Do you have some interesting wildlife news? July 24, 2018 edition

Interesting wildlife news (reader generated)

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  1. Terry Singeltary Sr. Avatar
    Terry Singeltary Sr.

    SATURDAY, JULY 21, 2018

    Chronic Wasting Disease: new experience in Europe

    http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2018/07/chronic-wasting-disease-new-experience.html

    1. Terry Singeltary Avatar

      i thought some of you here might want an update on the cwd tse prion disease.

      here goes, it’s not pretty, so don’t shoot the messenger, i am full of holes…terry

      SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2018

      cwd, bse, scrapie, cjd, tse prion updated November 10 2018

      https://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2018/11/cwd-bse-scrapie-cjd-tse-prion-updated.html

      THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2018

      ***> Norway New additional requirements for imports of hay and straw for animal feed from countries outside the EEA due to CWD TSE Prion

      https://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2018/10/norway-new-additional-requirements-for.html

      THURSDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2018

      ***> Cervid to human prion transmission 5R01NS088604-04 Update

      http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2018/10/cervid-to-human-prion-transmission.html

      kind regards, terry

        1. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          And just recapping, Terry, for those that might not of clicked on the link, within your link.

  2. Kathleen Avatar

    Four innocent New Mexico bears will be executed for the crime committed by one irresponsible human; the 70-year-old man admitted to feeding wildlife with cracked corn at his residence. He was bitten by a bear when he stepped outside.

    Excerpt: “We will now have to euthanize* the bears because they are habituated to humans and pose a serious public safety risk. My decision to euthanize* these bears could have been completely avoided had the bears not been fed.” ~NM Dept. of Game and Fish personnel
    *’execute’ is the correct word

    https://sangrechronicle.com/officers-investigate-bear-attack-in-cloudcroft/

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Doe the guy who encouraged them get even a wrist slap in all of this? These bears just need to be relocated. How many times do people have to be told, and for the bears to be made an example of, and still people keep feeding them or being careless?

  3. rork Avatar
    rork

    http://www.miningjournal.net/news/front-page-news/2018/07/dnr-biologist-talks-predators/ is a pretty good review of wolf history and wolf political history in MI.
    The DNR gets one thing wrong though:

    Then there’s the question of who should be in charge of wolf management: trained biologists or voters.

    “If you had to have your appendix out, would you like to take that to the voters of Michigan, or would you rather take the doctor’s word for it?” Roell asked.

    I always get to make this same point (as do JB and other biologists): Scientists can know what is likely to happen as a result of actions, but we have no special privilege to say what the value of things are. I’m getting to hate it when people use analogies when there’s no need. There’s often a trick being employed.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Rork, You may have missed a more glaring “one thing wrong” ….. “Presenting the program was Brian Roell, a wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, who noted there tend to be two polarizing sides to the wolf issue: people who want to protect them, and others who want every wolf dead.” I can honestly say I don’t know ONE PERSON that “want every wolf dead”! PErsonally, I think Roell should be reprimanded for making such an inflammatory binary choice that does not represent those interest in delisting and sound management for all wildlife not just predators!

      1. Hiker Avatar
        Hiker

        Sound management? Some would argue if management goes one way and others would argue if it goes the other. You can’t please all the voters, hence majority rules. Does the majority always get things right? Ask all the dead Indians and their descendants. Ask all the dead slaves etc. We often get things wrong. But, sometimes a wrong decision {who decides right and wrong? the majority} is better then NO decision. We can always change OUR minds.

      2. rork Avatar
        rork

        I agree wanting no wolves at all is not very common, but it exists. I took that as just illustration anyway. I do agree that both sides of any debate now often point to the most extreme views of (nuts on) the other side and try to tell you that is the view of the majority of the other side, and that this is a horrible trend.

        PS for Hiker: You likely know, that in a strange twist that the article mentioned the majority of voters passed laws to have no wolf hunts. The legislators decided otherwise. They had to do so three times before they found means to override the majority of voters.

        1. Hiker Avatar
          Hiker

          Did not know that. So much for majority rules. However, the voters can have the last laugh at reelection.

        2. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          The “majority” of the most affected voters overwhelmingly vote for the hunt (those in the UP) at around 67 percent. The “majority” of the counties voted for the hunt. ONLY 47 percent (not a majority) of all MI voters voted against the wolf hunt. Around 9 percent elected not to vote on the issue and around 45 percent of all MI voters voted for the hunt. Before the vote even happened voters in the UP collected 300,000 (grass roots) signatures prompting the legislator to pass the law making the referendums mute. HSUS spent 1.8 million dollars on advertising and used PAID signature collectors to get only 200,000 signature for the tax dollar sucking referendums. The VOTE speaks for itself!

          1. rork Avatar
            rork

            “around 45 percent of all MI voters voted for the hunt” True.

        3. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          “I do agree that both sides of any debate now often point to the most extreme views” By your description Roell (A PUBLIC SERVANT) is taking sides! Hence, my comment. His description of the other side was not as radical.

          1. Jeremy B. Avatar
            Jeremy B.

            “His description of the other side was not as radical.”

            There’s nuance to language here that I think is being lost. In my experience, the word “protect” (or “protectionist”) gets used by natural wildlife professionals as a pejorative, similar to “anti-hunters”. So while it may not seem as radical a description to lay folk, I suspect many (especially old-timers) in the wildlife profession view the idea of protecting predators as equally radical (to killing them all).

            Last year John Vucetich led a piece that carefully documents the political controversy surrounding the wolf hunt, and shows why the hunt was ill-conceived. I *believe* it is accessible on scholar.google.com and ResearchGate.

            See: Vucetich, J. A., Bruskotter, J. T., Nelson, M. P., Peterson, R. O., & Bump, J. K. (2017). Evaluating the principles of wildlife conservation: a case study of wolf (Canis lupus) hunting in Michigan, United States. Journal of Mammalogy, 98(1), 53-64.

            1. Jeremy B. Avatar
              Jeremy B.

              Replace “natural wildlife professionals” with “wildlife professionals”. Apologies!

  4. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    They are trying to pull this crap again. Always the ‘important stuff’. There is still plenty of habitat where wolves can be brought back:

    “The bill’s exact language would “remove the gray wolf in each of the 48 contiguous states of the United States and District of Columbia from the list of Endangered Species.” The legislation specifies there would be “no judicial review.””

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/connelly-grizzly-bears-gray-wolves-big-losers-in-house-spending-bill/ar-BBKQ04L

    Jon Tester’s legacy. 🙁

  5. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Well, no wolves at all may not be very common, but it has been said by a politician or two in the West, and I notice people are careful not to say that out loud so much anymore.

    But keeping wolves to unsustainably low numbers and quietly increasing the hunting quotas and expanding hunting yearly, is virtually no wolves at all, and is much more common.

  6. Kathleen Avatar

    “Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado Billboards Target Yellowstone Grizzly Hunt”

    Awesome billboard by the Center for Biological Diversity!

    Excerpt: “Wyoming and Idaho should be absolutely ashamed for allowing some of America’s most iconic bears to be senselessly gunned down,” said Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Millions of people come to Yellowstone National Park every year to see these grizzlies. But the second these bears step out of the park, they could be shot dead by a hunter’s bullet. It’s ugly and reprehensible.”

    https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/grizzly-bear-07-26-2018.php

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      They have no shame. I wish I could remember who it was that said they wanted no wolves at all, I think it was Wyoming, and then whoever it was backtracked quickly.

      We all remember Butch Otter’s comments, and yet he still gets elected, and for years:

      https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/governor-wants-to-kill-all-but-idaho-wolves/article_2adbc3b8-7069-5c1d-8dfe-53c788c0a723.html

      And they are still being used as a political tool:

      https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_699faa54-352b-58e7-a470-f4ea751f25be.html

    2. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Kathleen, I thought you would appreciate this. I have been hearing for years a wood thrush in the wooded area behind my home. Over the years I’ve seen what I think is one scratching through the leaf litter, and in the bird bath. I saw one the other day, and yesterday I saw a *pair* of them, scratching in the leaf litter under the bird feeder. There’s been a lot of bird fledging activity too.

      1. Kathleen Avatar

        Awesome, lucky you! Hopefully they had a brood and you’ll be hearing a symphony. The only time I ever saw one, I had to sneak through the forest to get a glimpse. We have Swainson’s and maybe hermit thrushes out here, but to my mind, nothing rivals the eastern wood thrush singing deep in a deciduous forest. Even HD Thoreau commented on their beautiful song more than once. Just FYI, we’ve been seeing a spotted towhee hanging around our place; lots of lesser goldfinches (put out a thistle sock because I cleaned up a patch of exotic thistles left by the previous homeowners that the birds had been using); scrub & occasionnally pinyon jays, white-breasted nuthatches, a lady Bullock’s oriole, western peewee, finches, mourning doves, etc., nothing else too exotic this year. (Exotic meaning unusual; we also have a pair of Eurasian collared doves for exotic in the bad sense.) Last year we had a little canyon wren come visit.
        https://musicofnature.com/video/wood-thrush/

        1. Ida Lupine Avatar
          Ida Lupine

          Wow. I love hearing about the birds of the West too. Yes, we’ve got American goldfinch babies and I had a pair of towhees too.

          I actually heard a wood thrush singing somewhere in the outskirts of a McDonald’s parking lot, of all things, recently. Adaptability. 🙂

          1. Larry Keeney Avatar
            Larry Keeney

            My thrill every spring is hearing the first territorial call of my returning pileated pair. Every year at this place since 2002.

            1. Larry Keeney Avatar
              Larry Keeney

              I have to post this because ya ‘all are the only ones that understand my excitement: so I make the above post yesterday, ….. re pileated Paul and this morning I go out to check my water fountain I created at my cabin just back of the house. I bring the card from the camera back and plug it in and bingo – pileated Paul is drinking the fountain about dry. He comes and goes 3 times this week. I haven’t heard him for about a month now, thought they took the kids and left. Doesn’t take much to excite me nowadays.

              DIFFERENT TOPIC: So Zinke responded to an appeal from the mule deer club to hold back drill leases in the migration corridor in WY. Seems his Teddy Roosevelt wannabe will stop drilling if it’s something to hunt and kill. But not so much for pygmy rabbits, California condors or beautiful historical monuments.

              1. Ida Lupine Avatar
                Ida Lupine

                🙂 That is something to get excited about! Sometimes I think some wildlife has gone, but then when I see them again it is thrilling.

                As Henry Beston said, “In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations,…”.
                I’m just happy to get a glimpse of them from time to time.

                Drilling in a migration corridor? I just don’t know what to say. This is one time I am grateful to hunters.

  7. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Having a debate where the subject of wolves is mentioned unfavorably at the National Guard Joint Forces Readiness Center just isn’t a good image in my mind. 🙁

  8. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    But who is voting for the legislators? Like Tammy Baldwin (D) who has co-authored legislation in the past to delist wolves without judicial review? I don’t think people are making the connection that once an animal is delisted – hunting is automatic afterwards.

    That’s what keeps nagging me about ‘support for the ESA is still strong by the public’. How in the world did Donald Trump become president then, when Republicans have been anti-ESA and environmental laws for decades? There’s a disconnect there.

  9. Kathleen Avatar

    More info about the circumstances of this grizzly encounter that was discussed on this forum:

    Excerpt: “…a field assistant working in a remote section of the Cabinet Mountains was caught off guard in mid-May in a surprise grizzly bear attack south of Libby while working on a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service grizzly bear project.”

    http://www.kpax.com/story/38750131/fwp-hosts-animal-attack-investigation-training-class-in-kalispell

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Fascinating. I’m glad they make the distinction of surprise encounters for the wildlife. 🙂

  10. Kathleen Avatar

    “MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR SIGNS PLANT-BASED PROCLAMATION”

    Excerpt: “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey signed a proclamation last week urging citizens to eat plant-based foods. The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement… prompted the mayor to issue the document in an effort to promote environmentally friendly eating habits. ‘If each American affirmatively chose to eat plant-based food at just one meal per week,” the proclamation stated, “the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off US roads.’”

    https://vegnews.com/2018/7/minneapolis-mayor-signs-plant-based-proclamation

    1. rork Avatar
      rork

      Blueberries from Peru in Jan are plant based. Maybe changing law would be more effective than personal virtue. Don’t get me wrong: most of the molecules of my body right now came from things out of my garden, but that’s partly because I’m privileged, with time to garden and cook and compost, skills, land.
      Let’s talk carbon taxes. Affects cows, affects those blueberries, affects gas.

  11. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Choices……

  12. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    “This brings us to 4 vehicle deaths on this 13-mile stretch of Hwy 93 in 2018 and brings the NCDE mortality numbers to 26, 12 of which are vehicle collisions”

    https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/family-of-bears-killed-in-car-collision-south-of-ronan

  13. rork Avatar
    rork

    I think I have not yet reported my annual findings on how deer are going in Michigan’s upper peninsula (UP, it’s not really a peninsula). Wolves have been steady at about 650 since 2011. Human howls of them annihilating the deer are much older, and became more shrill after deadly winters in 2014, and 2015. 2016 saw only around 20000 bucks tagged (legally killed and recovered). Sane people said it was the weather rather than the wolves.
    2017: About 30000 bucks were tagged in the UP.
    Reactions, retractions, or comment by UP deer hunters: zero.

    Other tidbit:
    Statewide 41% of deer tagged were antlerless – a horribly low number in my opinion. In our CWD zone, where I want instant reduction of deer densities via greater deer deaths and especially more doe deaths, 41% of deer tagged were antlerless. I hope I don’t need to apply additional sarcasm for either the UP or CWD stories.
    https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/2017_deer_harvest_survey_report_628089_7.pdf
    One more bit of sarcasm: I was not emailed and I think there was no press release when the report went out. Almost no press coverage.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      MN DNR report. Echos the bad winters of 12/13 and 13/14.
      https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/deer/reports/harvest/deerharvest_2017.pdf

    2. Jeremy B. Avatar
      Jeremy B.

      “Nearly 50% of deer hunters indicated that deer numbers and harvest has decreased during the last five years…”

      If I’m reading Fig. 12 correctly, deer harvest actually increased during the past 5 years; so [surprise!] the perception of deer hunters does not match reality. Hmm…now why does this story sound familiar?

      1. rork Avatar
        rork

        I sarcastically commented on that at Michigansportsman too.
        In my area (Southern lower MI) only about 5% of folks thought there were more deer in 2017 than 5 years earlier. 2012 was exactly the year half of the deer where I hunt died of EHD before Oct. It didn’t happen that way everywhere, but our local area wasn’t the only place. Densities were lower for 2 or 3 years, but it seems right back where it used to be now. There are obviously more deer near me. There are too many deer in NE lower (Presque Isle) too. I found it hard to find the 2012 report though.
        Smaller point: Everyone bemoans hunter numbers decline (-2% for last year), but effort went up 5% last year. Numbers of bow hunters is down since the 90’s but I’d say number of serious bow hunters (that have chances) is obviously up. The rest bought bows but then realized it’s not so easy, and quit showing up. We called them “the gun hunters with bows”.

        1. rork Avatar
          rork

          SLP bucks 2013: 103416.
          SLP bucks 2017: 110876.

        2. Jeremy B. Avatar
          Jeremy B.

          When Elk375 used to post here regularly, we used to have the same argument concerning elk numbers (where he hunted in MT). Here in Ohio, I had a half-hour argument with a guy at the deer stakeholder summit this spring about why hunter numbers are declining. He insisted it was because the deer population was down, and so I showed him 35 years of data that show a steady decrease in per-capita license sales. I also showed him that during that time, deer harvest had actually gone up considerably (in fact, deer harvest and hunter license sales were correlated at -0.92). Didn’t bother him one bit. He went right on insisting that hunter numbers are down because of the recent decline in deer.

