Bush to allow wolves into extinction...

[Yosemite Joy]

Yet another happy environment move by the Bushy Admin from Hell...

[from the Grand Forks Herald (I used to live there ah yah eh)]

MINNESOTA: Bush proposes removing some wolf protections Minnesota officials ready to take over
By Lisa Gibson and John Myers
Herald and Duluth News Tribune

Farmers and ranchers in northwestern Minnesota would have broader leeway to shoot and trap nuisance wolves under a new proposal made Thursday by the Bush Administration. U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton set in motion a federal plan to hand management of gray wolves in the western Great Lakes states back to tribal and state resource agencies. Norton proposed removing gray wolves from the endangered species list, saying they have recovered to the point that federal protection is no longer needed.

The proposal covers Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, where roughly 3,800 wolves live. It also would remove federal wolf protection in neighboring parts of the Dakotas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, where rogue wolves might wander but where federal authorities say they are unlikely to establish populations.
Under the federal proposal, state and tribal governments would take responsibility for ensuring that populations of gray wolves, also called timber wolves, remain healthy. All three states have drawn up wolf management plans that have won approval of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The new wildlife management plan drawn up in Minnesota is a good one, said Stuart Benson, a state conservation officer in the Erskine, Minn., area.

"It will certainly free up our authority," said Benson. "Right now, our hands are tied."
Benson said with the federal government in control of the wolf population, state officials cannot do any trapping of the animals. That is left only to the federal government. With management handed over to the states, state officials will control the wolves' protection and prevent them from attacking livestock and pets.

Minnesota wolf management plans call for limited but more lethal wolf control measures - including public shooting and trapping of wolves - which is prohibited under federal law.
In North Dakota, the proposal applies to the area east of the Missouri River and U.S. Highway 83.

"Periodically, wolves are here," said Gary Rankin, game warden in Larimore, N.D. "Since we don't have a resident population, our management would consist of protecting them."

Federal authorities believe they no longer need to guard wolf populations in the region.
"Our proposal to delist the gray wolf indicates our confidence that those who will assume management of the species will safeguard its long-term survival," U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.

Wolf zones
The Fish and Wildlife Service also proposed removing the gray wolf from the endangered list in 2004, but a federal judge struck down the plan last year because it included other states where wolves weren't as well established.
Minnesota lawmakers, anticipating federal action years ago, passed a state wolf management plan in 2000 that includes two wolf management zones. In the northeastern third of the state, wolves will retain most protections. In other areas, including northwest Minnesota, farmers and others will be allowed to shoot or trap wolves if they are a threat to livestock, pets or people.

"In the wolf zone, the benefit of the doubt goes to the wolf. They are essentially protected," said Mike DonCarlos, wildlife program manager for the Minnesota DNR. "In the agricultural zone, the benefit of the doubt goes to the person. There's more leeway allowed on when wolves can be killed."

Benson said he has not had many complaints about wolves in the Erskine area, largely because there is not much livestock in the area. When he was located in Roseau, Minn., however, he had many wolf-related complaints.
"I had 60 percent of timber wolf complaints in the state in the 1980s," Benson said.

Minnesota's plan does not allow for general hunting or trapping. There are no allowances for bounties, poisoning or destruction of wolf dens in any of the three state management plans.
Still, attorneys for groups that challenged the federal wolf plan say a Great Lakes-only plan is not a done deal. While population numbers are stable, some groups still oppose the relatively broad shooting and trapping provisions in the state management plans.

Success story

The recovery of wolves is seen as a great success for the federal Endangered Species Act, and supporters of the act say it's important to show that, once recovered, animals on the endangered species list can be removed from the list.

Gray wolves were extinct in all of the lower 48 states in the 1970s except for Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota. The federal government stepped in to protect wolves in the mid-1970s. Since then, wolf numbers have grown exponentially in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and eventually in the northern Rockies.

Wolves also have recovered near Yellowstone National Park, where they were reintroduced in the 1990s.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife will conduct public hearings before making a final decision to delist the wolves. The process could take up to a year.

[Patagoniamaniac]

I seriously Dont believe that the bush adm. wants the wolves to become extinct just controlled...

