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.
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
Researchers Suggest Illegal Poaching Threatens State Management Of Wolves
A new study suggests the Department of Natural Resources has been underestimating the number of wolves killed illegally for years.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers re-investigated the causes of death, as reported by the DNR, of nearly 1,000 wolves between 1979 and 2012.
The study, published in the scientific Journal of Mammology, suggests that the most common cause of death was poaching and that the DNR systematically under-reported illegal killings. For example, the researchers studied x-rays of wolves the DNR reported as killed by cars and found that 37 percent were embedded with metal fragments consistent with gunshot wounds.
“There were scientific errors that were not random errors but scientific errors in a systematic direction,” said UW-Madison Professor Adrian Treves, who led the study. “They were almost always in a direction of underestimating poaching.”
Another finding of the study suggests that wolves without government radio collars were at a much greater risk of being killed illegally during the 33 year period. Treves said he would like to see the DNR re-examine its methods for determining causes of wolf mortality because illegal poaching is a threat not only to wolves but to management efforts by the DNR and tribal governments.
“Moving forward we suggest some improvements such as doing these post-mortems on a random sample of the wolves and also careful study of the non-radio collared wolves because we found big discrepancies between the risk and rates of death of the non-radio collared wolves compared to the radio-collared ones,” said Treves.
A statement from DNR Communications Director Jim Dick said their goal when collecting data on dead wolves isn’t to find cause of death but to “determine population and such things as pack territories. Wolf mortality numbers are based on actual dead animals detected.”
The statement also claims that the DNR “did not commission, fund or participate.” in the study. Treves disagrees saying funding did come from them and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The study acknowledges two grants received from the Fish and Wildlife Service and DNR.
A gray wolf moves through forested country in winter. Credit: MacNeil Lyons, National Park Service
The new Congress wasted little time in efforts to once again remove gray wolves from the federal endangered species list.
A bill introduced Tuesday by U.S. Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minnesota; Sean Duffy, R-Wisconsin; and Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, would overrule a federal court action and remove federal protections from wolves in the Great Lakes and mountain west.
That already happened once, but a judge’s decision in late 2014 restored federal protections after wolves spent about three years under state control.
The members of Congress, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, say wolves have recovered enough in those areas to remove protections. But wolf supporters say the wolf hasn’t recovered over enough of its original range to remove protections in the few states where it is thriving, like Minnesota and Wisconsin. Wolf supporters say state hunting and trapping allowed before the 2014 court order threatened to put the animals back on the brink of extinction.
Similar bills have passed the House in recent years but failed to clear the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. With Republicans in control of the House, Senate and soon the White House, the bill’s chances are considered much better.
“In Wisconsin, we cherish our wildlife and work diligently to conserve our natural resources, but the Endangered Species Act has allowed courts to misuse judicial oversight to stop science-based wildlife management from moving forward to delist the gray wolf,” Duffy said in a statement. “Wisconsin farmers deserve to be able to protect their livestock from gray wolves, and we will protect Wisconsin farmers from activist judges.”
Environmental groups hailed Tuesday’s decision. Photo: Andy Astbury/Iris
Norway’s climate and environment minister, Vidar Helgesen, on Tuesday announced that the government has drastically reduced the hunting quota for wolves, following accusations of sanctioning a “mass slaughter” of the predators.
Helgesen said that the Justice Ministry concluded that “there is no legal basis” for allowing hunters to target four wolf packs in Hedmark.
The ministry has therefore cut the hunting quota from 47 to 15 wolves.
The government had announced in September that the 47 wolves could be hunted in a move that was hailed by farmers but decried by environmental groups outraged that such a large proportion of the 65-68 registered wolves in Norway would be fair game for hunters.
“This is pure mass slaughter,” Nina Jensen, the head of the Norwegian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said at the time. “We haven’t seen anything like this in almost 100 years, when the policy at the time was to exterminate all the big predators.”
On Tuesday, Jensen took to Twitter to personally thank Helgesen for “standing up for nature”.
The course reversal came just days before the hunting season was scheduled to begin on January 2nd. Nearly 300 hunters had planned hunts for the four wolf packs that have now been spared.
Of the 15 wolves hunters are still allowed to take, six have already been shot.
The Norwegian wolf population currently has seven packs with one reproductive couple, which is “above the national population target” since each pack can be expected to deliver a new litter every year, the Norwegian environmental agency said.
Wolves are listed as “critically endangered” on the 2015 Norwegian list of endangered animals.