          Apparently in the Trump era, if an argument feels right, it’s right. To Hell with the data.

    3. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Rork, The complaint by hunters is that public lands hunting is suffering under wolf mis-management. I know that they give the statistics private vs public (at least they did in 2015) how much of your 20,000 / 30000 is private vs public. And what is the historic trends….? In the past roughly only 25% of the harvest was on public lands But, public lands way outnumbers the private land by far! ….looking at the numbers for just public lands was very telling!

      Wisconsin is now collecting public vs private harvest numbers.

      1. rork Avatar
        rork

        You don’t get to say what the complaint is. I’ve heard many. But I did do some of your homework.
        In 2012, 9106 public land bucks, 29109 private, 23.8% public.
        In 2017 it was 8464 and 22050 for 27.7% public.
        I can’t see effort split for private vs public though. People know the deer are just now rebounding from bad winters, but effort went up just 3.7% compared to 2016. Antler regs changed too somewhere in there.
        I can’t tell if this is telling or not cause I am not sure what you are trying to say.
        Deer densities may be much higher on private lands. Private owners try not to overshoot their deer, plant things for deer, farm and have fields. It’s the better land to begin with, like every other state. There might be more effort there too. Hunting big tracts of the nothing up there in November takes huge effort and gear. It is often like winter already. One of the bad years people could not get their cars to their hunting spots cause there was 4 feet of snow.

        1. rork Avatar
          rork

          Correction: in 2013 it was 9106 and 19798, 31.5% public.

  14. Kathleen Avatar

    Update: It’s now day 6 that the grieving mother orca has refused to abandon the body of her dead calf. How heartbreaking is this…The Southern Resident orcas are in a dire situation thanks to human impacts:

    Excerpt: “The whales are suffering from at least three challenges: vessel noise, which interrupts their foraging; toxins, which are released into their bloodstream and calves’ milk especially when the whales are hungry: and lack of food, especially chinook salmon.”

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/orca-mother-carries-dead-calf-for-fifth-day-her-entire-family-is-also-staying-close-by/

    If so moved, call WA Gov. Inslee and tell him “breach the lower Snake River dams now!” (360)902-4111

    Dam Sense on FB: https://www.facebook.com/damsense.org/
    Website: https://damsense.org/

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      It’s just so stomach-turningly sad to see the other rightful inhabitants of this planet suffer under the indifference of humanity. Many of the dams need to go.

      Yeah, I know there’s a handful of people who care, but it’s not enough.

    2. Larry Keeney Avatar
      Larry Keeney

      The Question of Animal Awareness by Donald R. Griffin. We have to stop thinking we are the only ones that have feelings.

  15. Kathleen Avatar

    It was bound to come to this:
    “Urban coyote bloodbaths are the future liberals want”

    *sigh*

    http://www.citypages.com/news/soucheray-sez-urban-coyote-bloodbaths-are-the-future-liberals-want/489528741

  16. Kathleen Avatar

    “After third offense, Durango man fined $1,000 for feeding bears: Resident had been ticketed in 2010 and 2012”

    “A Durango man has been ticketed for intentionally feeding bears – for the third time in eight years – resulting in a $1,000 fine and a likelihood the bears will have to be euthanized.” (NOTE: Euthanized is the wrong word; the correct word is executed.)

    https://durangoherald.com/articles/234395-durango-man-fined-1000-for-feeding-bears-third-offense

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Well, so much for education. Again, the bears should be relocated because it was a case of baiting.

  17. Kathleen Avatar

    “Here’s How America Uses Its Land”

    A fascinating series of maps. Excerpt: “There’s a single, major occupant on all this land: cows. Between pastures and cropland used to produce feed, 41 percent of U.S. land in the contiguous states revolves around livestock.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/?utm_content=business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      FYI

      “As the world economy develops and many countries industrialize, people seek different uses of livestock. Today, non-food functions are generally in decline and are replaced by cheaper and more convenient substitutes. The following trends may be depicted:

      • The asset, petty cash and insurance function that livestock provide is being replaced by financial institutions as even remote rural areas enter the monetary economy;

      • With the notable exception of sub-Saharan Africa and some areas in Asia animal draught is on the decline as more farmers mechanize.

      • Manure continues to be important for nutrient management in mixed farming but its role in overall nutrient supply is declining because of the competitive price and ease of management of inorganic fertilizer.

      • Although the demand for natural fibres is still high, and in some places even increasing, there are increasingly more synthetic substitutes for wool and leather

      http://www.fao.org/wairdocs/lead/x6130e/x6130e02.htm

  18. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    This is from February, so apologies if already posted, but it appears the Yellowstone elk population is rebounding very well.
    https://trib.com/lifestyles/recreation/famous-yellowstone-elk-herd-rebounds-two-decades-after-wolf-reintroduction/article_0f7eefd9-484b-5060-a68d-2ebfbed2b054.html

  19. Kathleen Avatar

    Two items: “Yellowstone National Park responds to video of a man teasing a bison”

    Watch the video–absolutely appalling.

    http://www.krtv.com/story/38801578/yellowstone-national-park-responds-to-video-of-a-man-teasing-a-bison

    And “Birds learn another ‘language’ by eavesdropping on neighbors, scientists say”

    Excerpt: “To put it in human terms, it’s as though a person who only speaks English had learned that “Achtung” means ‘attention’ or ‘danger’ in German simply by listening to people yell phrases with similar meanings in multiple languages at once. ‘Until this study, we had limited knowledge about how an animal learns what calls from other species actually mean.’”

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/science/ct-birds-language-eavesdropping-20180802-story.html?platform=hootsuite

    1. Elk375 Avatar
      Elk375

      Update on the bison teaser: He was arrested in Glacier National Park today and has been transported back to the Yellowstone National Park Jail in Mammoth. The article is in the Missoulian. He was in trouble in Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park. Some people.

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      This is what happens when you have three agencies, two of which don’t seem to know what is going on. And you can see the wolf haters are champing on the bit for a delisting, like rabid creatures. Can’t wait for things to happen in their due course, have to whip up controversy and make threats about having their cronies in DC change the laws to suit them, and circumvent any challenge.

      This person was employed by the Forest Service, wasn’t she? They should not have sent her in alone. Did they communicate with the WDFW?

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other one of the two, the Bureau of Land (Mis)management.

  20. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    I knew you’d have the bison story. The guy is making the park circuit, drunk and disorderly, and harassing the wildlife. Karma police, arrest this man! (and they have.) I hope he gets a fine, and more than a slap on the wrist.

  21. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    US wildlife refuges end ban on neonics and GM crops

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45068650

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      It was taken to court, and then the USF&W voluntarily ended the questionable practice in a wildlife refuge to avoid the suit. I guess it’s back to court! PEER initiated the lawsuit, I think? This is just one think I could think of with the information:

      https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/3342/fish-and-wildlife-service-agrees-to-phase-out-genetically-engineered-crops-and-ban-bee-killing-pesticides-on-national-refuges

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        Sorry, link. There was a settlement agreement that link says, so I don’t know what the terms of the agreement were. We’ll see, I guess.

  22. Kathleen Avatar

    “IS SOUTHERN RESIDENT KILLER WHALE J35 REALLY MOURNING?”

    Kudos to this scientist for stating this so unequivocally!

    Excerpt: “For years scientists vigorously avoided using emotional terms like happy, sad, playful or angry when describing animal behavior. But as Carl Safina reminds us in his treatise on animal emotions, Beyond Words: What animals think and feel, if animals have the same brain, same hormones, and same neurotransmitters as we do, why wouldn’t we expect them to have the same emotions? Are we, after all, so arrogant to think we have the market cornered on emotions even though other highly social animals have the same hard wiring?

    “So, can we scientifically call J35’s behavior mourning? Yes! Not only do I think we can call it mourning, I think we must call it mourning.”

    https://www.seadocsociety.org/blog/is-southern-resident-killer-whale-j35-really-mourning

  23. Mat-ters Avatar
    Mat-ters

    Its not rocket science Rork. Those that love to make excuses for the wolf always try to expand away from the root of the problem. You know as well as I do that the overwhelming majority of wolves reside on the public lands in the Upper Peninsula. This is where they are negatively affecting the once heathy deer population. Sure a few wolves live on and tramps on private lands. But we both know the problem is those public lands.

    Your “howls” of the sane people look at the trends for where wolves are saturated. If you are really interested in seeing what the wolves do, map out the historic trends for those public lands in the UP.

    From 2011 to 2017 the UP public land harvest went from 13225 to 8464! DOWN 36%

    IN contrast the NORTHERN LP public land harvest went from 23,876 29,828 UP 24%

    TELLING!…… Gotta question for ya Rork…..are the deer in the Northern Lower Peninsula on public lands healthy?

    1. Moose Avatar
      Moose

      Winter severity has always been the primary variable in deer survival in the UP. Comparing population dynamics in the UP and NLP without considering the severity index difference between the two areas is disingenuous.

      From DNR Harvest Reports:

      Public land harvests UP/NLP
      2010 – 12,983 / 18,900
      2011 – 13,225 / 23,876
      2012 – 14,677 / 28,470
      2013 – 11,697 / 28,065
      2014 – 5,882 / 23,282
      2015 – 5,037 / 24,987
      2016 – 6,103 / 24,987
      2017 – 9110 / 29,828

      As you can see the hard winters of 2013-2015 took their toll on deer numbers…. much more so in the UP. Numbers are beginning to rise again due to milder winters of late (though this Spring was a tough one).

      Good summary of the history of deer numbers in UP here:

      http://www.woods-n-waternews.com/Articles-In-This-Issue-i-2016-12-01-224615.112113-WHITETAILS-OF-THE-UP.html

      1. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        Thanks for the backup info to Dr Mech’s quote

        “During two decades of wolf research, conducting studies in northern Minnesota and on Isle Royale in Michigan, I have learned that, far from always being ‘balanced,’ ratios of wolves and prey animals can fluctuate wildly – and sometimes catastrophically. Wolves may actually starve after killing off almost all the moose and deer in an area. This explains why wolf-control programs may sometimes ensure greater and more stable numbers of both wolves and the animals they hunt.”—L. David Mech

    2. rork Avatar
      rork

      2011 is cherry picked – that was max deer in the UP. BTW it was also max wolf.
      Winter is not the same in the UP as in the northern lower.
      Antler point restrictions were applied in the UP during the time you are using data for, reducing the kill.
      After harsh winters, we kill no female deer or young in the UP. In contrast the DNR has been trying to get us to shoot more anterless deer in the northern lower to reduce densities (helps with TB for one). I can shoot an extra 5 antlerless deer in the NE lower for the past few years, and the tags cost less.
      So those are 5 problems with your data.
      As for health in the northern lower, my observations from Presque Isle county are that their condition is not good, and the land is being harmed by too many deer, despite the encouragements of the DNR to knock them down. What the deer weigh is my data, and whether white cedar can establish.
      Maybe you could try and say what your point is once in awhile. If it is that wolves kill deer, and slow rebound after harsh winters, I agree. I also agree that lows are lower. My suggestion is that we learn to live with it. The forestry people agree. Maybe we can regenerate our wintering sites thanks to some lower density deer years.

      1. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        My original point was that the public land data is the best picture of the wolf issue …. you posted your “sane people” comment based on data from ALL of the UP when you knew full well that the public land data doesn’t water down the issue. Your whole harvest numbers you tried to throw in the face of those advocating for better management is only a ruse when you have better data and you choose not to use it.

    3. Jeremy B. Avatar
      Jeremy B.

      “This is where they are negatively affecting the once heathy deer population.”

      “negatively affecting” = reducing densities of
      “once healthy” = overpopulated

      —-

      Let’s put things in perspective: Everywhere there are wolves there is continued deer and elk harvest. Is it as much as the folks who want a deer (or elk) behind every tree would like — nope, not in a lot of cases. Then again, in my experience those folks are never satisfied.

      1. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        Ohh Come on JB, It’s those that continue to promote wolves that are “never satisfied” Secondary prey like the moose in the GYA are an example of your folly! Heck, wolves could kill off EVERY endangered caribou on the Slate and Michipicoten island in lake Superior and there are still those that don’t want any kind of management.

        Rork knows full well that most units of the UP have always matched up well with specific units in the northern half of the LP. Its the units right on the boarder with Superior that get the lake snow WHICH also occurs to a lesser extent in the LP. Severity indexes in certain WI MI and MN all tend to reflect each other year after year…! Rork embarrasses himself to portray all the the UP as having no resemblance in climate to the northern half of the LP. Moose’s data needs to go back to the late 1990’s to get the clear picture as units matched up well with units in the LP….. before wolves!

        1. Jeremy B. Avatar
          Jeremy B.

          “It’s those that continue to promote wolves that are ‘never satisfied’.”

          — Without passing judgment on either statement… both can be simultaneously true. However, the desire for less (no) lethal management is not ecologically equivalent to the desire to have an overabundant deer herd. Wolves and their prey persisted without human management for thousands of years; wild ungulate herds protected from predation are a much more recent phenomena.

          “Secondary prey like the moose in the GYA are an example of your folly!”

          ??? Moose are in trouble because of climate change. Predation (whether by humans, or native carnivores) can certainly aggravate the problem, but we made the coffin for moose, not wolves.

          “Rork knows full well that most units of the UP have always matched up well with specific units in the northern half of the LP.”

          Sorry Matt, I’m not buying this argument at all (I’m actually from the northern lower peninsula, and vacation there every year). There are PARTS of the NLP that receive similar snowfall to the UP, but the two are not equivalent. For example, the counties of the NLP most resemble the counties of the southern part of the UP in terms of snowfall; however, these areas have different soil types. The northern UP — which has similar soils to the NLP — actually gets waaay more snow: http://geo.msu.edu/extra/geogmich/where&why.html

          More to the point, a recent study found wolves were not the primary predator of deer neonates — it was coyotes (then black bears). https://www.mlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2012/04/experts_surprised_by_which_pre.html

          1. Mat-ters Avatar
            Mat-ters

            JB I often wonder if you actually believe the narratives you try to push on others?

            http://aspenpublicradio.org/post/moose-population-healthier-ever-colorado#stream/0

            http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/13/wickstrom-moose-populations-are-thriving-in-colorado/

            “Wolves and their prey persisted without human management for thousands of years” Your revision of history is quite unprofessional! A thinking person knows that 10 to 50 million Native Americans living in North America did not give a full out pass to all predators….THAT is the “more recent phenomena” especially in the GYA! Your blaming of “climate change” only adds to my leaning less towards your perceived truth about climate change.

  24. Salle Avatar
    Salle

    Someone hit a bear on I-90 about ten miles east of Livingston Sunday morning. I saw it in the median as I was traveling by. I haven’t heard any news about it, I did call to report it but it had already been reported. Looked like it could have been a black bear but all I could see was the fur on its back.

  25. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    FYI Shouldn’t surprise anyone given the push to do away with wilderness study areas.

    The current administration has lined out a number of pricks (Zinke included) who can’t wait to end protections for wilderness areas.

    https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/group-says-us-energy-panel-stacked-with-industry-supporters

  26. Kevin Bixby Avatar

    Registration is still open for Wildlife for All: Re-envisioning State Wildlife Governance. This meeting is being organized by the Southwest Environmental Center and Western Wildlife Conservancy, and will be held in Albuquerque on August 14-15.

    The purpose is to convene wildlife advocates from around the country to answer the question: how do we create the policies and institutions we need to protect all of our wildlife, for everybody, in every state, forever?