If there was an over abundance of mountain lions in our area..I would want something to be done if it endangered my kids. We actually have a mountain lion we hear behind our house a lot! it attacked our neighbors horse..not to get off the subject but..the wolves have made a HUGE come back and in some areas are becoming dangerously too close to human civilization....children in particular..its sad..I love wolves and it's just sad and unfortunate that us humans are encrotching more and more on natures grounds..

seriously though...Just because the " Bush administration" has taken them off the endangered species list..doesnt mean they want them extinct. cmon...

Wisconsin: Debate intensifies over efforts to control wolf population

Source: Copyright 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Date: February 26, 2006
Byline: Lee Bergquist



The gray wolf is on a roll.

Its population is booming. Lone wolves have turned up in every corner of the state. And increasingly, residents are reporting a growing number of close encounters with this elusive predator.

"Nobody is alive in Wisconsin who has experienced this kind of wolf population," said Adrian Wydeven, the top wolf expert with the state Department of Natural Resources.

"There has been nothing like this since the 1800s."

Wolves have been aided by government protection, a more charitable public image and a teeming deer population that has offered an abundant food supply.

But the wolf remains a polarizing force, resurrecting old hostilities when it preys on livestock and meanders into residential areas.

Wisconsin's wolf population was estimated to be between 425 and 455 last winter -- the most recent count available.

That's five times the number of a decade ago, and as the wolves prosper, people are seeing more of them.

Ronda Dural called it a "lifetime experience" when she locked eyes with a wolf 20 feet away from her on a sunny summer day in 2003.

But during the 2004 Christmas break, a pair of wolves, and then a third, followed her for several miles on a desolate road close to home near Butternut in Ashland County, Wis. -- even though she yelled and clapped her hands to scare them off.

At one point, she stood 20 yards away, her springer spaniel hugging her legs, as two of the wolves watched her from a stand of pines.

"I never personally thought they were going to attack me," said the fourth-grade teacher. "What concerned me is that they just didn't go away."

When wolves first returned to Wisconsin in the mid-1970s, biologists could only guess how many of the animals the state could support. In 1989, DNR biologists estimated it was about 80. Later, the goal was raised to 350 wolves.

As a sign of how well the wolf has done, a 1997 study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimated it could take 40 years for the state to hit 400 wolves.

"Now I think we are pretty close to the number of wolves the state can hold," Wydeven said.

But others disagree.

"It's hard for me to see these animals treated as a numerical figure," said Karlyn Atkinson Berg, a conservation consultant for the Humane Society of the United States.

"Nature will take care of this," said Berg, noting that a declining deer population will control wolves better than government controls.

Some hunters in the north are also grousing that wolves are bringing down the deer population.

Darrell Fohr of Donner's Bay Resort on the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage in Wisconsin said that wolves are the reason he was skunked during seven days of hunting during the 2005 season.

Customers at the resort also reported few kills, and it was the first time the resort wasn't full during the hunting season.

"That's ridiculous," he said. "I personally think the wolf is a beautiful animal, but I don't think it is being controlled."

Before European settlement, wolves roamed the entire state. By 1865, the Legislature had approved its first wolf bounty, for $5.

By the late 1950s, wolves had been extirpated, and according to the DNR, millions of state dollars had been spent to kill them.

The wolf received protection under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1974, making it illegal for citizens to kill wolves.

Wolves survived an outbreak of canine parvovirus, which drove down the population from 1982 to 1986, and each year wolves are killed by mange, vehicle accidents and, inevitably, gunshots. At least seven wolves were illegally killed in 2004-'05, DNR figures show.

As the wolf population has boomed, there is mounting criticism the DNR is undercounting them.

Wydeven makes two dozen speeches a year, and increasingly, "I have to explain our method of counting wolves," he said. "Now there seems to be much less trust, or believability, in our counts than there used to be."

In January, Wydeven was summoned to a forestry committee meeting of the Ashland County Board where supervisors complained that residents are seeing more wolves than the 50 or so the DNR had counted in the area.

"These wolves -- either rightly or wrongly -- are not showing a fear of humans," said Mike Hamm, a county supervisor and critic of the state's population estimates.

Hamm, who is a law enforcement officer, said a wolf stood 50 feet from his cruiser in the middle of the afternoon in 2004. "I put my siren on and it doesn't even run away -- it walks away," he said.

In Montreal, southwest of Hurley in Iron County, reports of wolves wandering into town prompted a sit-down last winter between community leaders and the DNR.

