Archive for the ‘hunters’ Tag
Wolves likely can readily associate the sound of gunfire with an easy meal in the form of the gut pile that remains after hunters field-dress their quarry, says a wolf expert.
NOVEMBER 30, 2017 SOURCE
Wolves are likely to associated hunters’ gunfire with an easy meal.
Some years ago, I hunted in northern British Columbia. A young man was my guide, and during a long first day, we climbed into high, rugged country on horseback, trailing two pack horses.
The area was rife with moose, elk, wolves, and grizzlies. Headquartering in an abandoned trapper’s shack, we hunted all day, saddling the horses before sunup and riding out in the dark. At night we hobbled the horses’ front feet and turned them out to graze, stringing cowbells around their necks so we could find them in the morning, and to keep bears away.
One day we spotted a moose from a distant ridge. We rode a while toward the animal from downwind before tying the horses and hiking. The moose wasn’t a trophy, but was a legal target, bearing the required brow tines. When the big animal showed itself while ambling through tall willows, I braced my .270 against a tree and collapsed him.
Soon the guide and I convened alongside the moose.
“I’ll take care of this,” the young man said, pulling a knife from his pack. “You keep an eye out for wolves. If you see one coming, shoot it.”
We had heard wolves howling, but hadn’t seen any.
I said, “Are we expecting wolves?”
“They heard the shot,” the guide said. “So maybe.”
Wolves likely can readily associate the sound of gunfire with an easy meal in the form of the gut pile that remains after hunters field-dress their quarry, said wolf expert Dave Mech, a senior scientist with the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota.
“There are lots of examples where wolves learn to associate food with people,” Mech said. “They can connect these kinds of things very easily.”
This fall, the International Wolf Center in Ely alerted Minnesota whitetail hunters that they may encounter one or more of the state’s nearly 3,000 wolves “staring” at them in their deer stands.
“While hunters don’t intend to feed wolves by leaving the gut piles behind,” the center said, “that’s exactly what is happening. Obviously, some wolves have figured out that seeing a hunter (cause) may lead to finding a free meal (effect.)”
Hunters’ use of deer scent might also attract wolves, the center said.
As deer hunting winds down, some wolves in the northern portions of Minnesota and Wisconsin are ending their own special seasons of gut-pile indulging.
In most instances, consumption of these remains by wolves occurred unbeknown to the hunters who killed and field-dressed their animals, then left the woods.
But some deer hunters this fall did encounter wolves up close and personal, including Steve Patterson, 26, of Minneapolis, who arrowed a 208-pound buck in northern Wisconsin on Nov. 11.
Patterson killed the nontypical 10-pointer in late afternoon in an area where wolf sightings are common, with images of the animals showing up frequently on hunters’ trail cameras.
Using headlamps, Patterson and a friend field-dressed the buck in the dark of early evening. As they did, they noticed two sets of what they believed were wolf eyes about 40 yards away. The observers gave no ground while waiting to move in on the remains.
Scott Wudinich of Eveleth had a similar encounter some years ago while hunting near Lake Vermilion in northeast Minnesota. He shot a small buck from his stand, and shortly afterward climbed down and field-dressed the animal, before returning to his stand.
He had ridden to the stand on a four-wheeler, and couldn’t legally operate the machine until after shooting hours. So he bided his time until nightfall.
Soon, “four or five” wolves appeared near Wudinich, running, followed by three more wolves to his left and another three to his right. “I was stunned,” he said in a Star Tribune story of the incident. “I yelled and screamed, but they pretty much ignored me. They paced back and forth. They wanted my deer and the gut pile.”
Wudinich fired his rifle several times in an attempt to scare away the wolves. But they remained about 50 yards from his stand. Uncertain what to do, he called the local conservation officer, who told him to leave the deer — which Wudinich did when he climbed onto his ATV at sunset and sped to his cabin about a mile away.
Later, he returned with a nephew to retrieve the deer. “The gut pile was mostly gone and they (the wolves) bit into the hindquarters and neck and chewed on an ear,” he said.