    Topics include: Report from the States, Public Trust Doctrine, Alliances for Change, Finding Alternative Funding, and Building a Movement. Speakers include: Adrian Treves, Martin Nie, Mike Phillips, Jill Fritz, Camilla Fox, Ruth Musgrave, and many others. More info at wildmesquite.org.

  27. WM Avatar
    WM

    NE Washington wolves treed a female USFS employee a couple weeks back. Dispatch dialog just became available on the incident. WDFW wolf management is not getting good marks for its response to the incident, and who should be involved in s time sensitive “rescue” of the treed person. Also some blaming from WDFW, and lack of communication with Okanogan authorities. One more bad mark for the Loup Loup pack and WDFW, with wolves doing what they do. Worth watching this short TV segment:

    https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/rescue-response-delayed-for-woman-treed-by-wolves-in-washington/277-580035863

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      A matter of lack of communication/cooperation that allowed a simple incident balloon into unnecessary controversy.

    2. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Blast from the past for any Dana Carvey fans out there – 2:22 minutes in

      https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tom-brokaw-pre-tapes/n10894

      Again, how many hikers have enjoyed the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park (since wolf reintroduction in 1995) and NO ONE yet has been run down, treed or been eaten by wolves?

      Did this, what appears to be an inexperienced? seasonal? “grad student/researcher”, stumble upon a pack of wolves, who were just trying to warn her away from their family/ den site?

      And how many of us, that are fortunate enough to actually live around wildlife, say birds? have been “dive bombed” warning us to stay away for their nest/ babies?

      “For over an hour” according to this news report, this student spend in a tree, before being dramatically rescued (after who should be doing the rescuing, was finally sorted out)

      That comment had me flashing back to an incident with a local rancher, a couple of decades ago, who spent an hour or more, in a tree, when the “biggest Gawd damn black bear I’d ever seen” came barreling at him, mad, while he was repairing fence line.

      It was spring time. Could of been an old boar (male bear) enjoying a fresh caught elk or deer calf, could of been a female bear with cubs, warning him away from her family. But fact was, it was on the cusp of where public lands meet private lands.

      I saw that rancher the same day of the incident and he held out his hands and said “I’m still shaking”

      But, back then I was sympathetic, “hey how cute a cattle drive” and had no idea at the time the lengths many ranchers go to retain the “good stewards of the land” title, till I lived here for a few decades and started witnessing, firsthand, the destruction, annually, to public lands and native wildlife, by continued government sanctioned, invasive livestock.

      Course that thought isn’t going to make an immediate impression on most folks, who don’t live in wild lands, until they can no longer find enough wild lands left to visit while on vacation….

    3. Yvette Avatar
      Yvette

      Always the drama with wolves. “Surrounded by a pack of wolves.” She spent an hour in a tree.
      I have reservations about the authenticity of this story. How many times over the last 200 years has anyone been actually been attacked by a pack of wolves?

      1. How many wolves were there when she got treed?

      2. How far away were the wolves when she first noticed them?

      3. Did they actually tree her or did she see them in the distance and panicked since she was alone?

      4. Did any of the wolves charge her? Chase her?

      5. Did the ‘pack of wolves’ that ‘surrounded’ her circle the tree? How did they behave?

      5. Any witnesses? She managed to call for help. Did she have a phone where she could video this pack of wolves that treed her? Everything is caught on video in this technological era. Why is there never any evidence the “chased by, treed by, surrounded by” “pack of wolves” stories? Not once. Ever.

      So much drama. Centuries of it. Same old stories and never any witnesses. “Victim” is always alone.

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        Many different story renditions.
        1. She had a satellite phone, thus no pictures.
        2. I believe there were two wolves, with barking and howling.
        3. She discharged bear spray, to no avail.
        4. She called her supervisor, who suggested she climb a tree.

        From there the mess begins…

        1. Yvette Avatar
          Yvette

          Of course. I just did a quick search. Check out the hysterical comments and bad grammar in the comments on this site. Plus, one comment states she was a ‘seasoned researcher’ rather than, ‘seasonal researcher’. Big difference since seasonal workers are usually grad. students or recent graduates.

           Taught staff how to perform a stream habitat assessment and did two assessments on two different creek sites. 07/18 and 07/19.

      2. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        1. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          OMG! Mat-ters. Did you really think this guy was in danger?

          Wolf; tail wagging, romping around, almost at this guy’s feet?

          Big guy and on cue, thrashing sticks, screaming at the wolf…. Wolf wondering what WTF and finally wandering off?

          One of those videos that gets dragged out of storage (its what 3-4 years old?) every time wolf opponents need to drive home a point about how dangerous wolves are?

          1. Ida Lupine Avatar
            Ida Lupine

            The animal is so far off (and friendly, even trained) it could even be a dog. I can’t imagine a wolf behaving that way. The guy sounds like Bigfoot.

            1. Ida Lupine Avatar
              Ida Lupine

              To be honest, watching this, I was more frightened of Bigfoot than the canine!

    4. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      What were the other ‘bad marks’ for the Loup Loup pack? I must have missed them?

      I think people have to be realistic about how quickly someone can be rescued in remote areas. Again, she shouldn’t have been sent out alone. The FS ought to be responsible for its own employees?

  28. Immer Treue Avatar
  29. Yvette Avatar
    Yvette

    Why is it that people rarely get worked as up when they are in mountain lion territory as they do in wolf territory?

    If a mountain lion attacks they usually pounce before the human victim ever notices the cat. They quietly stalk, pounce and kill. Much more dangerous and deadly than wolves.

    I am a cat person. Love all of them from the smallest felines to the biggest. However, if I were out and had a choice of encounters, I’d take my chances of survival to be more likely with wolves than it would a cougar.

    1. rork Avatar
      rork

      https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/1-dead-1-injured-in-cougar-attack-on-eastside/
      That’s from May. Last death in WA was 94 years ago.
      I find that hiking in cougar/griz country makes me more aware of things in the green world. It is an enhanced experience. Even this past week in Shenandoah Nat Park, I was more appreciative of details like the overturned rocks or shredded stumps, and I was able to see black bears several times thanks to paying more attention. I also thank my fellow humans for leaving the chanterelles alone, even those right next to the trails.

  30. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    She would seem to be a very good climber, of just the right tree, also.

    You can’t blame the Loup Loup pack, but the people involved. Three agencies and they don’t seem to be able to communicate. I’m willing to cut the WDWF some slack. As I said before, are budgets so tight that only one person can go out into the field? No matter how you look at it, it is the agency (FS) at fault here.

    With WA and OR, and the Great Lakes, champing at the bit for delisting, you’ve got to take some of it with a grain of salt, IMO.

  31. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    There’s an account from MN of a guy out hunting grouse whose dog was chase by wolves. Apparently, he had his 3 year old son and 5 year old nephew with him. What do people think, really? Sanitize the landscape of wildlife so that they can do whatever they want?

    https://www.twincities.com/2017/09/27/northern-minnesota-hunter-has-harrowing-encounter-with-pack-of-wolves/

    Insisting upon taking dogs out to train for bear hunting in wolf country is just asking for trouble as well. People are the ones who are supposed to be the smart ones, not competing with wolves.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Step back and let Bailey’s “first person” account,sink in Ida:

      “Bailey and the boys continued to hunt during the afternoon in an area about 10 miles from where they had encountered the wolves. Bailey shot one grouse. The boys seemed to find the wolf encounter fascinating, he said.

      They thought it was the coolest experience in the north woods,” he said. “They were seeing all kinds of wolves all day long.”

      The encounter has made Bailey rethink hunting grouse with Henry.

      It makes me not want to bring my dog in the woods anymore,” he said. “It makes you think twice.”

      IMHO, a person that has now given some serious thought (from firsthand experience) to what wilderness areas are all about, predators, etc. need to be recognized, so few are not…..

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        You would hope so, but I’m skeptical. I wonder what wasn’t said and published. I’m not naïve enough to think anyone could have a magical conversion. What’s been done for decades, even centuries, especially that we’re hovering on the brink of it again, to wolves has sunk in enough for me, thank you very much.

        I can’t imagine a 3-year old would be that aware of a wolf, especially when by the account ‘everything happened so fast’. Maybe the 5-year old would be. Thinking twice about taking a dog out, and hopefully thinking twice about taking toddlers out too. The ka-blams! might be a little too loud for their little ears?

      2. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        It would not be very cool for the wolves to have to be destroyed because of the idea of the dog being killed, or the man of his children injured.

        I don’t know what ‘makes him rethink’ hunting really means. Is it just another disguised argument to have a culling done so that it is safe for hunters and their family bonding and to be able to go out into the woods and not be encumbered? Calls for safety are already being written about in the media, after the treed FS employee. Ridiculous hope just allows more wildlife to be killed.

        I was reading that people today ‘don’t know’ about the government-sponsored elimination programs for wolves and other wildlife, a comment made in response to the book American Wolf.

        1. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          Again Ida, take a step back?

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAaHUg0wSzo

          You actually came to mind, while watching this documentary, when someone yelled ” Call the Coast Guard” 🙂

          I so appreciate knowing both these species are still managing to hang in there.

          Grey whales have made a come back after being endangered from decades of abuse by the whaling industry but killer whales are becoming endangered now, due to the decades of dams (their natural prey are salmon, who need to spawn in rivers, that were dammed decades ago) and over fishing of salmon in the oceans, before they even get to their rivers of origin, to reproduce.

          Had to have been a depressing boat ride for those just hoping to see marine wildlife but fact is, nothing escapes “our” attention anymore due to the wonders of technology and its too bad we (humans) aren’t paying more attention to the effects we might now be having, that might be causing changes in behavioral patterns in the wildlife around us?

          1. Ida Lupine Avatar
            Ida Lupine

            That’s true. There isn’t much left out there. I think our own bad behavior escapes our attention for the most part because people don’t want to believe or face it.

            That’s true. It’s been very upsetting to read about that poor mother Orca and her dead baby, the pod starving and not having had a successful birth in 3 years, while humans are just running rampant with gluttony and reproducing.

            Our answer to the salmon damming problem is to kill sea lions who are eating the hatchlings.

            Even if that guy in MN had the best of intentions, it won’t take much for those of the old mindset to seize upon it and demand a delisting and a hunt for ‘safety’. I just thought it was very irresponsible on his part, and obviously in all his years on the planet, he hasn’t had to consider anything other than himself.

            Even if this man had the best of intentions, it won’t take much for someone of the old mindset to seize upon this and call for hunting, culling, or safety cages at the bus stops.

            1. Ida Lupine Avatar
              Ida Lupine

              sorry for the duplicate lines, my screen went blank and I thought I lost what I had typed! 🙂

            2. Nancy Avatar
              Nancy

              “I just thought it was very irresponsible on his part, and obviously in all his years on the planet, he hasn’t had to consider anything other than himself”

              And I am STILL, really puzzled at what you found “irresponsible” on his part, Ida.

              “Bailey said he never thought about shooting at any of the wolves” even with the drama unfolding, right in front of him.

              Recognize the situation for what it was, Ida – being in the wrong place, at the wrong time (when it comes to nature)

              I didn’t get the impression that Bailey was hysterical or went running to the press after this encounter, other than to maybe give others a heads up about close encounters they might have, in areas wolves might frequent.

              You do realize the local press/news titled this a “harrowing encounter”

              I didn’t get that impression when I read the article. And got to say also, kudos to Bailey’s dog Henry (a pup really) who had the good sense to bail INTO the truck, before the wolf gave him a sound thrashing 🙂 for intruding on what that wolf, no doubt thought, was his territory.

              1. Ida Lupine Avatar
                Ida Lupine

                I didn’t feel the man was hysterical either – just not very aware for a supposed outdoorsperson. But then I suppose most people feel entitled to go out into known wolf areas and wilderness with very young children and a dog, and are surprised if they encounter wildlife? Wolves are not the only danger in this situation, so it was very ill-advised IMO, and hardly a surprise.

                It really isn’t wrong place, wrong time in that respect – it was going out into the woods, and people should be aware of these things. Does he not read the news or check with his local DNR or R&W? I think the dog running away would be a natural response, and the dog owner is very lucky nothing happened.

                Yes, of course I realize it said ‘harrowing encounter’ – it makes for a good story, which is all the media is after a lot of the time. I just rolled my eyes because these kinds of ‘harrowing’ encounters are avoidable. It’s not like people don’t know there are wolves in MN.

                And the media whips up trouble like this for a good story, which is also irresponsible, and many times they are not knowledgeable either.

                When people have every advantage and dominate the landscape, I cannot have sympathy if they are out touring their ’empire’ and get a rude awakening. I don’t need to step back either.

    1. JEFF E. Avatar
      JEFF E.

      this

      1. timz Avatar
        timz

        and the guy is changing his shorts

  32. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Father and son (sportsmen) illegally kill black bear sow and cubs. Evidently, it’s all on film.

    http://time.com/5361963/police-alaska-bear-cubs-shooting/

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      I agree, we have a notorious flat straight secluded smooth spot near us that the motorcyclist like to wined up their bike and test out their speedometer… when they do it at dusk I shake my head at their elevated stupidity.

      http://www.news8000.com/news/UPDATE-Man-hits-wolf-dies-in-Jackson-Co-motorcycle-accident/112964

      http://wivb.com/2016/10/02/man-dies-after-sports-bike-hits-turkey-vulture-in-town-of-evans/

      http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/2-killed-in-freak-crash-with-bear-1.1061614.

  33. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    I hope we are done now discussing this. To be perfectly honest, I thought it was one of the dumbest things I have ever read, and I found it difficult to believe that anyone could be that clueless. The children were practically babies, and there was a gun involved as well. Wild animals are wild and unpredictable. It reminds me of the old ‘wolves snatching babies’ myth told in a new way.

    People have been responsible for more and more destruction of wildlife and wild lands over the decades and centuries, and I can’t cut them anymore slack. I can’t support the idea of some environmentalists and wildlife advocates who unwittingly contribute to more loss by continually making excuses for people’s behavior and dumb mistakes.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      As rork wrote, you need to learn how to use the reply function.

    2. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Yeah, we are done discussing this, Ida. But I’d suggest you do a little research into the use of the word “clueless” 🙂

      Will leave you with this thought –

      “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” Neil Grasse Tyson

      1. JEFF E Avatar
        JEFF E

        and for another viewpoint
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

        but I agree with you Nancy, one should not drink Boons farm in the morning….

    3. rork Avatar
      rork

      Some of us want to encounter wildlife with kids. I was just in a place where you see black bears 3 times a day, and people were roaming the woods *gasp* with kids. I’m grateful I got to go to the Nipegon country, boundary waters, and yellowstone/glacier since I could walk. Most kids today are impoverished by comparison.

  34. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Well I can tell you I am not satisfied. I’d like to see wolves back in the Northeast on the border of Canada, the Northeast Kingdom of VT, and Maine, so there’s still lots of good habitat and the job isn’t done yet, IMO. The barest minimum of recovery (look at the before and after maps) really ain’t that great, IMO. I don’t think it is fair for the minority of those who have financial interests in not having them to deprive the rest of us.

  35. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    ^^and the Adirondacks, I should add.

  36. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Folks need to make up their minds in regard to woodland caribou. Either you try to save them, or not. Culling wolves does absolutely nothing other than kill wolves, as more move into vacated territories, ultimately resulting in absolutely no benefit for the long term existence of the woodland caribou. If, destruction of old growth forests continues, as well as seismic testing lines, snowmobile paths, etc, the woodland caribou is good as gone.

    https://www.news1130.com/2018/08/11/clear-cut-logging-discovered-within-area-deemed-critical-threatened-caribou/

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Wow. What can you say about something like this? Very disappointing.