Paul Egan , Detroit Free Press4:24 p.m. EST November 24, 2016
LANSING — Michigan’s 2014 wolf hunt law is unconstitutional, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled in an opinion released Wednesday.
In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the court said the law providing for a Michigan wolf hunt violates the “title-object clause” of Michigan’s constitution, which says “no law shall embrace more than one object,” and that object “shall be expressed in its title.”
The court said a provision of the law allowing for free hunting, trapping, and fishing licenses for qualified members of the military is unconnected to the law’s object of providing for scientific management of game, fish and wildlife habitat. The entire law must be struck down, because it isn’t clear the law would have been approved if that provision had not been included, the court said.
The ruling in favor of the group Keep Michigan Wolves Protected overturns an earlier ruling by the Michigan Court of Claims.
In 2011, the federal government removed the gray wolf from its endangered species list in Michigan, but the group that challenged the law says there are fewer than 650 gray wolves left in Michigan and they should not be hunted.
After earlier failed efforts to add wolves to the definition of “game” in Michigan, the Michigan Legislature in 2014 adopted a voter initiative backed by Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management, which gave the Michigan Natural Resources Commission joint responsibility, with the Legislature, to name new game animals. The law, which took effect in March 2015, included a $1 million appropriation, making it immune from being challenged through another referendum.
White wolf by Jim Cunning
Two wolf hunt laws that were on the ballot in 2014 were rejected by voters.
Keeping Michigan Wolves Protected challenged the law, alleging misrepresentations were made by petition circulators and violations of the state constitution. But the Michigan Court of Claims rejected those arguments.
In the new Michigan Court of Appeals ruling, the panel says that Keeping Michigan Wolves Protected essentially viewed the law as “a Trojan Horse, within which the ability to hunt wolves was cleverly hidden.”
The court said that “however accurate the plaintiff may be in its assessment of why (the law) came into being, our analysis is not about policy,” but “based on an analysis of the dictates of Michigan’s constitution.”
Jill Fritz, director of Keep Michigan Wolves Protected, said the law “was a blatant power grab by politicians to take away voting rights from Michigan citizens,” and “we are delighted the court has rejected the Legislature’s outrageous attempt to subvert the will of the people.”
She said the ruling “restores the people’s decision, in two statewide votes, overwhelmingly rejecting the trophy hunting and commercial trapping of the state’s small population of wolves.”
A spokesperson for the group that pushed for the law, Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The court’s panel consisted of Judges Donald Owens, Joel Hoekstra and Jane Beckering.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.
Graphic Photo: Vigilantes in Wyoming Enact “Justice” Against Wolves
“Fed Up in Wyoming” reads the caption under this stunning photograph posted on a hunter’s Facebook page (reproduced here under Fair Use). The photo is yet more evidence that, two years after political reactionaries led a successful campaign in the House of Representatives and then the Senate to remove the North Rocky Mountain gray wolf from the endangered species list, the slaughter of wolves continues to escalate as wolf hunters fall deeper in their paranoid fantasy that the wolf represents a liberal conspiracy against rural communities.
The Facebook page that originally posted the image belongs to two Wyoming hunting outfitters, Colby and Codi Gines. The Gines run CG Wilderness Adventures, headquartered in a highly remote part of Wyoming’s Bridger Teton National Forest, bordering on the southeast section of Yellowstone National Park. “Wyoming is God’s country, and we invite you to come see it for yourself,” says the Gines’ website.
Their invitation evidently does not extend to wolves. Driven extinct in most of the continental US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the wolf returned to the American landscape in 1995, when the US Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced 66 wolves captured in the Canadian Rockies to Central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Conservationists saw as the return of the wolf as a crowning accomplishment to renew the wilderness, and millions of Americans came to celebrate the wolf’s comeback. But by 2009 a virulent opposition movement opposed to the wolf had formed. Made up of hunters and outfitters, ranchers, and far-right groups, these forces coalesced around a cultural mythology in which wolves became demons — disease ridden, dangerous foreign invaders — who served as icons of the hated federal government. (Read Cry Wolf, our in-depth report on this issue.)
With the Klan-like hoods and the ostentatious display of the American flag, the photo is a glimpse into the mentality of those behind the anti-wolf campaign. There is, apparently, a cohort of people who view the destruction of wild nature as something to be celebrated, something quintessentially America. They are play acting at both patriotism and rebellion. And, in their play-acting, they reveal a great deal about the paranoid fantasies that have gripped some people in the age of Obama.
