a bend above camp in a small raft and seeing a big black one standing motionless in the river. I didn’t move a hair, forsaking any attempt with my camera for enjoyment of the moment, as I drifted closer and closer with our eyes were locked. Finally, it bolted into the brush. I decided to try a howl and suddenly a gray burst off the bank from the willows right beside me and swapped ends before hitting the water and disappearing the way it had come. They were mostly hunting beaver, which were very common along that stretch, and cleaning up the last spawned out Chinooks.
A friend had a similar experience on a raft trip on the Tatsenshini-Drainage River from the far NW corner of B.C. and Alaska – incredibly wild and scenic country. After a difference of opinion with his traveling companions, he found himself camping alone in his small tent by the river on a moonlit night. At about 1 a.m., he came wide awake to find a wolf sitting, howling 4 feet from his tent screen. It was answered by other wolves up in the hills. It scared the living crap out of him and he finally screamed “Get out of here you **** wolf!”. It parted its lips on one side exposing teeth, spun around in a 360 degree circle and ran off. He was finally able to get back to sleep, but awoke the next morning to find it trotting around in the willows by his tent, peeing here and there.
I don’t know JB. I’m curious as to why it took a week to get this story out. Maybe it took that long because everyone needed to be on the “right” page on how the events unfolded?
“They were in a frenzy,” Appleby said of the wolves. “They were howling. It was eerie.”
He, too, spoke in favor of wolf hunts and delisting the animal, saying he has now seen wolves on three occasions and was outraged about being forced to abandon his elk.
Maybe he shot at the wolves because they forced him to abandon his elk? He said he was outraged.
“God saved us this time, but those wolves are still out there,” Pitman wrote in his statement. “I won’t go into these woods without a sidearm ever again. Those wolves were not afraid of us at all. They were killers.”
What does he mean they were killers? Is he referring to the wolves that were feeding on the elk he and his hunting partner killed?
Hm, seems FWP has done away with the position of Wolf Coordinator
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_d95cd046-e8de-11df-8fc6-001cc4c002e0.html
Why are “manly” hunters the biggest chickenshits in the woods?
Appleby wrote in his statement. “I said, ‘The bastards are following us, maybe trying to kill us or the horses.’ I told Raymond to shoot into the trees at them as we were trying to get away down the road. And that’s what he did.”
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_7548d0fa-e88e-11df-a517-001cc4c03286.html
Oops……Ummm, a day late on this but still hard to believe.
I’d venture a guess that the grizzly heard the shots and came a running (like griz are doing in other parts of the state now during hunting season) and it probably spent part of the night dining on those elk quarters, til the wolves showed up. Then the griz failed in his attempt to stand his ground and the wolves took over the feast. (Documented often in Yellowstone)
Then these two hunters show back up. Can’t imagine they surprised the pack but, I’d be willing to bet, the pack, after dining, might have been lounging around and not interested in leaving just yet……. til the shooting started.
Rump shot?
Again, gotta say its been close to a week since the incident happened and news of it is just now being released to the media? It seems rather convienent that all the “ducks” were in order before this in (credible) story made the local papers, news camera on the street with these hunters, then a press conference (that looked like it was held in a mall) with officials present, and I believe someone mentioned a local politician was also present?
++The next morning, he returned to the kill site with Pitman to retrieve the elk quarters. Both men rode horses and saw no evidence that wild animals had ravaged the meat, which Appleby packed with snow the previous day but did not suspend++
So where does the evidence of grizzly, come into play here?
A game warden who accompanied the men to the kill site Monday reported that multiple tracks confirmed that a pack of wolves had been present, said John Fraley, FWP spokesman for Region 1. The elk had been fed on by wolves and a grizzly bear, he said.
Begs the question – feed on before, or after, these hunters went tearing out of the back country in fear of their lives?
Nancy,
This is indeed a confusing article, the way it is written.
If you read it carefully, it says nothing about griz having been ever on the elk prior to when the hunters returned Saturday morning to retrieve the snow packed quarters. Otherwise, they would not have bothered to load it. In the middle of the article Appleby explains what happened, “Both men rode horses and saw no evidence that wild animals had ravaged the meat….”
Apparently they started to load the meat, when the wolves disrupted and charged them, scaring the horses and causing them to leave the meat. Then the wolves apparently follow them (strange they would do that and not go after the meat immediately). It was later, I believe, when the warden came to the site, that it had been discovered a griz had been on it and there were wolf tracks around.