    2. rork Avatar
      rork

      If it’s like wild salmon, we can have “mitigation”. We’d raise a bunch in high fence enclosures and release some on occasion. Those trees are worth money, and we’d still have some caribou to see. /s

  37. Yvette Avatar
    Yvette

    I don’t see this posted yet. Surprised it isn’t.

    Bad news. Four wolf pups found dead.

    “The Jackson Hole News&Guide received a tip that the dead wolf pups were found near the Mill Iron Ranch, which is at the end of Horse Creek Road, and that they possibly died of parvovirus, a contagious disease found in dogs.”

    All four pups dies from parvovirus right at the same time? I’m calling bullshit.

    And apparently, anything wolf has a gag order in Wyoming.

    https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/jackson_hole_daily/local/article_cfd5aa36-f37c-580e-8c8a-993e39d6701a.html

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      No comment either. You’d think they would want to proclaim their innocence. I wonder what the lab reports will come up with.

      I really wish they would deduct these deaths from the hunting quotas, or from the rancher restitution funds.

      I wanted to say that you had posted an interesting article, Yvette, about the Pacific Northwest seaside wolves.

      1. Yvette Wiley Avatar
        Yvette Wiley

        That was super cool, wasn’t it?

        1. Yvette Avatar
          Yvette

          Ralph or someone, would you please remove my last name on this post? Thanks

  38. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    And a gag order? And the amount of wolves killed legally can only be reported ‘in aggregate’. I hope it all goes into consideration for the hunting quotas.

    I do hope that someone keeps on top of this and keeps us informed so that the public knows whether or not they were shot, had parvo, or were poisoned. The public has a right to know what happens on the public lands and to our valued wildlife.

  39. WM Avatar
    WM

    Togo wolf pack in NE Washington, now in cross-hairs for multiple attacks on cattle in Ferry County. Three of six events in the last 30 days.

    “[E]vidence shows non-lethal measures have not been successful.
    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/washington-state-approves-killing-of-wolves-that-preyed-on-cattle-in-ferry-county/

  40. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Here’s a much more thorough article. We know that Idaho has a lot more experience in these things than WA:

    http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/aug/20/following-cattle-depredations-wdfw-orders-lethal-r/

  41. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    “The pack is estimated to include two adult wolves and unknown number of pups, according to the release. Lethal removal efforts are scheduled to start 8 business hours following the authorization of lethal removal.”

    A pack that is only two wolves and an unknown number of pups, I’m not sure that ‘incremental removal’ doesn’t mean the entire pack in this case?

    But ever optimistic, officials and bar-stool experts guesstimate and assure us that ‘more are out there’. I just hope they don’t call in the Gatling guns again, because not only is it the most appalling image, but extremely expensive for the taxpayers, year after year, $10,000 a whack.

    1. WM Avatar
      WM

      This will be a test of the WA wolf management plan – and its contemplated administrative processes – possibly predicated on careless writing, now becoming the subject of litigation. I doubt the Commission would have approved the plan if interpreted the way plaintiffs now want in court. The Commission thought it would give the Division administrative discretion to diffuse tensions with livestock owners. So, now a coastal Superior Court judge may say otherwise.

      More facts here:

      https://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/gray_wolf/updates.php

      The legal complaint here, with an experienced heavy duty commercial litigator from Lane Powell (a big name Seattle/Regional firm).

      https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/wolves_on_the_west_coast/pdfs/003-2018-08-20-Petition-and-Ex–A.pdf

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      I can’t believe it. I’m no expert, but doesn’t anything that is especially dangerous to the public fall under strict liability and held to a higher standard?

  42. rork Avatar
    rork

    http://www.tpr.org/post/texas-deer-industry-bring-concerns-over-chronic-wasting-disease-legislature
    That’s NPR from texas covering a deer “industry” convention.
    A guy complains that he can’t move deer if other deer on the ranch have CWD. In Michigan, we’d kill every deer on the property.

    1. Yvette Avatar
      Yvette

      Only excuse Rork, is it’s Texas. I think the canned hunting is big in TX and most Texans want zero regulations on anything.

      1. rork Avatar
        rork

        I agree. Deer husbandry generates so much money there that it influences management decisions. I’ve had battles on other blogs about this. I want to drive a wedge between normal hunters and the industry. Some have opined that private management of enclosed deer is efficient, and so should be our future. That includes a former deer czar in WI, owner of a Texas deer ranch, and spokesman for that industry.

        1. Jeremy B. Avatar
          Jeremy B.

          We have CWD in Ohio precisely because they are moving these deer. Grrr…

  43. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Wisconsin trapper charged with illegal wolf kill.

    http://www.wqow.com/story/38958095/2018/08/Friday/western-wisconsin-man-charged-with-killing-a-wolf

    The DNR told News 18 that trappers are required to release animals they are not licensed to take, or contact the DNR for assistance releasing the animal.

  44. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    In my opinion, you cannot take away protections for an animal as long as people behave like this. Certain animals are more susceptible to this kind of treatment than others.

  45. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    “U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen has warned the attorneys he might rule from the bench after he finishes questioning them about removing Endangered Species Act protections from grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.”

    https://missoulian.com/news/local/as-hunting-season-looms-case-on-grizzly-protections-could-see/article_ced4ffa5-a3b2-5473-be53-e7373a4cd48c.html

  46. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Got to love The Onion and how it captures the “moment” in politics these days:

    https://politics.theonion.com/white-house-flag-now-moving-minute-to-minute-to-indicat-1828656803

    1. Yvette Avatar
      Yvette

      I didn’t know they ate rats and mice.

    2. WM Avatar
      WM

      I didn’t realize opossum would attack dogs or their leashed humans. Ran into one in of all places the play field around Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. We escaped without contact. They are not very fast.

      At first I thought it might have rabies. After the incident, I read up on them, and it looks like they do not get it easily. So much for the roll over and play dead routine. And, they do have very nasty teeth.

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        Had one dog with a propensity for finding possums. Only once did a possum not play possum. It go shook up pretty bad for its efforts, but did amble on afterwords, perhaps wiser for having not played dead.

    3. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Id rather have the chickens do it….. and keep the vermin at bay.

      https://www.wideopenpets.com/tick-control-with-chickens-how-effective-is-your-fowl-flock-patrol/

      Guinea hens, they say, are better at the tick thing than chickens.

  47. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Here’s a map of the grizzly bear’s range from Wikipedia, both historic and present. I wouldn’t blame anyone if they need a magnifying glass to see the extent of recovery in Idaho and Wyoming, around the National Parks:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly_bear#/media/File:Ursus_arctos_horribilis_map.svg

    Hunting any wildlife around the National Parks should be out of the question.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2018/07/03/montana-grizzly-cubs-may-end-up-canadian-zoo-quebec-canada/756874002/

      “FWP then sought a permanent home for the cubs. Unlike black bear cubs, the department does not rehabilitate and release grizzly bear cubs back into the wild”

      The question is, why not?

      Do they care more about these plans?

      https://myfwp.mt.gov/fwpPub/planahunt

      Which seem to be in direct conflict with what the department of FWP is trying to promote in this well done video. How many species can you spot in this video, that are now targets (or future targets) for some in the community?

  48. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    He could still order that the hunt be stopped until a decision on relisting is made.

    I honestly don’t know how another hunt could be scheduled for next year either. Is this a one-time thing?

    Some news reports, in their creativity, are framing it as ‘fewer than 2 dozen bears will be killed’. But that is a lot for the population, according to experts.

  49. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    And of course, others are printing ‘as many as 22 bears can be killed’, which is more accurate. And probably more.

  50. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    I don’t know. It seems like they don’t have a more progressive view of wildlife. At least they won’t get their mitts on more orphaned cubs this year, I hope anyway.

  51. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    I was reading that if the judge restores protections to the grizzlies as ‘threatened’, the states would like to keep their ‘management’ in state hands:

    “Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead was willing to “make adjustments” to the hunting season, Petersen said, if the judge leaves Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in charge of managing the bears — even if he rules that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to revise its rule declassifying grizzlies as threatened.”

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-grizzly-bear-hunts-20180830-story.html

    It’s a crazy headline too, because it would have been the first option right from the beginning, to block the hunt.

  52. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Good management and concern for the species first should not include a hunt, especially a trophy hunt, the after barely the first year of recovery.

    Someday hunting may or may not resume, but if I had a wish list, the bargain should be that in addition to returning the bears to Threatened status, I’d ask that no hunting of any kind be allowed at or around, near or close to National Parks. If the states would like to keep managing. Hunting has devastated the wolf population of Denali, which one would think is nearly impossible. Hovering around the national park boundaries is not hunting.

    I don’t believe wildlife belongs to anyone, but as it stands, Wyoming and its hunting community have no greater claim than anyone else in the country to the management of wildlife. We all have the right and want to be involved.

      1. JEFF E. Avatar
        JEFF E.

        I often wonder and challenge Wildlife officials in any state to explain why, in there world, a wildlife “success” event is not a success unless we then get to kill some of the said animals especially if it is not for food but just so someone can kill something. Never understood that.

        1. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          I often wonder and challenge animal lovers in any state to explain why, in there world, a wildlife “success” event is only a success if the animal can become a burden on the local rancher, pet owners and tax payers that have to clean up after them. Especially, for predators that have always been thinned around people(for around 12000 years here in North America). Never understood that.

          1. Ralph Maughan Avatar
            Ralph Maughan

            Ranchers usually lack tolerance for any wild animal, not just predatory ones. If it is allowed, they will poison, trap or shoot coyotes, and then when the number of rodents expands as the result of no predation on them, the ranchers want to poison the rodents.

            1. Mat-ters Avatar
              Mat-ters

              This is true of man’s domain everywhere…and for good reason! Ralph, do you swat the mosquito that flew into your tent on a camping trip…. how about the cricket that’s chirping somewhere just inside your back door…. or the rabbit that dug under the fence in your garden…. what about the robin that choose to nest above the light on the back porch…. or the bugs splattering on your windshield.

              People everywhere are making choices ….do I swat the mosquitoes, burn the tick, shoot the rabbit, knock the nest down a third time… these are their choices not yours.

              The argument of some of those on the wolf loving side is that coyote depredation on livestock way outnumbers the wolf!

              If there were only a way to have the wolf lovers take responsibility for the damage predators do and pay for the added burden to the rancher we could have as many as a man-less mother nature could abnormally dish out! BUT, I would still feel for the other wildlife that would have to live in that unnatural misery!

              1. Hiker Avatar
                Hiker

                How many bugs have we all killed, yet they keep on coming. Large mammals, on the other hand, need protection from us if they are to survive. Otherwise we’ll have a world of rats and cockroaches. By the way, they have a program to reimburse ranchers for proven wolf kills.

                1. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  Hiker, The wolf is one of the most prolific and versatile animals on the planet aside from homo-sapiens, I can’t think of a creature more adaptable! Less than a century ago our forefathers tried their hardest to kill them all…. and couldn’t do it! Need our protection? Laughable! Another “laughable” statement is the “reimbursement” of proven wolf kills. Dr Mech puts it at around only one in seven true depredations are ever “proven”. You need to have your pay docked so that your only getting paid for one in seven of the hours you work, just so you get a handle on what that means!

              2. Ida Lupine Avatar
                Ida Lupine

                I think many wolf lovers would gladly accept a little more responsibility, but that isn’t allowed either – because the reality is that ranchers and other do not want predators around at any cost.

                I never kill anything if I can help it. All life IMO has the ‘spark of divinity’. I leave nests alone and am thrilled to see them. I love to hear crickets. Rabbits in the garden, deer, and woodchucks are welcome. I even put bugs outside when I can.

              3. timz Avatar
                timz

                Why should the taxpayer be burdened with ranchers and their millions in subsidies and the huge cost of public lands grazing?

                1. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  Do you really believe that the value of a BML lease to ranchers are same no matter the location?! I’m sorry timz, but a short term three or four week rotation of a limited number of livestock pairs by a local rancher into a local short term lease with limited watering does not have the value it does to all ranchers some here would suggest it does. It just don’t! Also, anyone that suggests that their are no ecological benefits of this monitored grazing (similar to a herd of migrating bison) have you hoodwinked.

                2. timz Avatar
                  timz

                  despite all your blather the fact remains “In 2014, $143.6 million was directly appropriated to the grazing program (an amount that’s been consistent over the last 10 years). Some quick math reveals that, on average, public lands ranchers paid just $376 for what cost taxpayers $6,838 last year.”

                3. Jeremy B. Avatar
                  Jeremy B.

                  “Also, anyone that suggests that their are no ecological benefits of this monitored grazing (similar to a herd of migrating bison) have you hoodwinked.”

                  I suspect some would argue that the question is not whether public lands should be grazed by animals, but rather, whether the grazing should be done by livestock (and the benefits concentrated in producers), or whether the grazing should be done by native wildlife (and benefits distributed throughout society)?

                4. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  JB, “I suspect some would argue that the question is not whether public lands should be grazed by animals, but rather, whether the grazing should be done by livestock (and the benefits concentrated in producers), or whether the grazing should be done by native wildlife (and benefits distributed throughout society)?”

                  I see, from my lenses a great number of local people recognize the localized importance of these leases to the ranchers and local school districts and benefits to local economies. I suspect, that very fact is the driving force behind why some that have hate in their hearts for the rancher push so hard to upset the cart. These benefits as they play out all over the west foster social benefits throughout all of society! What a win for us all!

                  I’m surprised JB, that you didn’t touch the “ecological benefit” of monitored seasonal limited grazing! I saw firsthand how these grazing permits benefit wildlife back in 2012 while bow hunting elk/deer in MT near Sugarloaf Mountain. Elk/deer were flocking to a plush regenerated non-flammable meadow/plateau that was mowed down by cattle weeks/months earlier. I’m not sure how “native wildlife” creates this benefit to other native wildlife without MAN providing watering needs and herdsmanship.

                5. Jeremy B. Avatar
                  Jeremy B.

                  “…from my lenses a great number of local people recognize the localized importance of these leases to the ranchers and local school districts and benefits to local economies.”

                  The standard by which to judge an activity’s impact on the economy is not ‘how much gross income does it generate?’, but rather, ‘how much NET income does it generate relative to other possible activities?’. Personally, I would argue that even this latter standard is less than ideal. If you really want to measure whether something is socially beneficial, I would look at its affect on human well-being.

                  “I suspect, that very fact is the driving force behind why some that have hate in their hearts for the rancher push so hard to upset the cart. These benefits as they play out all over the west foster social benefits throughout all of society! What a win for us all!”

                  I don’t see much evidence of ‘hatred in hearts’ for ranchers; rather, I see people questioning whether public lands could be put to a better use — one that generates greater benefits for society. The fact that those individuals answer the question affirmatively leads them to have animosity toward the activity (ranching).

                  “I’m surprised JB, that you didn’t touch the “ecological benefit” of monitored seasonal limited grazing! I saw firsthand how these grazing permits benefit wildlife back in 2012 while bow hunting elk/deer in MT near Sugarloaf Mountain. Elk/deer were flocking to a plush regenerated non-flammable meadow/plateau that was mowed down by cattle weeks/months earlier. I’m not sure how “native wildlife” creates this benefit to other native wildlife without MAN providing watering needs and herdsmanship.”

                  Interesting… what you describe is a benefit to YOURSELF (in the form of increased usage of an area by deer and elk), which presumably you were hunting. I didn’t touch ‘ecological benefit’ because the concept is as slippery as they come. But, seeing how you brought it up, if we were to fill the room full of ecologists, most would argue that an ecological benefit is one that increases either biological diversity or resiliency. Grazing on the whole does neither.