The Facebook comments following the photo are especially revealing. Among those who LIKE this page is Sportsmen Against Wolves, a group whose “About” statement is, “Sportsmen against illegally introduced Canadian Gray Wolves.” Here’s one wolf-killing friend, J. Weeks, commenting on the photo: “Kill all federally funded terrorists. ” To some, the reintroduction of wolves represents Washington’s treason against civilization itself: “Yet another brilliant bleeding heart program…reestablish the bloodthirsty critter that every civilization from the dawn of time has tried to eliminate,” says Johnny W. To Sarah H., the wolf killing is just self-defense: “I imagine they don’t want any wolfies to come after them or their families!” Then Haines complained that only one had been killed — there “should be a pile of them tho!”
The white hoods, with their echoes of Jim Crow-era terrorism, were actually celebrated by some commenters. “Redneck KKK” wrote Austin T. One fan, Julia G., argued that the wolf hunters should be more brazen, posting, “Next time they go full REGALIA.”
For their part, the Gines prefer to call the hoods the sign of “Vigilantes,” a way of “Trying to make a statement!…Frontier Justice! Wyoming hunters are fed up!” John P. concurred, “Yeehaw…looks like modern day Wyoming rangers taking care of business!!!!!”
Some commenters suggested that the wolf hunters wore hoods to protect themselves from government persecution. One supporter of masked men posted, “I fully understand the masks…Keep on killing guys.”
It would seem that wolf hunting is the wildlife version of George Zimmerman’s vigilantism – self appointed keepers of order waging a battle against an imaginary enemy.
Or maybe it’s worse, and the wolf hunters with their KKK masks are more like shades of Timothy McVeigh. The cammo gear, the rifles – it’s as if the wolf hunters were fighting a guerrilla war against Washington. As if they were worried that at any moment a US Fish and Wildlife Service black helicopter would swoop down and a SWAT team emerge, assault rifles blazing.
In April, 2011, the House and Senate sponsored a “rider” on a federal budget bill that removed gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Here’s the very long story in short: Democratic Senator Jon Tester faced a rough challenge in the 2012 Montana election, and sacrificing wolves as expendable was deemed politically expedient to win the race. Wolf hunts renewed in Idaho and Montana that fall. Legal challenges by environmental groups against the delisting failed.
Wyoming took until 2012 to win full federal approval for a plan to declare the lands near Yellowstone a “trophy zone” with wolf quotas. In most of the state, wolves can be killed year round without limits. The Gines’ hunting operation is in “Wolf Hunt Area 3.” In late October they reported killing two wolves, filling its quota of three wolves (one had been hunted earlier). Whether the wolf in this photo is one of the three legally killed is not known.
The Northern Rockies have become an unsupervised playpen for reactionaries to act out warrior fantasies against demonic wolves, coastal elites, and idiotic environmentalists — the members of these latter two categories being “two-legged” wolves. The sheer extremity of the hatred shown to wolves, and the bizarre juxtaposition of the KKK-like hoods and American flag, plainly expose this movement for what it is: A scapegoating of the wolves by men and women who have succumbed to their own rage against imagined enemies. And while the failure of federal, state and local political leaders to denounce the anti-wolf movement illuminates their moral failure, history offers encouraging instances of public indignation creating change from below.
Take, as just one example, the eventual take-down of Senator Joe McCarthy. After years of cynical Red-baiting, including accusing high ranking military and intelligence officials of treason, McCarthy was eventually brought to a kind of justice. McCarthy accused the US Army of harboring Communists and, in June 1954, in the course of a televised Senate investigation of the Army-McCarthy conflict, McCarthy accused a young lawyer working for Army counsel Joseph Welch of being affiliated with communism. After McCarthy repeatedly pressed his accusations, Welch savaged McCarthy: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Welch’s indignation broke the spell McCarthy had cast upon the nation and ended his political career.
Perhaps this latest wolf snuff photo will bring a similar kind of justice and force the public to declare, in no uncertain terms, that wolf killing is un-American. Maybe it will force people to ask: When will this indecent killing come to an end?
P.S. This is what it would look like if wolf management was left to stateside hunter’s association groups and not in federal care! I’m in no way claiming that USFWS have no faults but I’m quite sure that the U.S. would have even more trouble with poaching, trapping etc, than they do today. This is my personal opinion. Colbby and Codi Gines Facebook page does not exist anymore, although their website does: http://www.cgwildernessadventures.com/index.php?page=home
I took it upon myself to write a shocontact infort e-mail to them in which I conveyed my own point of view to them and how utterly disgusting I think their line of business is. If there is anyone else out there who feel like doing the same you will find their contact info on the last page.