Because deer provide the bulk of a wolf’s diet, it’s no surprise hunters and wolves will occasionally bump into one another while seeking the same quarry, Mech said. Wolves average between 5 and 10 pounds of food intake a day, and individual wolves can gorge themselves on as much as 22 pounds of deer meat in a single sitting.
While wolves usually present no danger to people, they’re constantly on the move, hunting. And if a wolf doesn’t totally consume an available meal in one sitting, he (or she) might bury the remains.
“I can’t prove it, but I have circumstantial evidence that wolves will dig up food they buried as long as a year before,” Mech said.
Wolves might prefer a fresh gut pile left by deer hunters, but if necessary they’ll eat rotted flesh.
“Some years ago on Isle Royale, I saw a pack of wolves eat a moose in the spring that had died the fall before,” Mech said. “The moose was like jelly. But the wolves ate it.”
In British Columbia, we saw no wolves. Not while my guide field-dressed the moose. Nor while we rode to the trapper’s shack to gather the pack horses, or when we cached the moose’s quarters outside the shack.
But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard wolves howling, plenty of them — thankful, perhaps, for an easy meal
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/55/96/55965676-73ed-4de4-b090-e3dfa280739e/a-263-0138.jpg)
By Dennis Anderson – StarTribune
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From: GoFundMe
UPDATE #36
December 11: A Michigan based group, Great Lakes Wolf Patrol announced today that it was offering a $1,500.00 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who illegally kills a wolf in Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota. The announcement comes in response to recent wolf killings in the Upper Peninsula and an upsurge in Facebook sites that promote illegal wolf killing, such as “Wisconsin Wolf Hunt & Wisconsin Wolf Hunting” whose public comment logs encourage readers to “SSS” (Shoot, shovel and shut-up) and kill wolves out of season.
Organization members will be circulating reward posters in the areas where two dead wolves were recently found near Newberry and the the town of Gulliver with the hope that the cash reward will provide an incentive for residents to come forward. “We want to assist Michigan and other states’ conservation officers in their investigations of illegal wolf killing.” said Rod Coronado, the group’s founder.
Great Lakes Wolf Patrol was founded this year to document and investigate the recreational hunting of gray wolves in Montana and Wisconsin. The group monitor’s hunters and trappers during each state’s wolf hunting seasons and worked with Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources this Fall to investigate illegal wolf trapping during the October hunt. Last week, Wolf Patrol members documented this nation’s only hound hunt for wolves in northern Wisconsin.
Video footage of their monitoring projects is available online at: wolf patrol.org and Facebook:
Wolf Patrol.
WANTED
Information leading to the arrest and conviction of poachers responsible for killing wolves in Mackinac and Schoolcraft Counties.
On 11/26/14, a wolf that had been shot, was dumped near the Mackinac-Luce County line, southwest of the town of Newberry. In a separate incident, a radio-collared wolf that was part of a wildlife study was killed, and its collar disposed of, near Gulliver in Doyle Township.
A reward is being offered for information that leads to the arrest of the subject or subjects involved. Anyone with any possible information on these cases is asked to call the Report All Poaching Hotline at 800-292-7800, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, or to contact their local DNR office or conservation officer. Information may be left anonymously. Callers may remain anonymous and still be eligible to receive a reward.
Contacts: Debbie Munson Badini, 906-226-1352 or Lt. Skip Hagy, 906-293-5131, ext. 4100, MI DNR
*$1,500 REWARD*
*In addition to any reward offered through the Michigan DNR reward program. Great Lakes Wolf Patrol will pay $1,500 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone who illegal kills a wolf in the state of Michigan.
Friends of the Wolf,
My name is Rod Coronado and I’ve organized the only citizen monitoring project in the nation, whose aim is to document and lobby to end the recreational hunting of gray wolves in the Great Lakes region. We are a 100% volunteer group comprised of citizens from all walks of life, who are united in our opposition to the state management of wolves.