                6. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  JB, I’ll leave this thread and exchange stand as is with only one more comment. WHY in god’s green earth is elk and deer flocking to a fresh green fire-resistant pasture only a benefit for me? Isn’t it a benefit to the very wildlife you claim to be a champion for and others that “love” wildlife? You can’t say that the biological benefit from the cattle isn’t similar to what bison do to benefit those elk and deer can you? I’m coming to think that there is no other stance for me to look at your view on livestock other than you have a view of contempt and not a view of “diversity”. Now, on top of that your “yourself” comment added contempt for sportsman and their role as what Natives once played in that diversity.

                  A symptom that type of contempt would be if someone would complain about the “disgusting the amount of cow shit you had to maneuver around on the trails” that would have to say the same thing about buffalo chips had it been them doing their biological thing…. wouldn’t it?

                7. Jeremy B. Avatar
                  Jeremy B.

                  First, I never said it elk and deer were a benefit ONLY to you; rather I contested your claim that heightened presence of elk and deer is good for the ecology of a place (“ecological benefit”–your words). It is not beneficial–at least, not necessarily. Grazing often negatively impacts biodiversity, which makes a system less resilient (able to recover from perturbation) — these are the standards by which ecologists typically judge ecological health.

                  Second, I’ve said nothing about sportsmen, so I’m not sure where you see contempt? Rather, I noted that increased use of place by elk and deer is potentially beneficial to sportsmen. I suspect we can agree on at least that much? The issue is that, again, what is good for sportsmen isn’t necessarily good for the ecological health of a place (see paragraph #1, and witness Rork’s writings about the effects of deer). That isn’t contempt, it’s simply fact. I don’t have any more contempt for the sportsmen who takes advantage of high deer and elk densities than I do for the deer and elk who take advantage of a better food source (optimal foraging in both cases) — I just don’t think managing a place for greater ungulate density is necessary a good thing.

                  Make sense?

          2. Jeremy B. Avatar
            Jeremy B.

            Hints:

            Principle 1: Maximize utility for clientele.

            Principle 2: Minimize harm to sentient life.

            Now you both understand. 🙂

          3. JEFF E. Avatar
            JEFF E.

            not talking about ranchers, or pet owners, and like everyone else I pay taxes and I don’t want my taxes subsidizing public lands ranching so there ya go.
            but to the point, if you can stay on it, why should there immediately be a hunting season for the sole reason of just killing something?

              1. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                @ Jeff E, paying taxes for things we don’t like or believe in sounds like a conservative ideology…. good for you Jeff E! Simply put, there are a ton of things that the Federal Government has absolutely no business sticking their nose into…let alone spending millions on! The real point is that the grizzly should have been delisted years ago. As we have said on this site countless times… hunting removes grizzles from zones where they are more likely to become a burden to pet owners, livestock owners & the taxpayer. It also naturally thins those in areas other wildlife feel the burden of too many predators! Hunting has been part of healthy ecosystems here in North America for thousands of years…..those that clammier that the moose and wolf have “lived together for thousands of years” purposefully ignore the hard fact that humans have also been part of that very equation. Those claiming that unhealthy predator saturated areas non-human affected areas are the “only healthy” typically have an agenda based solely on negativity towards the ranchers and sportsman. It has no roots in conservation, morality or care for all wildlife!

                1. Nancy Avatar
                  Nancy

                  “those that clammier that the moose and wolf have “lived together for thousands of years” purposefully ignore the hard fact that humans have also been part of that very equation”

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE

                  And try and be a little more accurate about your grazing schedules Mat-ters. Most allotments in this part of the west (on public lands) can be anywhere from 3-6 months or longer (or in Bundy’s allotment down in NV – 20 + years of free grazing)

                  Took a hike last week, on public lands, and it was disgusting the amount of cow shit you had to maneuver around on the trails.

                2. JEFF E. Avatar
                  JEFF E.

                  so you are not able to stay on point….
                  ok

            1. Immer Treue Avatar
              Immer Treue

              JEFF E
              Agreed and similar thoughts here. Delist Just to shoot and hang on a wall makes little sense. First wolf season up here many folks were aghast at the depth and breadth of take, when all they want was ability to protect pets if need be done.

              1. JEFF E Avatar
                JEFF E

                Immer, this isn’t a case of defending life or property, or damage to personnel belongings on private property. It is someone purposely traveling to a distance location for no other reason than to kill something. I am referring to the proposed Idaho grizzly proposed kill but other examples come to mind.

                1. Immer Treue Avatar
                  Immer Treue

                  JEFF E,
                  No argument from me. I agree with you.

                2. JEFF E Avatar
                  JEFF E

                  i know you did. i was just agreeing with your post…?

              2. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                ahhh yes… Immer gives us more anecdotal evidence to the bogus history of the anishinaabe / chippewa living with dogs and in brotherly harmony with wolves! Thank you Immer!

                1. Immer Treue Avatar
                  Immer Treue

                  This is one of many reasons I no longer even attempt discussion with you. I have said absolutely nothing about/in regard to Anishinabe/Chippewa.

                  My comment was in regard to your propensity for betting/conjecture on the wrong horse.

                  And as JEFF E has correctly pointed out, you have once again avoided the topic of a comment and applied your own spin. Time is too valuable to waste on you.

                  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PVrEwCa8nSA

              3. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                Immer, It appears that I’ve put to much on your plate. Please, take a better look at my responses. 1st did respond to your comment on “my” “propensity” by making the point that all those “bets” were protocols the government trapper was to follow… but then again you probably knew that!

                THEN, totally aside of that time waster, I made the point that you…. and I quote “when all they want was ability to protect pets if need be done.” made an statement of admission that those living with pet / dogs have issue with wolves, anecdotal evidence of how the Anishinabe would have also viewed the wolf and the inevitability of habituation of their brother!

        2. Ida Lupine Avatar
          Ida Lupine

          +1 I think people still have the vestige of hunter in them, even though the world has changed.

          I don’t particularly care for hunting, but if people hunt for food that I can tolerate. But trophy hunting for animals that have uncertain futures, no.

  53. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    I should add that I don’t think people need to be reminded how the “Wolf Stamp” idea went over. Not well. I think it was the hunting community who complained, and the idea was ‘tabled’. Shelved, it looks like. 🙁

  54. rork Avatar
    rork

    In case folks don’t recall, the natives where I live (the Anishinaabe) oppose wolf hunting. It is encoded in their religion. It would be like killing your brother.
    That seems to show it was not a necessity to thin them out for the last 12000 years. European settlers managed to extirpate them though. Necessity is the plea, but the costing out of it is often shallow, and suspect. Our livestock losses to wolves are minuscule, despite wolves being at saturation in upper Michigan. Ecological service benefits are very difficult to estimate in dollars, but I could list several. I really don’t care if you let your dog get killed by wolves or bears. I’m not saying every place in the world is like here though.

    1. WM Avatar
      WM

      Rork, I don’t know the historical context but the Colville Tribe, NE Washington, have come to realize that wolves represent a threat to their current way of life (livestock-sheep, cows, horses/pets), that they instituted a tribal hunting season on wolves a couple years back. The Colville Reservation is just a stone’s throw from wolf-central where all the lethal control has been done by WDFW over the last 3 years, including the recent thumping of a Goto pack member. I’ve not had reason to check on how many wolves the Colville tribe have taken “officially” or by tribal members illegally without disclosure, but I do believe there is not high reverence for wolves as might be the case in other Native American cultures. I also wonder what will happen when wolves in any significant numbers show on the Navajo or Hopi reservations in the Southwest. Their respective cultures center around sheep and goats, highly vulnerable to our canine friends. Navajo County, AZ, which includes the Navajo reservation (and leans pretty strongly R), I think has an ordinance outlawing wolves.

      So, broad labeling of reverence for wolves by Native Americans geographically, I suspect, is worthy of considerable critical thought.

      1. Nancy Avatar
        Nancy

        Yeah WM, attitudes do have a way of changing over generations, especially when its all about profit these days versus trying to find ways to co-exist with nature. Nature by the way, we humans continue to displace at an alarming rate, around the world.

      2. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
        Mareks Vilkins

        I wonder I wonder bla bla bla

        always eager to moan about few cattle lost to predators but will never ever mention billions of dollars owed by the government

        few excerpts from Appendix to the Second paperback Edition of Norman G. Finkelstein’s „The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering” Second edition 2003,
        pages 264-273

        „In June 1996 the Native American Rights Fund filed the largest class-action lawsuit in US history on behalf of Elouise Pepion Cobell of Montana’s Blackfeet tribe, and 300 000 – 500 000 other Native Americans.

        … At issue were Native American monies held in trust by the US government. The genesis of these Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust accounts reached back to the late nineteenth century when, under the General Allotment Act (1887), 140 million acres of communally-owned tribal lands were broken up into private plots. „As the government concedes,” Judge Lamberth stated, „the purpose of the IIM trust was to deprive plaintiffs’ ancestors of their native lands and rid the nation of their tribal identity.” Fully 90 million acres were deemed „surplus” and quickly opened to non-Indian settlement, while another 40 million acres „have never been accounted for.” Revenue from leases for grazing, mining, drilling and lumbering rights on these lands – now reduced to 10 million acres – was supposed to go into the IIM trust accounts. The class-action suit called on the US government to finally audit – „abide by its duty to render an accurate accounting of” – these accounts. Designating their condition a „national disgrace,” a 1992 Congressional report found that IIM accounts „look as though they had been handled with a pitchfork,” and were the „equivalent of a bank that doesn’t know how much money it has.”

        1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
          Mareks Vilkins

          … „It would be difficult to find a more historically mismanaged federal program,” Judge Lamberth concluded. „The United States … cannot say how much money is or should be in the trust … It is fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form.” And again: „The Department of Interior’s administration of the Individual Indian Money trust has served as the gold standard for mismanagement by the federal government for more than a century … The federal government regularly issues payments to beneficiaries – of their own money – in erroneous amounts.”

          … Noting that apparently „no sitting Secretary in modern times has been held in contempt of court,” Lamberth charged defendants with „actions that can be characterized as nothing short of contumacious,” a „behind-the-scenes cover-up,” „campaign of stonewalling,” and „shocking pattern of deception,” „numerous illegitimate misrepresentations,” „nothing short of travesty,” „reckless disregard for the orders of this court,” „misconduct that rises above the level of ‘reckless disregard’ ,” „wilfull dereliction … perilously close to criminal contempt of court” and so on. „I have never seen,” he concluded, „more egregious misconduct by the federal government.”

          … In a December 1999 report the court-appointed Special Master disclosed the Treasury Department’s renewed destruction of documents „potentially responsive or potentially relevant to the Cobell litigation … at the exact time the Secretary of the Treasury was held in contempt for violation of his discovery obligations,” as well as its failure „to disclose the destruction … notwithstanding myriad opportunities to do so.” „This is a system,” the Special Master concluded,”clearly out of control.”

          1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
            Mareks Vilkins

            … Upholding Lamberth’s opinion, the US Court of Appeals subsequently ruled that the Treasury Department’s „destruction of potentially relevant IIM-related trust documents that may have been necessary for a complete accounting is clear evidence that the Department” breached its „fiduciary duty”; and that „given the history of destruction of documents and loss of information necessary to conduct an historical accounting, the failure of the government to act could place anything approaching an adequate accounting beyond plaintiffs’ reach.”

            … „In my fifteen years on the bench I have never seen a litigant make such a concerted effort to subvert the truth seeking function of the judicial process. I am immensely disappointed that I see such a litigant today and that the litigant is a Department of the United States government. The Department of Interior is truly an embarrassment to the federal government in general and the executive branch in particular”; „The egregious nature of the Department’s conduct in this is exacerbated by the fact that attorneys in the Solicitor’s Office actively participated”; „It is almost unfathomable that a federal agency would engage in such a pervasive scheme aimed at defrauding the Court and preventing the plaintiffs from learning the truth about the administration of their trust accounts.”

            1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
              Mareks Vilkins

              The U.S. government’s handling of the actual audit has proven equally scandalous. With cost estimates ranging from $200 to $400 million, already in the early 1990s both Congress („it makes little sense to spend so much”) and the Department of Interior („a difficult task, perhaps costing over $200 million”) questioned the financial wisdom of auditing the accounts. In 1996 Interior requested only a modest sum for the audit and even this amount was slashed by the federal government. In the September 2002 contempt trial Judge Lamberth found that, despite a court order, for more than a year and a half Interior „had not even taken the preliminary steps” toward conducting the audit.

              … Reviewing the entire court record, Judge Lamberth scathingly observed that the Department of Interior „handled this litigation the same way that it has managed the IIM trust – disgracefully”; that „the defendants’ contention that the Court should consider their ‘good-faith’ efforts would be laughable if it were not so sad and cynical”; that „the recalcitrance exhibited by the Department of Interior in complying with the orders of this Court is only surpassed by the incompetence that the agency has shown in administering the IIM trust”; and so on. „I may have life tenure,” he concluded, „but at the rate the Department of Interior is progressing that is not a long enough appointment.” In January 2003, Native American plaintiffs presented Judge Lamberth a „detailed court filing … based on private historical records asserting that the government had cheated them out of as much as $137.2 billion over the last 115 years.”

              1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
                Mareks Vilkins

                Some footnotes / references:

                United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Elouise Pepion Cobell et al., Plaintiffs, v. Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, Lawrence Summers, Secretary of the Treasury, and Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary of the Interior (Civil Action No. 96-1285) (RCL), Memorandum Opinion: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law (21 December 1999)

                Jeffrey St. Clair, „Stolen Trust” in CounrePunch (5 September 2002)

                Joel Brinkley, „American Indians Say Documents Show Government Has Cheated Them Out of Billions,” in New York Times (7 January 2003).

        2. WM Avatar
          WM

          I see you have a case of keyboard relevancy diarrhea again, Mareks. You really should take something for that before you dehydrate.

      3. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        I think most people do recognize differences in beliefs by different tribes, but many do have cultural ties, including the tribes you mention. So broad labeling, intentionally or not, does no one any good.

        For the Colville, the decision to hunt was not unanimous. The official take is three, I believe, and there was an article mentioning lifting the quota, but I have not seen anything else about it it. I can’t speculate about illegal takes without proof, and it doesn’t seem to be as large percentage of those who get caught and that we read about.

        I could not find anything about an ordinance ‘outlawing’ wolves in Navajo nation – how could they when they have been extirpated? The wolf is part of their creation myths also. It should be noted that for Native peoples, their ‘way of life’ was taken from them, and they were forced upon reservations with smaller area and less game to hunt.

        But I did find something about a NNDFW policy for Mexican wolves on the Navajo lands:

        https://www.nndfw.org/Summit%20Presentations%202015/Mexican%20Wolves%20on%20The%20Navajo%20Nation_CSmith.pdf

        They are not participating in the program, and ask that dispersers be removed (not killed unless absolutely necessary) but do not seem particularly alarmed either.

        No matter what current policies are, there was never a general policy to destroy them entirely, to extinction, like there was by the colonists and their descendants, an attitude that persists to this day. The photographs that exist of mountains of bison bones and wolf pelts tell of a disregard for life.

        We do have to admit that there is, or was, a great difference in point of view of the natural world.

        1. WM Avatar
          WM

          It was Apache County, AZ that passed the no wolf release ordinance, so my mistake:
          https://www.wmicentral.com/news_premium/apache-county-passes-gray-wolf-ordinance-cites-th-amendment/article_919be0d8-c3ee-11e2-8247-0019bb2963f4.html

          I will keep looking as I recalled Navajo County did something similar.

          1. WM Avatar
            WM

            Ah yes, just a quick Google search produced this. And remember this is Navajo County, and the reservation is WITHIN the County: http://www.timberwolfinformation.org/az-county-site-considered-for-gray-wolf-reintroduction/

            Cleary there is no desire for wolves as reflected in a duly elected government – the board of Commissioners.