It makes me sick to see such a majestic animal murdered in cold blood!
From feature films to fairy tales wolves haven’t got the best reputation.
And they’re not too popular with farmers in some parts of the US either.
For years the wolves were hunted and killed but now they’re protected.
Kirsty checked out why that’s got some farmers pretty angry.
KIRSTY BENNETT, REPORTER: Wolves get a pretty bad rap. They’re either a scary superhero like Wolverine or appear as an evil werewolf character in the movies. In Australia, this is the closest we get to seeing wolves. But over in the US and Canada, these animals have roamed in the wild for a long time.
This is one place wolves can call home. It’s the Wild West in America – a state called Idaho. Thousands of Gray Wolves used to hang around here but by the 1930s most of them were killed by hunters. Almost 70 years later, packs of wolves from Canada were brought back to the area to rebuild the population. Now, around sixteen hundred wolves live here and in two of the neighbouring states. They can’t be hunted either because they’re a protected species. And that doesn’t please some of the locals, who don’t think they belong.
Ron’s family has lived on this range for more than a hundred years. His feeling towards wolves is pretty obvious, he doesn’t like them.
RON GILLETTE: What are these wolves going to eat? We’re in a wildlife disaster right now they’re killing near everything. What are they going to do eat our livestock and then start eating humans?
KIRSTY: Ron would normally be out hunting wolves by now. But the US Federal Court has put the animals back on the protected list, so they can’t be touched for the time being. It’s a frustrating situation for farmers like Luke too. He’s had to lock up his dogs and cattle behind huge fences to protect them.
LUKE MORGAN, RANCHER: Now we spend a lot of nights and days worrying about how many livestock is actually getting killed by them. It’ll put a lot of ranchers out of business, which is hard on the whole economic deal.
KIRSTY: So for some, wolves are public enemy number one. But for others, they’re great mates!
NANCY TAYLOR, “WOLF PEOPLE”: Give mummy a kiss. Give mummy kisses. Good boy!
KIRSTY: Nancy has been breeding wolves in captivity for about seventeen years. And she reckons their bad reputation is unfair.
NANCY TAYLOR: They make him out to be a monster, a snarling evil creature which he isn’t.
KIRSTY: Here, wolves look pretty similar to your pet dog. And they’re not really much different. Many scientists reckon that domestic dogs evolved from wolves. Over tens of thousands of years people have used selective breeding to get dogs for their own use.
So if that’s the case, all dogs, including this little fur-ball are pretty close relatives! Hundreds of years ago, before white people moved in, Idaho was also home to the Nez Perce Indians who feel a strong connection to the wolf. Tribal leaders are joining the battle to protect the animal.
This bloke reckons you can’t sacrifice a species just because it’s convenient. For the time being it sounds like the wolves are a bit safer than they have been in any fairytale.
COMMENTS (57)
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SIX EM RODICK :
24 Nov 2010 5:46:49pm
as Dan said, but HIGHER fences
SWIFTCLAWS :
24 Nov 2010 10:01:38am
I seriously hate the way wolves are treated in fairy tales, they have a right to live in this world.
DAN :
17 Nov 2010 1:28:50pm
Just put up fences! Simple!
I like wolves and I think they should continue to be protected.
SHAMISE :
11 Nov 2010 10:56:50am
Wolves are awesome like dogs they dont do anything to cattle.
TOP RIDER :
11 Nov 2010 10:54:57am
I reckon that wolves shouldn’t be hunted they have a right to live on the world
PITTYGIRL :
11 Nov 2010 10:54:41am
I think wolves do nothing to hurt livestock as long as they make secure fences
BOB :
11 Nov 2010 10:53:38am
I think that wolves should be kill because they are killing the sheep and cattle
MR PUFFY :
11 Nov 2010 10:44:28am
I think that wolves should be protected so at least one animal doesn’t get extinct
PLUTO :
11 Nov 2010 10:43:00am
I love wolves
They should stay in America and be protected. Farmers shouldn’t shoot them.
Wolves are wicked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CALLUM AND DANIEL :
11 Nov 2010 10:38:30am
We both think that Wolves should be killed and be protected
THE FANTASTIC CABBAGE :
11 Nov 2010 10:36:26am
The wolves should stay because the Nev Perce Indians feel a strong connection to them and they were they before the white yanks
LARICK97 :
09 Nov 2010 10:50:19am
I think they should be protected creatures because they were on land before the white people
EBONY03 :
09 Nov 2010 10:50:03am
I think the wolves should be on the protected list because it was their land first .