"We wanted them moved," said Mayor Robert Morzenti. "They've been seen on the street and there's a ton of little kids. People walk their dogs and they exercise. All it takes is for one person to get hurt, or one pet to be killed. I think it's a concern about safety."

After the meeting, Morzenti was told by authorities that they couldn't do anything because of the Endangered Species Act.

But wildlife biologist Dave Ruid of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said he saw food in yards at two homes that attracted 20 to 30 deer in the middle of the day. The wolves were no doubt attracted to the deer, he said.

The run-ins are driven by a combination of factors, Wydeven said. In addition to more wolves, urbanization is continuing across the north, which increases the likelihood that people will have some contact. Feeding deer then habituates wolves to draw ever closer to humans.

Wolf attacks on humans, however, are rare. A biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in 2002 investigated 80 close wolf encounters in North America since the 1970s, and found 16 cases of wolf bites.

For years, advocates noted that no one in North America had been killed by a wolf in at least 100 years.

But in November in northern Saskatchewan, a 22-year-old man is believed to have been killed by wolves near a remote camp owned by a mining exploration company.

The death is bound to change the semantics of the wolf debate, all parties seem to agree.

However, Berg called the incident a "red herring" and an isolated instance. She lives in northern Minnesota, where there are more than 2,000 wolves.

If people and wolves couldn't co-exist, "We'd have a lot of deaths in Minnesota by now," she said.

For all of the talk of a burgeoning wolf population, Wydeven, the veteran wolf expert, has never seen a wolf during 16 years of conducting his winter wolf surveys.

The trips are one of the tools the DNR uses to count wolves. Wydeven and others also spend time searching for wolves by air, and trapping and following wolves that have been outfitted with radio collars.

On a survey last month in remote sections of Sawyer and Ashland counties in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, he drove slowly down snow-covered forest roads.

He stopped suddenly and pronounced, "RLU," referring to raised-leg urination. For wolf biologists, it's a sign that an alpha male or alpha female has recently marked territory. Wolf packs often use streams and rivers, even roadways, to mark their territories.

He looked for blood in the urine, which could mean that a female is pregnant. Farther down the road, he spotted wolf tracks. He concluded they were from a wolf in the Log Creek pack, named for a local stream and tributary of the Flambeau River.

By day's end, Wydeven had spotted the tracks of two of Wisconsin's 108 wolf packs and 17 urine stains believed to come from wolves.

All data from other ground and aerial trips, and contributions from residents trained to count wolves, will be analyzed at an all-day meeting and tallied later this winter to set a final wolf count for 2005-'06.

Wolves are highly mobile, averaging 25 miles a day -- sometimes covering 100 miles a day. Thus, a single wolf can be seen by many people, Wydeven said.

In 1999, an itinerant female under study in Minnesota and outfitted with a special satellite transmitter entered Wisconsin near Danbury in northwestern Wisconsin, traveled across the state to Green Bay, then back to Stevens Point, to Portage and La Crosse before making a final scramble north to Grantsburg in Burnett County and into Minnesota. Total elapsed time: three months.

The return of wolves has prompted groups such as the Wisconsin Cattlemen's Association to press federal authorities for freer regulations that would allow farmers to kill wolves that prey on livestock.

The DNR also wants more authority to kill depredating wolves, but at the same time the agency views the big predator as vital to the ecosystem.

"Their comeback is a symbol that there are still wild areas left in the state," Wydeven said.

But as the wolf population grows, especially in the northwest, there is an uneasy co-existence between wolves and farmers and some hunters.

Since 1984, farmers and hunters have been paid nearly $419,000 in public money after wolves have killed livestock and hunting dogs, DNR figures show.

In April 2003, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the status of the wolf from endangered to threatened. But environmentalists and animal welfare advocates intervened in federal court and argued the agency was relaxing protections in other states where wolves hadn't yet recolonized.

A judge in Oregon agreed, and on Jan. 31, 2005, Wisconsin wolves were reclassified as an endangered species.

The DNR, however, obtained a special permit to kill problem wolves in April 2005. But again activists objected in court, and Wisconsin lost the permit in September 2005.

Authorities can't currently kill wolves, but 70 problem wolves were euthanized between 2003 and 2005, according to the DNR.