            “The update follows the county’s years-long battle to ban the wolves’ release locally, with the five eastern counties of Arizona expending much effort to restrict the wolves from the federal government’s endangered species listings as a matter of public safety.

            In May 2008, the Board of Supervisors passed the Navajo County Predatory Animal Ordinance, which prohibited the release of wolves in the county, and specified criminal penalties and fines up to $300 and $1,000 for individual and enterprise violations, respectively.”

            1. Ida Lupine Avatar
              Ida Lupine

              That complicates things a bit. Is it Navajo county who passed the ordinance, or the Navajo nation also? Who prevails in that case?

        2. WM Avatar
          WM

          Yvette, if I understand the presentation you cite above, USFWS will remove any wolf north or south of I-40 on or near the reservation at Navajo Tribal request. So, seems to me there is a safety valve there, which no doubt came about as a result of concerns of potential impact to tribal interests. And, I bet a tribal member -regardless of tribe- would consider thumping a wolf if it interfered with a significant economic interest that they believe was threatened – ANYWHERE on any reservation or protected off-reservation hunting or grazing right. That certainly has to piss off the folks at CBD, headquartered in AZ.

      4. Yvette Avatar
        Yvette

        WM, The Colville Tribe is one of your favorite to reference. My sister and brother in law lived on that rez for a couple of years and did not care for the way they ran their tribe. Did not like working for them. But you are right, they are pretty anti-wolf. I do know that one tribal member who worked for BIA and had who oversight on agriculture and ag management plans was closely tied to big ag industry. I also remember reading after the Colville’s implemented their first wolf season that a tribal member brought in a dog. He hunted and killed a dog thinking he had a wolf.

        Comparing the Colvilles to the GL tribes is more like comparing the French to the Russians. One is neither better than the other but they are culturally different. As Rork stated, the wolf is in the Anishinaabe’s creation story. Ma’iigan (wolf) was their true brother in creation. Then they separated and went on different paths but remained brothers. You should go out there and visit with them because that reverence and their religion should really only be disseminated by them.

        1. WM Avatar
          WM

          I suspect the Yakama’s won’t be to welcoming of wolves, either, but I have not seen anything one way or the other. They do raise quite a few cows on the reservation, the largest in WA. Their big issue would be the impact on elk on reservation or off reservation historic hunting grounds, preserved by treaty In that respect they are probably as pissed as non-Indian hunters.

          1. WM Avatar
            WM

            Footnote: The large elk herd on the Yakama Reservation is considered an essential tribal subsistence resource. If and when wolves arrive, it will be interesting to see how the Yakama’s respond. Though asked to participate on the WA wolf management planning group, if I remember correctly, they were pretty silent.

            1. Yvette Avatar
              Yvette

              LOL, I started to say the Colville’s and the Yakama’s are your favorite tribes to reference but went back and deleted before I posted.

              Yes, not all tribes are the same. Not all Natives revere wolves, nature and the wild.

              1. WM Avatar
                WM

                Yvette, I would tell you about a joke Vine DeLoria a Standing Rock Sioux told at a legal lecture years ago about another Northern Plains tribe, and its customs, but it would necessitate a lengthy description. On the other hand, first day of my Indian Law class taught by Charles Wilkinson, he told a kind of a sick joke about a Sioux gourmet meal being a six pack of beer and a puppy. Irreverent, indeed, by a white professor. But, in the coming months and years I learned why he told the pithy joke. He is among the greatest legal champions Native Americans have ever had (along with a bunch of other folks-David Getches, Richard Collins, John Echohawk- who were involved in starting and making the Native American Rights Foundation a loud voice in Indian Country).

                1. Yvette Avatar
                  Yvette

                  WM, sounds like a good class. Recently, I’ve kind of regretted not having interest in pursuing a law degree when I was younger. Once I started reading legal papers for various research, I found environmental law, and environmental justice interesting. All I know is lawyers write long papers.

              2. Jeff N. Avatar
                Jeff N.

                Just for reference in AZ. The Apache reservation (W/in the Lobo recovery zone) is broken into two segments divided by the Black River. North of the river is considered White Mountain Apache, who have been accommodating to wolf recovery on their land pretty much from the start. South of the river is considered San Carlos Apache. They have more of an issue with wolves on their land due to more livestock grazing and the management of their elk herd allowing for trophy hunting opportunities. Originally they did not want any wolves on their part of the reservation, however I believe that have become somewhat more accommodating over the years, though reluctantly.

  55. Mat-ters Avatar
    Mat-ters

    The Anishinaabe / Ojibwe have passed on traditions and “beliefs” generation to generation without the written word… one would think that history in such cases tends to be rewritten in some form as the new generation puts on their spin. The written word and writings of the past 3000 years tend to make these subtle and catastrophic changes less likely. Not the case with the Anishinaabe. If memory serves me right, there (current) “language” was only put into writing about 40 years ago! I suspect, (with knowledge of general animal behavior 101) that some tribes /generations experience disaster with wolves for their only domestic animal was the dog. Dogs and wolves do not mix! (for sure for the Chippewa – a sub clan of the Anishinaabe). For that reason, I would most certainly bet the farm that their current beliefs on wolves has a different history…

    Those here can not rewrite history … take a look at what happened during the great WW’s in northern Russia… here is a glimpse of what happens! Those on the side of the wolf can not outrun the inevitability of habituation including the Anishinaabe!

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/sports/ukraine-war-hunting.html

    1. Yvette Avatar
      Yvette

      “For that reason, I would most certainly bet the farm that their current beliefs on wolves has a different history…

      Those on the side of the wolf can not outrun the inevitability of habituation including the Anishinaabe!”

      …….and the Catholic’s beliefs on the virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus will be doubted as empirical evidence continues to show Christianity and other religions to be highly improbable.

      1. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        improbable ….. the fact still remains that the bible, 2700 year old, is still as relevant today as day one. The timeline consistency of the message is unparalleled. The interpretation of King James version of the bible is still scrutinized today & only a testament to that consistency. In contrast, recordings of the Anishinaabe language prior to their documentation do not have the consistency to their documented / written word….look it up. I suspect the same of their verbal history.

        1. Yvette Avatar
          Yvette

          Hey Mat-ters, Whitesplain that to me again.

          1. Immer Treue Avatar
            Immer Treue

            +

          2. Mat-ters Avatar
            Mat-ters

            No Problem Yvette, From my understanding Judaism, Christianity & Islam all originate from and acknowledge the history of a man called Jesus. Judaism and Islam both acknowledge him as a good man but differ in his role in monotheism. His message is clear and that clarity has been consistent for 1000’s of years…it’s a good message and for the most part has brought peace, civility and tranquility where it has been truly applied. I personally have found nothing better than the long lasting un-revised message of Jesus.

            On the other hand, it is my understanding that the beliefs, language, and verbal history of the Anishinaabe have relied on the mouth to mouth interpretations for the last 1000’s of years. Maybe you can do some indiansplaining to give me a better understanding the following: How is the reliability and consistency of Anishinaabe history and beliefs kept intact? Do you think beliefs such as the wolf being equal and a brother changed when and during times where predators became habituated? Is it your belief that predators such has the wolf only become habituated to those other than the Anishinaabe?? Did the Anishinaabe live with dogs as pets?

            Immer, your “+” of Yvette’s “whitesplaining” comment is interesting for neither of you know the color of my skin…. racism is a fickle foe …. and unchristian!

            1. Immer Treue Avatar
              Immer Treue

              “Racism is a fickle foe…and unchristian.” Cough.

  56. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    “For that reason, I would most certainly bet the farm that their current beliefs on wolves has a different history…”

    Just like your willingness to bet that a boy and his dog were trespassing

    “I’m willing to bet that this boy and his dog were trespassing. The article includes statements from the father and a balance article should have included a statement on this. I’m willing to bet that neighbors of this private property were notified of the devices via direct conversation AND OR signs posted. I’m willing to bet that the rancher has had AND is having serious issues with coyotes.”

    With you, all bets are off.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      What, and you didn’t take the bets??? The use of those products have protocol consistent with those bets …..don’t they Immer! I’m wondering if the boozo public servant that put them out “illegally” was fired?

  57. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/us-approves-sheep-grazing-research-in-grizzly-bear-area-09-06-2018

    4 years ago:

    “The US Sheep Experiment Station has long outlived its usefulness to the American taxpayers and continues to be the cause of conflict with many imperiled species from grizzly bears to grayling to bighorn sheep. These many conflicts, and the attempts by the Sheep Experiment Station to cover them up, leads me to believe the Station should be shuttered and its lands incorporated into the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge to be repurposed to conserve wildlife.” Ken Cole NEPA Coordinator -­‐ Western Watersheds Project

    http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/02/03/conservationists-settle-lawsuit-against-experimental-sheep-station-after-grizzly-goes-missing/

  58. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    “disgusting the amount of cow shit you had to maneuver around on the trails” that would have to say the same thing about buffalo chips had it been them doing their biological thing…. wouldn’t it?

    It would appear, as usual, that you are clueless, Mat-ters, to a lot of the terrain out here in the west.

    The area I hiked was a long ravine, lush in browse (ideal for elk, deer, moose) but lacking in grasses. (Not a area herds of buffalo would of been found in due to the lack of grass)

    Unfortunately too many of these areas are part of grazing allotments and are subjected to cattle, in search of grass.

    Cow shit aside, the destruction is obvious, even to the untrained eye.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Nancy, I call BULL! My ties to and visits to MT / WY are extensive! One area that I know like the back of my hand is Slough Creek this drainage runs south from MT to Yellowstone. To the east of that drainage is the head of the Stillwater river which runs somewhat north (opposite Slough Creek)near Cooke city which runs around 22 miles (as the crow flies) to Nye MT. I know and understand this area its history and is wildlife and the well being of that wildlife. ONE being the increase in the number of bison in the slough creek drainage. To say that bison don’t defecate on the trails and eat their way in and out from a place called French’s Meadow to the Transfer in Yellowstone and the somewhat narrowing passes is preposterous! I encourage those interested in getting to know this area and can’t handle “roughing it” to book a stay at a dude ranch just out of the park called Silvertip Ranch which is on the south end of Frenches Meadow.

      Bison also defecate in the creek and erode their banks just as the cattle do all along that trail! A new hunting unit have been set up for the increase of bison in the Slough Creek drainage to mimic the natural take of Natives and keep bison from eating themselves out of house and home as the no doubt do in parts of the park. I feel Nancy this is just another example of how your views are guided by contempt for others in two certain groups and not what is truly good for wildlife and people.
      I KNOW that you’re the “clueless” one to argue that I know nothing of the terrain of the west….laughable!

      1. Nancy Avatar
        Nancy

        Perhaps in your “infinite wisdom” of the west Mat-ters, you are confusing what landlocked, managed, native bison now look like, compared to migratory bison of the old days?

        https://www.westernwatersheds.org/gw-cattle-v-bison/

        Or perhaps the folks just coming to enjoy the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of a whole host of wildlife including wolves, bears, etc. tangled with your time there – getting in, shooting something and getting out. Caring little about how complex the ecosystem is, now that its being managed by humans….

        https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60999-d145498-Reviews-Slough_Creek-Yellowstone_National_Park_Wyoming.html

        1. Ida Lupine Avatar
          Ida Lupine

          “. . . confusing what landlocked, managed, native bison now look like, compared to migratory bison of the old days?”

          +1

          1. Mat-ters Avatar
            Mat-ters

            Come on Ida…. Bison have been roaming the Lamar Valley and its fingers for ……FOREVER! Don’t follow Nancy down the path of such an embarrassing / contemptful post! There is no landlocking here! I suspect that maybe a few hundred bison could spend seven to eight month a year coming and going from this remote place “French’s Meadow” before being force to lower non-landlocked elevations making hardly a dent in the plentiful vegetation!

            The Meadow is named after an old French homesteader that became grizzly bear food. An old horse drawn metal hay rake and some other remnants remain on the north west corner of the meadow. The old home layout / chimney stones can be seen if you know where to look just to the NE of the equipment remnants.

            “Caring little about how complex the ecosystem is, now that its being managed by humans…” Her contemptful conjecture as to my “Caring” has no basis in what is good for all wildlife…. Those promoting ecosystems based on unprecedented predator protection certainly have no upper hand in the care department / diversity or animal kindness.

            1. Nancy Avatar
              Nancy

              “unprecedented predator protection” ??????

              Talk about contemptuous!

              1. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                Nancy, your comment got me thinking, why is staring the truth in the eye so contemptuous for you?

                I’d be surprised if those the likes of Jeremy B are foolish enough to say ANYTHING other than “unprecedented predator protection” in certain places is a reality of the true history of life here in North America. I would have heightened disrespect for any wildlife professional that had the historic realities of anthropological effects of a place like Yellowstone other than looking at today as “unprecedented” …..and that is on both the predators and prey side. The overabundance of prey in Yellowstone and damage done was a direct result of ignoring that historic anthropologic reality – that any time there was an overabundance of prey MAN would have quickly moved in to remedy the situation. Your way of thinking is more responsible for the “damage” in Yellowstone than any sportsman. That’s just reality, fact and looking at history in a logical moral manner. NO contempt here, just history you can’t run from!

  59. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    A video that seems to captures the situation on this planet, in real time. Do what you will with it 🙂 but I’d suggest passing it on…….

  60. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    When are the folks in “bear country” going to wake up to the fact that bears will look for readily available, unprotected, food sources?

    https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/grizzly-bear-captured-killed-after-getting-into-turkey-feed

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      I’m not optimistic that they ever will. 🙁

      But the numbers of ‘euthanized’ grizzlies just keeps piling up.

  61. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Both tribes that you mention WM have historical ties to wolves. As far as today, I think things have changed.

    A spokesperson for the Colville has said that it was a difficult decision to come to because of their historical ties to the wolf.

    Searching the internet, found something to ponder:

    “In Navajo, another word for “wolf” is “mai-coh,” meaning witch. The Navajo fear of wolves derives not from the nature of the animal but rather from the potential for monstrous behavior from humans. Both the Navajo and the Hopi believe that human witches use or possibly abuse the wolf’s powers to influence other people. While Europeans warned of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, some Native American tribal beliefs cautioned against a human in wolf’s clothing. Literally, the Navajo wolf, or witch, can also be referred to as a skinwalker. Not all Navajo witches are skinwalkers, but all skinwalkers are witches.”

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      or I should say, cultural and historical ties.

  62. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Good to see you posting, Mareks!

  63. WM Avatar
    WM

    WDFW is again going after wolves with a preference for cattle, finding that non-lethal efforts were not working. Offenders are a newly formed pack in the same range as the Profanity pack that was (mostly) eliminated in 2016. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-state-to-kill-more-wolves-in-ferry-county/?utm_source=marketingcloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning+Brief+9-13-18_9_13_2018&utm_term=

    And, remember this is arguably all being done under the duly adopted wolf management plan, though CBD and other conservation groups are claiming to challenge the ambiguity in the plan – even in light of what I recall the then sitting WA Fish and Wildlife Commission declaring in its plan deliberation a need for flexibility. So, even if they win a recently filed suit and requested injunctions, the next WDFW step will at some point be to amend the plan so it is crystal clear that lethal control will be an integral part of the plan for reintroduction going forward, delegating to the staff the decision authority to micro-manage wolves. At least, that is my uninformed opinion.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      WM, I understand the frustrated tone of your post. Once again, a blind man can see the crystal clear waste of tax dollars to “save” wolves. Do you feel this is more about wearing wolves on their sleeve as a fundraiser OR is it a true effort to “save” wolves? Either way, it weakens Endangered Species Laws!