PETER GRIFFEN :
09 Nov 2010 10:48:03am
I think wolves should be controlled not kill them but just stop them breeding as fast but i dont think they should be killed as long as they don’t hassel the farmers to much.
NED :
09 Nov 2010 10:45:54am
I think that wolves shouldn’t be able to roam free. People should fence a big bushland area off and put them all in there. Shooting wolves should not be aloud because it is cruel.
KAVISH1100 :
08 Nov 2010 4:49:31pm
I like wolves because they are not that dangerous if you want to pet them but if you try to harm them, they will attack back.
JESSIE MACNEY :
02 Nov 2010 6:39:03pm
I absolutely agree with all wolf supporters! Wolves should definately have the rights to not be hunted! Imagine if you were a wolf and you got hunted because you were a pest to some silly old farmer. Now that is just plain unfair!!!WOLVES MUST NOT BE HUNTED!!!!
I LOVE ANIMALS :
02 Nov 2010 5:57:53pm
Wolves are amazing creatures they don’t deserve to be killed to save livestock.
THE GREAT CABBAGE :
02 Nov 2010 5:19:47pm
I thnk that it was a very touching story…. *Sniff* SAVE THE WOLVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THALIA :
02 Nov 2010 4:16:34pm
I think wolves should roam free. They can just eat the sick livestock so that the farmers don’t need to spend mutch money on curing them…
THE GREAT CABBAGE :
02 Nov 2010 3:55:22pm
I love wolves!!! DO NOT KILL WOLVES!!!
ANIMALS :
01 Nov 2010 11:51:53pm
I really think every single wildlife including wolves should be let free from captivity and I think every animal has the right to have freedom and to roam around the place. They can be free to survive and no one is allowed to hurt them. They are really rare now because harmful hunters killed them which is really bad so START SAVING WOLVES AND WILDLIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MEG ,12 :
01 Nov 2010 9:37:43pm
Wolves are native animals to the area, it could ruin eco systems to take them away.
P.S. Wolverine was named after the animal wolverine not the wolf
YOONGY :
01 Nov 2010 7:29:29pm
I reckon wolves should be around, have u farmers thought about how much u did to those animals and wolves just to plant trees?! And ITS LIFE part of the food chain – cant they eat wat we grow as well i mean we eat them?
LUV 4 WOLVES :
01 Nov 2010 7:06:15pm
These people should be more sensitive. In the end, the wolves, as said, are just dogs. Do we kill dogs because they eat some cattle? No! (well, not domestic dogs) Wolves are wonderful animals. To harm or kill them is absolutely downright horrid and is a horrible crime. Save the wolves! Save the wolves!
*This comment was from a 10-20 yr old girl who has a great heart for wolves*
CHRISY101 :
01 Nov 2010 6:56:21pm
Wolves are just like dogs but not as well trained.
IZZY :
01 Nov 2010 6:55:19pm
Like totally wolves are soo scary!
YYYYYYYYYJ :
05 Nov 2010 8:55:14pm
I agree!
2-3B AND 2K :
01 Nov 2010 10:34:01am
Wolves and Dogs are related to eachother.
We find this very interesting.
What do you think.
THE GREAT CABBAGE :
02 Nov 2010 5:23:59pm
Wolves ARE dogs!!!
GINNY :
31 Oct 2010 8:41:17pm
C’mon! Wolves kill livestock! It costs a lot of money and the poor farmers!
ADALITA :
28 Oct 2010 8:00:06pm
I think that it is good that they are re-breeding the wolves because it is their natural habitat. There should be no discrimination against the wolves because they would think ‘We were here before them why should we get discriminated?’
I think it is good the way the lady cares about the wolves and how they are supposed to live.
SOUNDHOUND :
28 Oct 2010 6:38:37pm
I think wolves are great animals and should not be hunted
PHILLIP AND MR. CHICKEN :
28 Oct 2010 3:09:36pm
I like wolves and I think people should stop killing them coz there are only 116 left and they r the bomb
BULLBUG :
28 Oct 2010 3:08:46pm
I think that we should look after the wolves. Because wolves are the best.
BLABLABLA6671 :
27 Oct 2010 5:59:19pm
It’s so cruel people want to kill an animal. there so FLUFFY!!!!!!!
CZCVZMNVMN :
01 Nov 2010 8:49:41pm
They shouldn’t kill wolves because they take too much space wolves are something like dogs that round up cattle and i do agree that they’re FLUFFY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GREEN_MUNKI :
27 Oct 2010 5:57:55pm
Yeah, I have a friend who loves wolves and I didn’t really know what she was on about before i watched this BTN story. Now i look at them and think ‘Wow, who would ever be cruel enough to want to kill this amazing creature just for fun.’ Seriously, though wolves are AWSOME!