Berg, of the Humane Society, said Wisconsin should be downgraded to a threatened wolf status, which would allow problem wolves to be killed.

"Unfortunately, the history of wolves is that if a wolf kills one sheep, then people want to kill 100 wolves," she said.

"It never requires farmers to exercise good husbandry."

But Eric Koens of Bruce in Rusk County, a member of the cattlemen's association, said: "The pro-wolf people have been making excuses for years for wolves. They just say, put out guard dogs or lights. None of this works."

Eventually, there could be a hunting season on wolves, if other controls don't keep the wolf population at bay, Wydeven said.

But one experiment in wolf control appears to have been lost.

For several years, the DNR trapped and moved problem wolves to areas in Forest County in the eastern section of the Chequamegon-Nicolet, where wolf numbers are lower.

But citing safety concerns, county supervisors in 2001 voted to oppose new transfers.

Seven other northern counties followed suit, and the DNR stopped the practice.



Originally posted at: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/centredaily/sports/1...l=centredaily_sports (http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/centredaily/sports/13964195.htm?source=rss&channel=centredaily_sports)

[Yosemite Joy]

Yeah and all those silly pesky bears that roam around here, we should kill them. I mean, they are scaryish and could eat children. Plus dammit they break into cars.

[Patagoniamaniac]

Nah...I like the bear that comes and eats from my dogs dish every so often..next time he or she comes along..I'm gonna have my 8 year old feed it a hot dog by hand...

[Yosemite Joy]

Haha, but sadly that is exactly what is wrong with the bears around here. They get fed left over people food. Then they break into cars to get more.

Years ago, when I was in high school, I worked at a restaurant/hotel in El Portal. We had bears come all the time. People would throw food to them from their cars.

[beautiful_mess38]

People if you don't want to deal with the wild life go live in the city.
When moving to wild life habitat learn to live with them.
Any kind of wild life including a racoon can attack children.

And I agree with Pata on this one. I doubt very seriously The Bush Admin. wants the wolves extinct again.

Which admin. let the wolves go extinct in the first place?

[Lacey]

I agree with Pata and Messy on this one. I'm a major animal lover and I used to be anti hunting until it was explained to me that it is actually helpful to most species. Now that the wolf is no longer endangered, it can't be allowed to just run rampant. That's not good for anyone.

I DO, however, think they should not allow trapping!!! I think any form of control should be as humane as possible. Yes, it's very sad that some of the wolves will have to die...but what is the alternative?

[MtnEagle]

Besides it would be too hard for Coldwolf to go extinct...

http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/tongue.gif

In RE to Yellowstone. The reintroduction of Wolves to that area has brought back several species of tree (Aspen, pines, etc) that were being killed off by the Deer, Elk, or Cariboo before they could reach a certain level of maturity.

The wolves maintain the population of the deer, etc, but more importantly keep them moving so much that they don't have time to chew on seedlings and saplings...

There is a chain...

http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/wink3.gif

[Yosemite_Wolf]

the ppl who want wolves extinct are those pesky ppl who brought tasty items such as sheep INTO the
wolves territory. The wolves were in Montana and Minnisota first. Its part of their natural habitat. Im too tired to state any facts etc etc... just giving general comments that I know on the top of my pretty wolf head. Its not just Bush who wants to "control" the wolves. There is actually a group of so called "men" in Maine who wish to erradicate every last wolf from their fair state. (hunters of course) and I have nothing against hunting. Heck, Its man who has encrouched on the wolves, mtn lions, bears, racoons etc etc. Look at all the fools who moved into Mission Viejo down in OC and now complain that the mtn lions cruise their streets munching on small children.

the wolf has spoken

[jakobscalpel]

I agree with Pata and Messy on this one. I'm a major animal lover and I used to be anti hunting until it was explained to me that it is actually helpful to most species.

Please describe how hunting is helpful to most species. I'm not against hunting, although I have no desire to do it myself, but I can't imagine how hunting is beneficial to a species. At least deaths by natural predators focus on the weaker animals, thereby strengthening the herd as a whole. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that hunting by humans would focus disproportionately on the strongest and healthiest animals. If those animals are stopped from breeding via the rifle, how is this beneficial?

I doubt the Bush admin cares about the wolves one way or the other, so they probably don't WANT them extinct.