  64. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    “The wolf pack WDFW plans to target has tried to prey on cattle six times this month on federal grazing lands, killing one calf and injuring five others, according to WDFW.”

    This is the exact same thing that they claimed the Togo pack had done, six cattle, and I thought the problem had been addressed when they killed the male wolf last week or the week before?

    Now, is this an additional six cattle, a different ranch, six other cattle? Are there 12 cattle that have been attacked? It’s confusing.

  65. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    “In extending the delay, the judge said there remained “serious questions” regarding whether the government acted lawfully in lifting protections on an estimated 700 bears in the three-state Yellowstone region. He gave no further indication of his position in the case.”

    I really do hope that F&W and the Interior Dept. isn’t acting in a retaliatory fashion with wolves because of this. It would seem to me they should have handled the problem rancher all at once?

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Good news!

    2. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      Looks like a lottery one would rally care about winning if a mountain goat.

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        Absolutely. I had read that they would have been hunted, or just killed. This way, at least a majority will have a new home.

    3. WM Avatar
      WM

      I will be in Olympic NP this coming week, back roughly 20 miles into the high country for 7 days. For my friends here who believe helicopters ARE NOT used in designated Wilderness, here is a prime example where, indeed, they are using helicopters. Over 95 percent of ONP is designated Wilderness. https://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/wilderness.htm

      These goats are in the high peaks in the heart of Wilderness.

      The National Park Service also uses helicopters in ONP and elsewhere to haul out shit bins and ranger tent platforms in the same manner this time of year, after the heavy summer use period is over. They just don’t put skids on the ground typically, or if they do it, I think it is on an artificial surface, like a 2×8 board.

      So, answer me this, if helicopters can and are used legally for general “management” in a national park, as they have been for decades here and elsewhere, why can’t they be legally used for wolf removal in designated Wilderness in a National Recreation Area, under administration by USDA Forest Service (which typically has more lenient rules than the Park Service? This is not a trick question.

      The National Park Service is very concerned that the goat removal (non-native introduced species) goes well, without mortality from netting and darting. They had a PR fiasco a number of years back when the mortality of goats being removed was very high. And, of course, folks like to see goats there because they are really cool animals.

      These goats, by the way, relocated to the Cascades may be subject to hunting eventually. There is a limited draw lottery for goats in a number of areas, if they are not in the North Cascades National Park, but in designated Wilderness and elsewhere in the Cascades.

      1. WM Avatar
        WM

        A better article, including historicl context, on the goat removal by the Kitsap Sun. The Seattle Times article is more PC for urbanites.

        https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/local/2018/09/13/mountain-goats-airlifted-out-olympic-national-park/1293142002/

        1. Moose Avatar
          Moose

          The ST article has links to previous in-depth articles on the issue..not sure where your PC gripe applies.

          1. WM Avatar
            WM

            You’re right. I should have looked at the links. Evan Bush is usually pretty balanced. The ST, from my years of experience and candid input from relatives who work there, is generally not very balanced on some topics.

            1. Moose Avatar
              Moose

              Yes, you definitely have a point with that last sentence.

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      I’m so glad to read this, and for the Siberian tiger recovery too. Working to save endangered wildlife from extinction is apolitical, and in the interest of the world.

  66. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Hopefully the first big step toward banning M-44’s

    https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/environment/article217956755.html

    Larsen represents the Mansfields in their suit against the government. He’s also one of the Mansfields’ neighbors up Buckskin Road. After Canyon was injured, Larsen learned that cyanide devices had been placed near his property, too, with no notice to him or his immediate neighbors.
    “That outraged me,” he says. “It’s not part of this litigation, but as an attorney it helps fuel my motivation to make sure the right thing is done for the Mansfields, because this could have happened to my grandkids, who roam those same hills and area doing the same thing Canyon did.”
    Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen looks like the grandfather he is, with a quick smile and snowy white hair. He’s been in law enforcement for 40 years, and sheriff for nearly 22 of those. He’d never heard of M-44s, and when he asked his fellow Idaho sheriffs, just two of the other 43 knew anything about them. None had been briefed on their use, or techniques to respond to an accident, as federal regulations require.
    “I’m the elected sheriff. I’m supposed to protect the public. You’re putting out cyanide gas … and you’re not letting me know what’s going on?” he said..
    “What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. Whether it be a dog or a child — how do you justify this?”

  67. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    50thousand year old wolf pup and caribou calf found mummified in Yukon.
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/14/spectacular-ice-age-wolf-pup-and-caribou-dug-up-in-canada

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Fascinating. Wow! 🙂

  68. timz Avatar
    timz

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/09/17/wyoming-hunting-guide-fatally-mauled-by-grizzly-bears.html

    “I can only imagine how horrific this was,” Sy Gilliland, a hunting guide and spokesman for grizzly hunters in the area, told the newspaper. “You’ve got a bear population that’s basically un-hunted, is an apex predator, and has no fear of humans.”

    Yes this happened because they are not being hunted.

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Huh. I thought there was no grizzly hunting yet – what were they hunting there, elk?

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        It says the two bears, mother and cub, were ‘euthanized’. This is the option that the state has, and has always had.

    2. WM Avatar
      WM

      I do not believe grizzlies should be hunted in any of their GYE range, but it seems apparent that about 8-10 percent of the entire population gets in some kind of trouble with humans every year. I don’t know how many result in mortality of some sort, but as the population grows I bet the percentage as well as the total number of bears increases substantially, unless they get more range and fewer (not more) people and domestic stock with which they can have the bad encounters, including roadways where they are hit by cars (or even trains).

      Those who believe the population can continue to grow without bad PR and significant conflict and management that eliminates conflicting bears in larger numbers are naive.

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        I don’t know that killing a certain number will stop accidents like this, they are unpredictable – unless the goal is to wipe them all out eventually? Or to keep a small artificial number for artificial hunting purposes?

      2. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        WM, When someone asks “how does an animal such as the grizzly bear “learn” to fear people?” one has to wonder why such an easy question isn’t answered. It’s called, survival of the fittest. We both know that hunting via zoning would target those bears in the 8 to 10 % of bears that are getting into trouble wouldn’t it? Those bears that are teaching their youth poor habituation practices, aren’t they? Survival of bears (in this zoning scenario) that are more likely pass on good habits of fear…..when the offenders are far more likely to become a bear rug! That’s how it works isn’t it WM? Friends of ours near Red Lodge MT have had grizz issues the last few years. It started with a suspicious calf mortality that was to far gone to be ID’d , then came the bear poop under the apple trees near the house, then sow / cub tracks in the triangle, then a fence down and another calf kill & finally seeing them in the early morning day light in the apple orchard. Though, they didn’t have it as bad as the well documented neighbor still the sighting was their enough is enough moment!
        It seems most on this thread don’t understand “learning” as it pertains to wildlife / predators. Did you rally say, or do you know anyone that says the shooting a loner grizzly teaches other bears or shooting any bear teaches anything? It’s a foolish premise and I suspect the faux pas has more to do with propaganda then someone actually suggesting so. Now, I don’t know of anyone that is trying to peddle the notion that bears are “learning” from a member of their species being shot. I have seen incomplete articles from writers such as Doug Peacock pushing the notion that there are those out their saying as such….BUT, I’m having a hard time finding the original sources! If you didn’t say that , you may suggest to those asking the question to come up with the many examples I’m sure they have to enlighten us as to just whom is saying this. I’ve seen it countless times from those (as was done here) saying this is the case ….. but never an original source. Even Elk375’s comment below doesn’t say bears “learn” from others being shot. It says “hunting makes them more afraid of people”. His confusion can be answered in with ease…. The survival of the fittest! Survival of those leerier of man! “Wind direction” ….. it’s for windbags!

    3. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      Back to this again.

      “You’ve got a bear population that’s basically un-hunted, is an apex predator, and has no fear of humans.”

      Pray tell, in particular due to both their rather insular nature, and being the big kid on the block, I must once again ask the question, how does an animal such as the grizzly bear “learn” to fear people? Wind in your favor grizzly does not know you’re there. Can’t see you, doesn’t know you’re there. No other bear witnesses the incident, doesn’t know it happened. Nothing to learn.

  69. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Maybe the answer is to stop hunting elk in Grand Teton national park. When a hunter goes into harm’s way – what can they expect, unless they want an artificial landscape with no risk whatsoever, sanitized of wolves and bears, and a guaranteed trophy. Artificial.

    The answer is to not hunt the bears in and around the national parks, and to stop elk hunting in Grand Teton. But I’m sure that won’t go over well. Can’t give an inch in the name of ‘collaboration’. 🙁

    The trains many times are due to grain spillage, which should be able to be corrected by companies or the transportation company itself. Without ‘undue hardship and expense’ for them.

  70. Elk375 Avatar
    Elk375

    Here is a link to the an article in the Jackson Hole paper.

    http://www.jhnewsandguide.com

    Ida, this incident did not happen in GTNP but on the adjoining national forest. If it would have happen in the GTNP the park service would have investigated not the Wyoming Game and Fish. Try shutting down elk hunting on the national forest.

    Would hunting of bears make them more afraid of humans? That is an interesting question. Bears are not like a herd of elk or antelope if you shoot one out of the herd the herd runs and becomes spooky. If you hunt grizzly bears and kill one how are the other bears going to see what or understand what happen.

    I have spent a number of years in Alaska have killed all of the Alaskan animals, most of them by myself, except the grizzly. I have never had a real desire to kill a grizzly, hunted them several times but never got one. In my observation grizzlies in Alaska will run from people. In Montana I have noticed that grizzlies will not leave as quickly as Alaskan Grizzlies and can linger.

    A number of years ago my cousin and I were moose hunting East of Denali National Park on the Yanert Fork. My cousin lives in Alaska and took a few steps over a knoll, steps back and said there is a grizzly over the knoll. Well cousin had a grizzly tag and I said let shoot it. We got ready and step over the knoll and the grizzly was gone.

    Twenty minutes later I shot a moose 15 minute from our camp. We skinned it, quartered it and hung the meat in the trees for three days until the horses could come and get the meat. That grizzly or any grizzly never bother the meat or the gut pile. So does the hunting of grizzlies make them afraid of people? I think it does but how it does I do not know.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Elk, I shot an elk below cut off mountain just north of Yellowstone in MT. We were on foot and packed out what the three of us could walk to camp. We quartered the ~ eight year old bull elk and put what we didn’t pack in the cool grass far from the ribs and guts. We figured the impressive bull was starting a decline and had moved out of the park because it couldn’t compete with the five and six year old.

      The next morning my cousin and I returned with the horses / pack mules. As we approached the site with the horses they (the horses) started acting spooky. We then saw of flash of brown/black heading away from the rib area. My cousin checked the guts and they were almost ate completely and the rib cage was rolled a few times. We set a record semi-packing the remaining quarters and got the heck out of Dodge. After a short / long ride with constant rubber necking we repositioned the load and road back to camp. That wasn’t the only encounter with grizzlies?? we had that trip. That was back when this area actually had elk / moose diversity.

  71. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    I still think that getting the elk hunters out of Grand Teton National Park is a good idea. It can only complicate things with grizzly and wolf hunting. If these people truly want to compromise (which they do not.) The only people doing all the compromising are environmentalists.

    1. Louise Kane Avatar
      Louise Kane

      “the only people doing all the compromising are environmnetalists”
      yup

  72. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    “Authorities said Chubon was bow hunting and shot an elk Thursday, but he and Uptain could not find the animal until Friday. They were preparing to pack it out that day when they were charged by two bears”

    Over the past few years, incidents like this are becoming more and more common. Maybe hunting hours need to change in an environment rich in predators?

    Wounding or killing an elk (deer/moose) and then leaving it over night, is asking for trouble anymore. Can’t pack it out before nightfall or at least hang it high, then don’t take the shot….

    Scary, close encounter with a good ending:

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      This is not meant as anti-hunting/anti-archery

      https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/sports-outdoors-in-maine/losing-wounded-deer/

      “McCollough’s column was well-researched and his statistics raise some thoughtful questions. As a deer hunter, what do you think? Is Maine’s index of a 15 percent wounded deer loss high or low? The national data seems to suggest that Maine hunters wound a higher percentage of deer than its current formula indicates. Noteworthy, too, is that bow hunters — if we are to believe the national averages — lose twice as many wounded deer as gun hunters.”

      My best friend up here, and his sons are avid archery/gun hunters. Most of their meat is wild game. Broadhead arrows create devastating wounds if they hit the correct area, but do not have the shock value of a bullet. In the years I have been friends and hunted with him, I can’t recall a gunshot deer not being found. Archery season, I know of two not found. Snow cover on ground during gun season makes tracking much easier, Red on white pretty easy to see, even at night with good lights.

      Though no grizzlies here, we have an ample supply of wolves, coyotes, and black bear that will help themselves to wounded deer if not found by hunter. By the time you see the birds in the morning, it’s usually too late.

      1. Louise Kane Avatar
        Louise Kane

        if you look you find many reports of wounded animals with arrows in them. sorry its a sickening sport.

        a predictably sickening ending.
        https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/16/grizzlies-killed-wyoming-hunting-guide-fatally-mauled/1330037002/

        1. Immer Treue Avatar
          Immer Treue

          Louise,
          In a sense, that’s what I said. Statistically, more unfound wounded deer in archery season than rifle. On another track, one of the reasons in crimp off all barns on fishing hooks/lures other than jigs. Easy hook out and release. I think we’ve spoken about this before, but catch and release fishing is fun for the fisherman, but the fish might offer an alternative opinion.

          1. Immer Treue Avatar
            Immer Treue

            Crimp off all barbs

            1. Louise Avatar
              Louise

              agreed!

  73. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Opinion in the Missoulian:

    “Bears are forced to rely on foods that put them in danger of conflict with humans, such as gut piles left in the field. And conflicts with humans all too often leads to dead bears.”

    You just knew that this would be a problem, the reduction in food sources, when you read that they would turn to elk. Why the mainstream press is writing articles that claim the bears ‘didn’t appear to be interested in the elk carcass’. Of course they were, especially with the time of year!

    https://missoulian.com/opinion/letters/ensure-long-term-health-of-grizzly-bears/article_8224a747-73ef-526f-a525-76b7c12e7489.html

    Hunting in Grand Teton National Park is supposed to be a population reduction program. Elk are migratory. Elsewhere the carnivores (non-human) are threatening the elk population. Which is it?

  74. Elk375 Avatar
    Elk375

    There is a new article in the Jackson Hole News today about this bear attack.

    https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/article_b4d14d59-e76a-5da6-9929-b9422416a744.html

    I never want to Monday morning quarterback, but if I was the guide I would have had the horses with me when I started to break down the elk. When I was guiding in Alaska I would tie the riding horses and the pack horses around the dead animal.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Elk, We have road into the wilderness many times using good ranch horses. Many times, those horse are spooky around a fresh kill, especially if its the first time in that season. Keeping them at a distance is not unusual to me. Even the mules we were lent by our outfitter friend show some spookiness on their virgin trip of the year (as I recall). This may be a learning lesson / change in protocol for back country hunting in grizzly country could be in the works for me. Also, (as Nancy and I both know) there have been some thick un-level “terrain” in the west where these elk / deer/ moose / sheep end up that taking a horse in just isn’t the smart thing to do. I’ve tossed a few bagged quarters over snags / deadfalls and dropped them to trails to get them out. Getting out an 800 pound elk is hard work…. labor of love for the hard-working sportsman.

      Things to ponder in regards to this article….

      * Survival of the fittest, I discussed above.

      * What would have been the reaction of an Indian tribe be if a brave came back to camp with the story like this.