LUKE :
27 Oct 2010 4:44:18pm
The werewolf looks weird
RONNIE :
27 Oct 2010 4:37:55pm
I think anybody who thinks they should go is mean. They have a right and anyway, they’re too fluffy to die!!
CHARLIE HIGHGATE :
27 Oct 2010 4:22:37pm
I think wolves should be let free out of captivity and not be able to get hunted down.
KATE :
27 Oct 2010 1:06:41pm
I think the wolves shouldnt be killed because the farmers livestock are being killed. I also think the farmers should be given a fence where wolves shouldnt be able to come in
BELLABANJO :
27 Oct 2010 10:38:59am
I don’t know why people would want to shoot an adorable little animal because of crops. if you were the animal that needed something to eat wouldn’t you go to farms as well??? think about it…
NATALIE :
26 Oct 2010 9:09:50pm
white wolves are so adorable and cute they look like huskies
LOL :
05 Nov 2010 8:59:56pm
the white wolf was so cuteeeee!!
I want one!
BRIDGET W.P.S. :
26 Oct 2010 6:28:20pm
I am glad that the wolves are protected and hope they will STAY protected.
MIKE :
28 Oct 2010 8:35:56pm
I am also glad but they don’t need to stay protected for more then 6 months people need hunting for meat
LOL :
26 Oct 2010 6:27:47pm
I think that the farmers shouldnt be hunting the wolves because they are soo CUTE and other stuff.
I LOVE WOLVES
MIKE P :
26 Oct 2010 6:08:15pm
They are so cute, I love Wolves
LOOPY LU :
26 Oct 2010 5:25:58pm
Just because wolves are being wolves (as they should) does not mean they should die. Farmers just need to make an effort to put high fencing on their land. These beautiful animals cannot be killed- that is just cruel.
SOPHIE :
26 Oct 2010 4:19:06pm
I think that wolves should be protected by law because they are animals and they have their rights as well as us. If farmers livestock are killed well than that’s their fault for not locking them up. Anyone else agree?
SHANNY :
26 Oct 2010 10:57:22am
I love wolves too
WOLVES 88 :
26 Oct 2010 4:08:12pm
I know. they are so cute!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just like cats!
AUDY :
27 Oct 2010 8:23:57pm
I SO AGREE WTTH U
BLABLABLA :
28 Oct 2010 6:37:14pm
WOLVES HAVE A RIGHT TO BE ALIVE!! IF WE KILLL OFF ALL WOLVES THEN THE FOOD CHAIN WILL GO OUT OF WACK!!!
I happened to come across this old Australian article regarding wolves and I found it quite interesting! Especially the comments. To think this was written only 6 years ago! Times have changed, reached rock bottom only to start climbing slowly again. What pleases me most regarding this article and it’s comments is that the majority is pro-wolf! I’d appreciate my reader’s input through comments.
October 21, 2016 By Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radioon Oct 20, 2016
A gray wolf rests in the snow. National Park Service photo
A former state wildlife biologist contends Wisconsin’s high wolf numbers may not be the driving factor behind a record 40 hunting dogs killed by wolves during the bear season that ended Oct. 11.
Timber Wolf Alliance Coordinator Adrian Wydeven, a former wildlife biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said the state saw fewer dogs killed by wolves the last time Wisconsin’s wolf population was this high.
“The previous high count of 815 (wolves) in 2012 had only seven dogs killed that year, and that was the lowest wolf depredation on dogs in about 10 years,” Wydeven said.
The number of wolves in Wisconsin grew about 16 percent this year with a minimum estimate of 867. Dave MacFarland, the state’s large carnivore specialist, said a number of things could have played a role in the number of dogs killed this bear-hunting season.
“Wolf population levels are one of them, but we don’t have hard information that we can point to and don’t want to speculate on what may have caused this change,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see if this repeats itself.”
Wydeven said a possible increase in hunting activities due to permitting changes last year may also be driving a rise in conflicts. Last year, lawmakers eliminated Class B bear licenses for those who wanted to assist hunters with setting baits or training.
“If we’re allowing much more open policy, allowing a lot more people to participate in that activity, that could account for the increases of hound depredations in Wisconsin,” Wydeven said.
But MacFarland said it’s not known what impact the permitting change may have had on hunter activity this year.