I wish I could disagree with killing nuisance and/or dangerous animals living where we have encroached. Unfortunately that would make me a hypocrite, since we had the five skunks living under our porch killed two years ago.

[MadScot]

Years ago Canada placed a bounty on wolves they thought the wolves were killing off the cariboo herds. They were even hunting them from helicopters. In effect killing the wolves almost destroyed the Cariboo herds without the wolves to weed out the sick cariboo disease spread quicky through the herds. They ended up having to import wolves to save the cariboo.

I agree that provisions need to be made to deal with rogue animals. I also wondered how hunting was helpful that's a new one on me.

[Lacey]

If hunting is done for food and not just to kill everything that moves, it helps keep a species in check. Just as is mentioned in madscot's post, when you eliminate a natural preditor, the animals that are usually kept in check by them suffer. We have irradicated a lot of natural preditors, thus man has become one of the natural preditors now. Hunting does not cause extinction unless it goes unsupervised and the hunters are allowed to run rampant like they did over the buffalo.

I think reintruducing the wolf was necessary! But if you protect them and never allow them to be killed, they will eventually suffer just as the cariboo did. Assuming wolves have no real natural preditors. And not having studied wolves much, I don't know what preditor would keep the wolf population in check other than man.

I personally would not go out and hunt an animal. But hunting has not caused the deer population to become anywhere near close to extinct. I don't think wolves should be hunted as a sport. You can't eat wolf. But to protect them to the point that they over populate is definitely not a good thing! Man has a tendancy to disrupt the natural flow of things either by doing too much or too little.

[beautiful_mess38]

Can a mountain lion or couger hunt a lone wolf as long as its not in a pack?

[MadScot]

Wolves are a top line predator but they are not witout predators themselves. A mountain lion will go after a lone wolf one on one a wolf doesn't stand a chance.

The ranchers want the freedom to basically kill any wolf they see. That's not going to work and any move in that direction is wrong. For one thing they get compensated for the attacks on their livestock. It doesn't cost then money.

"Since 1984, farmers and hunters have been paid nearly $419,000 in public money after wolves have killed livestock and hunting dogs, DNR figures show"

This makes it sound like your tax money is paying these ranchers that's not the case. They are paid by a trust fund sent up by The Defenders of Wildlife group.

Lacey you make some interesting points but I would disagree that man has become a natural predator I think it's just the opposite. At one time hunting was a requirement for people to eat it isn't anymore. Now hunting is a choice do you know anyone who hunts because they need to in order to feed themselves. I may be a little prejudice towards hunters when I was child we lived literally in the forest our nearest neighbor was 6 miles away. I was a thousand times more scared of hunters than I was all the wild animals including the bears. I had one stray bullet pass so close to the bridge of my nose I could feel the wind.

The problem isn't just keeping deer and cariboo herds healthy. If you don't have enough wolves other animals take there place. Coyotes for one tend to take over where wolves are sparse. Unlike wolves coyotes can be a nightmare for an eco system. They are not nearly as fearful of man. They have larger liters than wolves and are indiscrimate hunters. They will overburden the lower levels of the food chain and move on to livestock when they hunt out the smaller prey. Unlike wolves they don't leave much in the way of scraps for the scanvengers either. One of the reasons for the bald eagle has make a big comeback was the reintroduction of the wolves. If ranchers didn't have wolf problems they would have even more coyote problems.

[Yosemite Joy]

I remember sitting on the porch on the farm [in North Dakota] back in the summer of 88, listening to the coyotes howling and watching the heat lightening in the distance....

Those were the days...

[Patagoniamaniac]

had a coyote in my yard last week..thought that was kinda cool. luckly my dogs were inside..

[Yosemite Joy]

Saw a coyote in that field that is right after (if you are traveling south bound) the YLP entrance off of 41.

The only Mountain Lion I have ever seen was off a road off of 415. It was littler than I thought they were. About the size of a full grown German Shepard. I was in the car both times.

[Ironhorse]

Two summers ago, I saw 2 coyotes try to pick of a new fawn up on Mountain Lakes Road. It bleated, Mama and friends came running. Those coyotes took off like bats out of HE*L!!! Mama went around a thicket so low to the ground after them that you could barely see air between her and the ground. Don't know if she ever caught those two, but if she did someone was gonna get their b u t t whipped. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/yes.gif