The confusing part is what the wolves did and when. I hate it when a reporter makes the reader speculate about facts, because we tend to see what we want, rather than what is described or not. That’s even worse than bad spelling or grammar, for some of us. LOL
If there story holds up then they had the right to shoot the wolf. I would not want several howling wolves around me nor do I want dogs doing the same.
It sounds like the horses bolted and ran off, then that could be a case of wolves attacking livestock. There is not a jury in the State of Montana that would find them guilty. It is a good story but nothing to waste time about.
Carolyn Sime is no longer Wolf Coordinator for Montana- they’ve eliminated the position-
http://helenair.com/news/article_1fb75798-e8a1-11df-b9dc-001cc4c03286.html
This is not good.
It looks like the silliness of ID is catching on in MT, by saying we won’t play. If MT does not have a wolf coordinator, does this mean they are not accepting the federal dollars that go with their (to date) continuing “management” obligations on delisting (monitoring, reporting, etc.). The article does not address the next logical question, which is who (which staff) will do the continuing job functions of the thankless, high profile and abused job of wolf coordinator?
A lot of people did not like Sime and that included a lot of hunters. I don’t know what this will mean though. Its anybody’s guess.
Carolyn ” We didn’t realize that wolves would be sensitive to firearms harvest” Sime was so surprised when hunters almost decimated the whole pack just outside Yellowstone. I forgot the name of the pack
Elk275
Oh my god, not howling wolves! Should they whisper or perhaps send an email or twitter?
smoke signals are the proper way in the west. one smoke ring if you are going to attack and two smoke rings if no current action is planned.
I just finished a book written by McIntire called “War on Wolves”. One of the sections describes Sioux chiefs that killed “wolfers” who would poison bison carcasses and kill everything in sight, not only wolves but wolverines, eagles, coyotes etc. These Sioux leaders hated these killers. The Don Peay types remind of these old wolf haters
The white mas has never been very good at respecting wildlife.
white man
I am appalled at what the white man has done when it came to bison. There used to be millions of bison roaming North America and they were all wiped out by overhunting from the white man. They killed off the native american’s food source.
Elk275, LOL.
jon,
“They killed off the native american’s food source.”
…and they did it on purpose to keep them on the reservations. Take away their reasons for leaving ~ hunting ~ and they would have no place to go and would become dependent on whatever their conquerers gave them… which turned out to be smallpox and illegalization of their culture and eradication of their resource access.
It’s what America does, take things from others and hope they will die from the ill treatment they receive in the process.
Hot Rabbit trapped at Hanford:
http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/nov/05/radioactive-rabbit-trapped-at-hanford/
It may be typical for some to retrieve game the next day, but don’t they realize that predators may come across their kill and eat it?
Felony refiled in poaching case
SaveElk.com founder recounts killing of bull elk
http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005133993
Wolf Genetics Study: It’s About More than Numbers
http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2010/11/05/headlines/agweekly/news/ag_news/news84.txt
A new round of DNA testing shows some success, but there’s a glaring lack of genetic exchange with packs in Yellowstone National Park, according to researcher and carnivore biologist Bob Wayne.
Wayne, of the UCLA Department of Ecology and Biology, takes issue with those claiming 100 animals per state means “full recovery,” since that doesn’t take into account the genetic diversity needed to keep the species healthy. He claims his study has been misinterpreted by those saying the research proved the gene pool to be strong, when in fact, he says, it shows the opposite. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service helped pay for the DNA research.
I’m sure most have seen Out Foxed. I believe this is a little clip from it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rqdtZlec0s&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]
No, PW, had not seen Out Foxed but the content doesn’t surprise me!
SB, I seem to recall years ago how nice the fishing was around Shorham (on Long Island) because of the “warm” waters.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ylEAARGhvX4C&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=fishings+good+around+nuclear+energy+plants&source=bl&ots=UmCW_kiTX5&sig=L35cIUoinNIBMuqbIwjBzz9sU9s&hl=en&ei=mX_UTOPzJ8SBlAfEnZHKBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDIQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
WM Says:
November 5, 2010 at 4:49 PM
Nancy,
This is indeed a confusing article, the way it is written.
++Then the wolves apparently follow them (strange they would do that and not go after the meat immediately)++
WM, sorry but I’m still not convinced this story (tale) didn’t grow alot taller as the days went on (before it hit the news) as more and more “helpful” imput might of been added, to spice it up a bit.
they probably had to consult with Tim Sundles and Ron Gillette to make sure first…
http://wolfclash.com/