Our goal this Fall is to document the Wisconsin wolf hunt, which begins on October 15th. We will be present in the field with not only our own documentation crew, but two independent video journalists as well who are working on international news stories. We also support the indigenous nations of the Great Lakes, who are united in their opposition to the wolf hunt.
With your support, we will repeat what we were able to achieve in Montana this September, where we generated national media attention on the recreational killing of wolves outside of Yellowstone National Park (see Yellowstone Wolf Patrol, or our website/Facebook sites: wolfpatrol.org and Wolf Patrol) Our aim is to create a citizen-led movement dedicated to monitoring public activities on our public lands. We do not believe that wolf recovery has been achieved, and are greatly concerned that state management of wolves is dangerously reducing wolf populations to levels that could once again, threaten their viable existence in their traditional territory in the lower 48 states.
We need funds to pay primarily for our transportation costs and food to maintain an encampment in Wisconsin’s wolf hunt zones, where we will remain as long as our support can be maintained. Please consider joining our campaign by supporting this project so the wolves of the Great Lakes will have physical representation for the duration of the 2014-15 wolf hunting season.
GREAT LAKES WOLF PATROL IS A LEGAL COALITION OF CITIZENS COMMITTED TO NONVIOLENT OBSERVATION, DOCUMENTATION AND MONITORING OF PUBLIC POLICIES ON PUBLIC LANDS. WE DO NOT INTEND TO HARASS OR INTERFERE WITH WISCONISIN DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES PERSONNEL OR LAW-ABIDING HUNTERS.
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From: Examiner.com
by Cathy Taibbi
The photos say it all. The wolf killers come right out and admit it – It’s all about their own sadistic, sexual thrills.
(Anonymous sources, captured from anti-wolf hate page) See more photos here.
**UPDATE 4/23/2013 – New link to video evidence of hunter behavior toward their victims. in the field, where no one else is watching. CAUTION, Viewer discretion is advised.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af7_1333046713
*Caution – Disturbing sexual content involving animal abuse.
The captions on the photos say it all.
I’ve loaded the captioned photos into the slide-show, after a cover image, so children can’t accidentally read them.
These screen shots were captured from a typical anti-wolf, anti-predator, “All American” Bible-thumping pro-hunting, trapping and animal-torture Facebook page, the name of which I’ve decided to not reveal here, because they don’t need more views..
The members of this Facebook page come right out and publicly admit (brag is more like it) to ‘getting wood’ when seeing wolves trapped, tortured and killed, whether in images or in real life. They feel ‘orgasmic’ hunting, trapping, killing, butchering, and even eating their victims.
It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to know what else they are doing when torturing wolves to death.
But at least now the truth has been revealed: The ‘need’ to hunt and trap wolves is not about ‘wildlife management’ or protection of life or property. Instead, it’s actually about the ‘need’ of psychologically-sick individuals to ‘get off’ sexually by torturing an animal they love to hate.
It gives the notion of evil a whole new dimension.The disturbingly lascivious, uninhibited individuals in hate groups like the ones posting these photos obviously ‘get off’ on sadism and animal torture.
Maybe they’re just trying to hurt wolf-advocates. Maybe it’s a nose-thumbing, flaunting, taunting tactic designed to torment those who love animals.
You see, they’re bullies, too.
Underlying all the unforgiving and ultimately lethal anti-wolf/anti-predator legislation being passed recently, of course, is greed, fueled by fear (and the active, purposeful fear-mongering and misinformation associated with group hysteria and mind control), and catalyzed by a nameless, formless hatred which malcontents and other paranoid people coalesce into form through their focus on one particularly convenient, integral, dynamic, ecologically crucial, intentionally misunderstood and emotionally charged iconic species; the grey wolf.
Sounds deep, confusing, complex.
However, in a nutshell, what they are saying plainly is that torturing animals is sexually arousing for them.
That’s it.
What else does it say about them, when they don’t mind coming out and bragging about that publicly?