Wildlife officials have said wolves may also be more protective of their pups during bear season and the training of hunting dogs beforehand. Research also suggests the length of Wisconsin’s bear baiting season may play a role in higher numbers of attacks on hunting dogs than neighboring states. Bear hunters can set baits as early as mid-April in Wisconsin, whereas states such as Michigan don’t allow baiting until two weeks before the beginning of the season.
Wydeven said the longer baits are used, the more likely they’ll attract wolves.
“When hunters release their dogs at the bear baits to go chase bears, there’s a chance if wolves have recently visited the site, they could be sending their dogs after wolves,” Wydeven said.
Joseph Bump, an associate professor with Michigan Technological University, was lead author of a 2013 study that found hunting dogs were up to seven times more likely to be killed by wolves in Wisconsin than in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
“If stakeholders are sincerely interested in decreasing wolves killing hunting dogs, then there’s good wildlife science to suggest that both the timing and length of the bear baiting season is a factor that should be on the table for discussion and potential adjustment,” Bump said.
Bump is continuing research in Michigan on how frequently species other than bears visit bait sites. He expects those findings will become available next year.
Bear hunters in Minnesota are not allowed to use dogs while hunting.
Wisconsin Public Radio can be heard in the Twin Ports at 91.3 FM or online at wpr.org/news.
Gabe Spence, of the WSU Large Carnivore Lab, listens for the signal from radio collars on the Profanity Peak wolf pack. (Robert Wielgus/Washington State University)
The state is going to wipe out the Profanity Peak wolf pack because they are killing cattle, but a WSU researcher monitoring the den says the conflict is predictable and avoidable.
For the second time in four years, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife is exterminating a wolf pack to protect Len McIrvin’s cattle — this time, a WSU researcher says, after the rancher turned his animals out right on top of the Profanity Peak pack’s den.
Robert Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Lab at Washington State University, has radio-collared 700 cattle and dozens of wolves, including animals in the Profanity Peak pack, as part of his ongoing study of conflicts between wolves and livestock in Washington. He also camera-monitors the Profanity Peak pack’s den.
“This livestock operator elected to put his livestock directly on top of their den site; we have pictures of cows swamping it, I just want people to know,” Wielgus said in an interview Thursday.
McIrvin, of the Diamond M Ranch, near the Canadian border north of Kettle Falls, Stevens County, in northeastern Washington, did not return calls for comment Thursday. The allotment Wielgus monitors, and McIrvin grazes, is on public land in the Colville National Forest.
The cattle pushed out the wolves’ native prey of deer, and with a den full of young to feed, what came next was predictable, Wielgus said.
After the wolves repeatedly killed McIrvin’s cattle, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, as per its protocol, authorized shooting wolves in the pack by helicopter, killing the pack’s breeding female by mistake. The department then stopped the killings after the wolf predations subsided.
But the department announced Saturday that after more cows were killed, it would eliminate the entire Profanity pack. That killing is ongoing, and department staff killed four more wolves this week, bringing the total to six.
The department targeted the Wedge Pack after McIrvin lost cattle to that pack, near the same area.
McIrvin has refused to radio-collar his cattle to help predict and avoid interactions with radio-collared wolves, Wielgus said.
He called the killing of cows by the Profanity Peak pack at their den site predictable and avoidable.
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife authorized fieldstaff to kill the Profanity Peak wolf pack to prevent more attacks on cattle in the rangelands between Republic and Kettle Falls. The state is home to at least 90 wolves and 19 packs as of early 2016.
By contrast, Wielgus has documented no cattle kills among producers who are participating in his research studies and very few among producers using Fish & Wildlife’s protocol.
“In Washington, more cattle are killed by logging trucks, fire and lightning than wolves,” Wielgus said.
Carter Niemeyer, of Boise, Idaho, a wolf expert who led the effort to reintroduce them into Idaho for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service before he retired in 2006, said things won’t change until the Forest Service changes its policy to bar grazing on allotments with known active dens and pup rendezvous sites.
“If this were on private land, it’s turn the page, ho-hum,” Niemeyer said. “But public lands have to be managed differently. Those lands belong to all of us, and so do the native wildlife.”
Killing the wolves is not a lasting solution, he predicted. “It is a short-term solution to a long-term problem; they will just come back,” Niemeyer said.
“It puts the responsibility on the managing authority; it’s, ‘Come get your wild dogs, you said you would, and you set the protocol, and I want these wolves out of here,’ and he (McIrvin) has a good track record of demanding that.”