Sounds kind of like the behavior of serial-killers, to me.
Yet, they sell themselves as heroes. Whatever it takes to justify their perversion.
Do we really want people like this freely expressing their fetishes on the Internet (where children can be traumatized – or worse, titillated – by them), or acting them out using our wildlife or pets?
What’s happened to our society, when any show of ethics, decorum or empathy is treated as a liability to be ridiculed, threatened and treated derisively, while a site enabling perverted, sadistic sexual thrills from abusing animals is considered free speech?
These kinds of pages are no better than so-called ‘crush videos‘ (movies of innocent, live animals being stomped, cut apart with scissors, burned, etc., and sold to perverts who like to masturbate while watching) except that, being based more in the ‘traditional sports’ of hunting and trapping, these (for now, at least) manage to sneak by legally.
Is anyone else reminded of the decadence, violence and mob mentality of the last days of the Roman Empire?
Hunting, trapping and other hate/fetish sites need to be dealt with in the same fashion as perpetrators of illegal crush videos. The penalties for gratuitous animal abuse need to be severe. The moral fiber and safety of our society is definitely at risk.
Would you want your child to stumble upon pages like these? Or meet one of these disturbingly slanted people on the street?
Naturally, if anyone with any conscience, empathy, sympathy or sensitivity (or clear moral sense of right and wrong) dares disagree with such misconduct, the members of this and other anti-wolf/pro-hunting and trapping sites are all too happy to go on the attack, considering any show of outrage or concern for the hapless creatures signs of weakness, against which they’ll sling nasty insults, slurs and slander.
But it’s more than just heated, probably (hopefully) harmless ugly words. Those speaking out against such acts, and such sites, are regularly stalked, harassed and heckled.
Even that’s not so bad.
The bad is that some whistle-blowers have had their lives threatened. And their names, addresses and phone numbers have been made public to prove that the wolf-killers can get to them, if they want to.
Yup. These are scary individuals.
And our politicians are pandering to them.
It’s a sad and disheartening statement about where America is at this point.
* I’m including some links to telling articles which put the spotlight on the sexual aspect of so-called ‘sport’ hunting, and the desire of certain people to lust after this thrill-killing ‘hobby’. Very scary to see the multitude of search results, where the evidence is painfully clear that killing and torturing animals is sexually gratifying to psychologically unhealthy people. and absolutely leads to child porn, child abuse, serial-killing and murder/torture fetishes where the victims are human. What this says about the state of our society is downright horrifying.
Animals and Hunting (Psychology Today online edition)
Wolf management: Science, not human behavior, is key (The Missoulian)
The thrill of killing replaced sex
The psychiatrist who met mass murderer says he was a classic necrophiliac. Nigel Bunyan reports The Telegraph (Even if not targeting animals, the mechanism is the same)
Hunting, Climate Change and the Future of Food
– The Daily Beast
“While Steven Rinella celebrates the thrill of killing what ends up on his plate in ‘Meat Eater,’ environmental analyst Lester R. Brown examines an ominous growing global scarcity.”
House Passes Ban On ‘Crush’ Videos Huffington Post
The Crush. A public webpage of The Outdoor Channel (a hunting site) that comes right out and displays hunters‘ ‘trophy’ photos AS PORN for it’s readers. This is the truth, and why sport hunting and trapping needs to be banned as perversions, exactly as other ‘crush’ videos and activities are being banned.
Finally, for the more evolved among us (or those striving to be), I include one more link: Hope for a real solution, a ‘from the inside, out’ path for healing humanity – and the new (ancient) paradigm that just might save our imperiled planet. The Power of the Herd by Linda Kohanov (author of The Tao of Equus) offers fascinating research, provocative insights and real solutions so we can live in a less damaging, less dominating, less controlling, less predatory way – Becoming happier, more dynamic and more empowered, without feeling the need to victimize anything or anyone else.
So important is her work that I hope to delve more deeply into her message in future columns.
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Wolf Is My Soul 