But it’s the pack that’s got to go, not the ranchers using the allotment, said Ferry County Commissioner Mike Blankenship.
“The McIrvin family has run cows on that allotment for 73 years, and now all of a sudden they have to pull out because of wolves and go somewhere else?
“I haven’t met anyone here who wants them wiped out,” Blankenship said of wolves. “But we want them managed.”
The commission last Friday passed a resolution authorizing the Ferry County sheriff to take out the pack if the state doesn’t.
“For the most part, the local people believe the removal of that pack is long overdue,” Blankenship said. He said the county depends on a healthy ranching economy, which is also part of the state’s culture, custom and history.
“You don’t think Seattle had wolves originally? I am more than willing to pay as a county to round these critters up and bring them to you. If they are in your backyard, you have a whole new attitude about it,” Blankenship said.
Wolf advocates have been dismayed by the state’s decision to kill the pack — 11 animals of a total estimated state population of 90 wolves in 19 packs, as of early 2016.
Listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act west of U.S. Route 97, the wolves are not protected east of the highway. People remain their biggest impediment to recovery, which is required by state law.
Since July 8, 12 cattle have been killed or hurt in the Profanity Peak pack area, according to Fish & Wildlife. So far, the department has killed six wolves in the pack under the authorization of Director Jim Unsworth. He is appointed by the state Fish and Wildlife Commission, which in turn is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.
Donny Martorello, the department’s wolf-policy lead, said the state remains committed to wolf recovery and coexistence. It confirmed its first wolf recolonizations in 2008, and so far has authorized lethal removals in three instances.
“The majority of the time, these two can coexist,” Martorello said of wolves and livestock. “The department is committed to wolf recovery, but we also have a shared responsibility to protect livestock from repeated depredation by wolves.”
Wolves were hunted to extinction in Washington in the early 1900s, but have been gradually recolonizing, from populations in Idaho and British Columbia.
The lame duck Congress looks to take a few last swings at wolves on its way out the door.
HOLLY KUCHERA/SHUTTERSTOCK
As the upcoming presidential election consumes our attention, the most anti-wildlife Congress in U.S. history is entering its final stretch and quietly working to pass members’ last pet pieces of legislation. Much of the proposed legislation would have damaging and lasting impacts on America’s wildlife and wild lands. These include measures that could prove devastating to a variety of wolf populations.
Last week, Earthjustice went to court to defend a 2014 victory that ended the state of Wyoming’s extreme anti-wolf management plan. Wyoming had instituted a “kill-on-sight” policy for wolves in more than 80 percent of the state and allowed one wolf-killing loophole after another in the rest. Among the victims of this policy was of one of Yellowstone’s most famous animal celebrities, 832F, the alpha female of the Lamar Canyon pack. The wolf had been hailed as a heroine in the dramatic success story of gray wolves’ return to Yellowstone. She was the subject of podcasts and was featured in a National Geographic TV documentary. When she was killed, The New York Timeswrote what amounted to an obituary for the wolf.
The life of 832F is documented in National Geographic’s Wild Yellowstone series.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC/YOUTUBE
Earthjustice took the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court over the agency’s decision to hand over wolf management to a state with a history of extreme anti-wolf policies—and we won. We expect a decision in Wyoming’s appeal of our victory in the next three to six months. But while the judges deliberate, some members of Congress are trying to bypass the legal process by using legislative edict to remove wolves in Wyoming and three western Great Lakes states from the list of species protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Measures like the Wyoming-western Great Lakes wolf delisting threat are appearing as legislative “riders” tacked onto must-pass government spending bills and other large pieces of legislation. Another rider would block the act’s protections for Mexican gray wolves, despite the fact that there are fewer than 100 of these highly imperiled animals left in the United States. And yet another rider would delist all gray wolves in the entire lower 48 states—despite the fact that wolves currently occupy just a small portion of their former U.S. range. These and other anti-environmental riders will be considered as part of negotiations between both political parties and the White House over how to keep the federal government funded beyond early December.
Earthjustice continues our fight in the courtroom on behalf of wolves, and you can helpgive this incredible species the chance it deserves by urging President Obama to reject any legislation that includes deadly provisions for wolves.
2015 marked the 20th anniversary of the reintroduction of gray wolves to the northern Rockies, and since that time wolves have been under nearly constant threat of losing their protections. The Weekly Howl provides insights and education about the gray wolf and updates on the status of its protections while celeSourcebrating the iconic species as a vital part of a functioning, healthy ecosystem. Posts ran through the summer of 2015 and resumed in the fall of 2016.
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Wolf Is My Soul 