      1. timz Avatar
        timz

        Matters you keep referencing the statement “Survival of the fittest” and it’s apparent you have no clue what it really means.

        1. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          timz, I’m thinking that Herbert Spencer would be proud of my usage of the phase to demonstrate Darwin’s Adaptation (behavioral)principle. The next step was to contrast predicted results from two trains of thought: ONE the removal of only offenders of poor habituation predators & the other those with the propensity to have poor habituation….taking into consideration Darwin’s “descent with modification” principle.

          I didn’t expect anyone to agree with me & my thoughts on the strawman’s down wind argument but, having trouble with survival of the fittest didn’t occur to me…. my bad!

    2. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America

      It would appear from this list that black bears (who are hunted regularly) are responsible for more human deaths over the years then grizzlies/brown bears. Deaths by grizzlies, also seem to happen more frequently in areas where they are also hunted – Alaska & Canada – so the idea that hunting them will make wary of humans, doesn’t float.

      Hikers and backpackers seem to take the brunt of grizzly bear attacks although hunters are gaining ground, now that grizzlies have made a comeback in wilderness areas. And researchers have already discovered that the sound of gunshots, wounded ungulates, dead ungulates left over night, gut piles, are a growing attraction to bears.

      There are over 500 licensed outfitters in Montana (with over a 1,000 seasonal guides working for them) and take into account the thousands of hunters out on their own during hunting season.

      Here’s probably just a partial list of outfitters in Wyoming:

      https://www.wyoga.org/wyoga-results.php?all_members=1

      Out of state hunters (with disposable incomes – a guided hunt can run anywhere from $5 to $10 grand) flock to the west for a chance at those trophy heads. (click on any website and that’s what it’s all about)

      I’m surprised there aren’t more encounters, resulting in fatalities but its becoming clear that outfitters/hunters need to be better educated and more “bear aware” for their safety and their clients.

      Gone (or should be) the days of shooting game at dusk or too late in the day to pack it out.

      Would imagine Native Americans & even early settlers, didn’t just leave dead game till the following morning.

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        “Would imagine Native Americans & even early settlers, didn’t just leave dead game till the following morning.”

        Would be interesting to see if this “leaving game in the field” is a recent phenomena, or if it has been going on ‘forever’… Native Americans and early settlers did not have lights, in particular the type of lights (LED) that we now have that can light up a trail like daylight. But then they also had predators/scavengers that would help themselves to what was left in the field.

        Not until recent history have predators been knocked almost out of existence, so the competition for that meat has increased. After all, isn’t competition what being a sportsman is all about?

      2. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        “Gone (or should be) the days of shooting game at dusk or too late in the day to pack it out.”

        https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/documents/TribalNHFAQ.pdf

        Natives didn’t have a quitting time and fight them to this day. In the days gone by, I’m thinking, Natives hunted whenever and wherever it gave them an advantage and rightfully so! I’m sure it was a hard life to begin with….let alone Nancy’s of the tribe setting quitting times! Quitting times were set by sportsman and were established to improve successful shot averages and more so for safety.

        Nancy, I’m not sure how you square these two: “Hikers and backpackers seem to take the brunt of grizzly bear attacks” & “its becoming clear that outfitters/hunters need to be better educated and more “bear aware”” Why does a single surprise uncharacteristic grizzly attack make things clear to you? We have been hanging quarters out of camp, positioning horses / pets (dogs), doing bear hangs keeping cook areas clean and way from sleeping areas, bear spray….etc etc etc for DECADES!

        1. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          “Quitting times were set by sportsman and were established to improve successful shot averages and more so for safety”

          And I’m sure everyone follows the “established times”

          https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/game-wardens-investigate-poaching-case-near-whitefish

          And the safety aspect:

          https://accident.laws.com/hunting-accidents

          “We have been hanging quarters out of camp, positioning horses / pets (dogs), doing bear hangs keeping cook areas clean and way from sleeping areas, bear spray….etc etc etc for DECADES!”

          This discussion isn’t about how tidy you keep your camp, Mat-ters. Do try and stay on subject.

          Immer makes an interesting point:

          “Would be interesting to see if this “leaving game in the field” is a recent phenomena, or if it has been going on ‘forever’ ”

          My guess would be its a recent phenomena since a lot of the clients on these guided hunts, are in it for the head, the meat is an afterthought.

          1. Mat-ters Avatar
            Mat-ters

            “Deaths by grizzlies, also seem to happen more frequently in areas where they are also hunted – Alaska & Canada – so the idea that hunting them will make wary of humans, doesn’t float.”

            Nancy, I’m not sure which statistic your trying to twist to show your disdain for sportsman. BUT, if its black bears …they are hunted everywhere and deaths seam to be spread among the hunting community. Grizzlies…well their is where your underwater…. From 2010 to present (FROM your list plus the recent death) there has been 13 deaths, EIGHT of which were from the lower 48 where hunting is not allowed! Combine that with the fact that only a small percentage of the browns live in the lower 48 makes your statement embarrassingly laughable…. thanks for making a case for hunting! Try again!

            1. rork Avatar
              rork

              Nancy has her agenda, but so do you, and you are both willing torture data for your purposes.
              Can’t it simply be that there’s more mauling and death where there is more human contact with bears?
              We have definite geography differences in Michigan, with much more bear troubles in upper MI that in the southern lower peninsula. It has nothing to do with whether they are hunted up there or not, but as it happens there’s more hunting up there – probably cause there’s more bears I figure. Call me crazy. Anyway, there are simply lots more bear x human contacts. If I increase bears or people or both, contacts increase. I’m not saying this proves hunting has no effects, but trying to probe it has an effect in one way or another while ignoring the most obvious cause of risk is disingenuous.
              I’ll add: if a handful of people die per year due to bear contacts, it’s OK. They are not scarce. And they know or should know that there is risk. The recent dead guide certainly knew.

              1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
                Mareks Vilkins

                Can’t it simply be that there’s more mauling and death where there is more human contact with bears?
                +++

                http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species/carnivores/pdf/209_Hovardas_fear%20and%20safety.pdf

                page4

                Recorded large carnivore attacks on humans in Europe in the 21 century involve exclusively brown bears (Penterianiet al., 2016)

                A recent review (Naves et al., 2016) focused on the period 2000-2015 and concentrated on human-bear contact which resulted in either human injury or death: 20 fatalities from a total of 299 registered bear attacks on humans in Europe (Russian Federation excluded) in 19 out of 24 countries hosting the species (total population about 18000 individuals)

                More than half of the fatalities (12 out of 20) were recorded for one bear population (Carpathian) in one country (Romania)

                1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
                  Mareks Vilkins

                  Romania is not your usual / normal grizz country

                  The Bear Slayer
                  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/07/the-bear-slayer/302768/

                  If the area contains bear habitat, as the best of the mountainous areas do, an important part of the gamekeeper’s job is to nurture the resident bears and familiarize himself with them as individuals. How does he nurture them? By putting out supplemental food—apples and pears and plums by the bushel, corncobs by the cartload, pellets of a specially blended bear chow, and occasionally the carcass of an old horse. Spring, summer, and fall, the gamekeeper and his helpers deliver vast quantities of such stuff for the delectation of their bears, serving it at feeding stations sited strategically throughout the forest. A typical station includes a feeding trough (just like one in a barnyard, except here bear scat lies among the old corncobs strewn around it) and a tall iron frame for hanging large pieces of meat.

                2. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
                  Mareks Vilkins

                  During the twenty-five years of his reign, according to Crisan’s tally, Nicolae Ceausescu shot about 400 bears. In the earlier years he sometimes hosted shooting parties at which guests were welcome to kill game—deer, boar, even some of those precious bears. On a single day’s hunt in 1974 Ceausescu shot twenty-two bears, and his guests another eleven. In later years he jealously kept the bears for himself. From 1983 until his death, in 1989, according to Crisan, Ceausescu bagged 130. His most notable fit of excess occurred in the autumn of 1983, when, aided by four separate game drives toward his position, Ceausescu shot twenty-four bears in one day.

                3. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
                  Mareks Vilkins

                  Estonia have 20 000km2 forest area and 700 grizz. And despite that 1.3m people are regularly in forests gathering wild berries, mushrooms etc there’s no human casualties.

                  Slovakia has the same story: 20 000 km2 forest area; ~ 1 000 grizz, 5.5m people

                4. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
                  Mareks Vilkins

                  Action plan for conservation and management of large carnivores
                  (wolf Canis lupus, lynx Lynx lynx, brown bear Ursus arctos)
                  in Estonia in 2012–2021
                  http://www2.nina.no/lcie_new/pdf/635379340188248258_LC_action%20plan_Estonia_2012-2021.pdf

                  3.4 Attacks on humans

                  in Estonia there have been cases where people were injured in bear attacks.Most of such cases took palace in hunting situations and involved wounded animals.Although in the world and in Europe there have been lethal outcome to involved people.Such cases are not known from Estonia. In the last 10 years three episodes of bear attack and consequent injury have been registered. In one case wounded bear was involved and the attack would not have taken place, as far as the circumstances are known, without the shooting incident. Fear for bear attack plays a key role in bear conservation.There are eight known cases from Estonia when bears have been shot in self-defence from short distance while four of them were wintering females with cubs. In none of those cases bears had actually attacked people.

              2. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                Rork, “Nancy has her agenda, but so do you, and you are both willing (to) torture data for your purposes.” Anytime you have an example of me “torturing” data …..let me know! Your comment on Aug 12 about me “cherry picking” / “2011 is cherry picked – that was max deer in the UP. BTW it was also max wolf” was a sham. 2012 was the max deer in the UP AND I could have exposed everyone to the 1990’s data ….even more telling!

                “if a handful of people die per year due to bear contacts, it’s OK.” I’m with you on that point…. to a point. Allowing expansion of the population into poorer and poorer habitat will result and does result in conflict in that poor habitat. It is unequivocally unacceptable and immoral to expect those living in those areas to live in constant fear as some ranchers do around Red Lodge MT. A death to someone in these areas are on the heads of the likes of some here. Removing only bears that cause issues in the bad habitat is certainly not the answer for you guarantee an endless supply of failure and certain and righteous revolt!

            2. Nancy Avatar
              Nancy

              Bad manners to put words in someone’s mouth, Mat-ters. I have no problem with hunting to put food on the table but like a lot of people here, I do have disdain for “head” hunters, you know those guys, right? The ones that would rather have animal heads (and hides) hanging on their walls versus say artwork. You can buy a lot of incredible artwork for the price of a 6 day, guided hunt.

              The ones that are all for opening a season on grizzly bears again, in the lower 48. Even though human deaths occurred (in the neighborhood of 26) from the 1850’s on to the 1970’s when it was legal to hunt grizzlies, in the lower 48. 9 deaths directly related to hunting grizzlies, including this character:

              “Old Ike”
              One of the most successful bear hunters, he killed over 100 grizzlies during the 1800s. In June 1886, he wounded a grizzly bear near the headwaters of the Salmon River, but not enough to cripple the animal. After pursuing it into a dense stand of trees, he was attacked by the bear and mauled, with the bear biting into his chest—crushing his entire chest with one bite. The bear was driven off by his companions”

              Yeah, 8 deaths by grizzles in the lower 48 since 2010 but I’d knock off 2 maybe 3 on technicalities – Treat, who literally ran into a grizzly, at a high speed, while on a bike (that would of pissed any bear off)

              Erwin Frank, who stumbled on a grizzly that had just been trapped, drugged and then released (given how many grizzlies have been trapped and drugged over the years, I’m surprised there aren’t more incidents)

              Take Old Scare Face, I read that this bear had been trapped 17 times for research.

              https://trib.com/lifestyles/recreation/famous-yellowstone-grizzly-scarface-was-shot-at-close-range-by/article_b2e98362-6355-507c-9c03-a25a3505f0ed.html

              Regardless, this bear managed to keep a good attitude about humans (photographed often) until that fateful night when an elk hunter, wandering around IN THE DARK, shot first and then couldn’t answer questions later as to what happened.

              And Wallace, stupidity?

              “According to a report released by Yellowstone rangers, park officials had attempted to give Wallace a lecture about bear safety, but he was not interested, calling himself a “grizzly bear expert”

              Animals are capable of mourning the loss of a family member, wouldn’t be a stretch to think they may also be capable of resentment too.

              So lets take black bears again, they are regularly hunted in most parts of the country. Baited, shot at, trapped and hounded. 23 human deaths in the last 18 years. Roughly 90% of the deaths didn’t involve hunters, just people out enjoying the wilderness. Resentment?

              And lets also take a look at grizzly deaths over the past few years:

              11 in 2018 just in “unknown cause of death, under investigation” (and those were just the bears found)

              How many grizzlies/brown bears do you think may have been shot at (or harassed) over the years by hunters and then carry that memory until one day they stumble on a human, unaware in bear country?

              We have no idea what their thought process is but (IMHO) killing them for sport is pretty pathetic.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbE53XUtVw0

              1. Nancy Avatar
                Nancy

                Source for grizzly bear mortality last 3 years in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem:

                https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/data-tools

  75. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Thank you for this, Louise, it’s something I’ve always wondered about. I’m not surprised. 🙁

  76. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    From the JHNews article:

    “Her stomach was “full of elk meat,” one indication that told the Game and Fish folks that they had killed the right bear.”

    So the elk was an issue. There’s no way anyone can know what was going on in the bear’s mind at the time, or what so-called ‘normal’ behavior is – I would be that she wanted that carcass. One of the comments said she was pretty underweight, which would stand to reason for the time of year?

    Also, why hasn’t the sex of the cub been disclosed? It is unimportant? Was it another female? While this is a tragic event, it would appear to be preventable. Going up against a grizzly deliberately at the time of year when they are preparing for hibernation would appear to be foolish.

    Trophy hunting isn’t worth it – I don’t know how the process goes in the field, but the article implied that the guide was getting the elk head first ‘for his client’.

  77. Jeremy B. Avatar
    Jeremy B.

    For years I’ve posted here, often arguing that hunters and environmentalists should be on the same team concerning conservation issues. Recently I found a convincing (at least to me) demonstration as to why: specifically, a paper that estimates the earth’s biomass (weight in living things), which finds that 96% of the earth’s mammalian biomass is in livestock and people — only 4% is in wild mammals.

    You can read the article yourself here: http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/05/15/1711842115.full.pdf

    Biomass estimates are included in supplementary table 1.

    1. Louise Avatar
      Louise

      I’ve read this but thank you for posting
      Is there a better argument against trophy hunting? I know not the intent of your post but really just 4 percent are wild
      You’d think the numbers we are seeing related to diminishing populations of wildlife and habitats would justify rethinking the archaic arguments used to justify management aka hunting

      Wildlife populations have enough pressure on them
      Can’t we get past at least trophy hunting
      Trophies of wild animals are indefensible

  78. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Thanks JB!

    “Over the relatively short span of human history, major innovations, such as the domestication of livestock, adoption of an agricultural lifestyle, and the
    Industrial Revolution, have increased the human population dramatically and have had radical ecological effects.”

    The wipe-out by colonists in less than 500 years (?) has always boggled my mind. Indigenous peoples hunted, but managed to coexist for a lot longer than that. Good grief! 🙁

    1. rork Avatar
      rork

      Indigenous people are hardly saints. They can’t afford to be, because there’s an existential game being played, unless everyone on the continent agrees to play nice. In Europe they pretty much wiped-out bears, wolves, and what we call moose. On many islands (New Zealand and Madagascar are famous) large birds were made extinct, and Easter Island was denuded even of trees. In North America lots of the megafauna went extinct. The only brakes were the lack of technology or density, or societal collapse (several examples in the Americas). At least until recently.

  79. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Another take on the Grizzly incident.

    https://mountainjournal.org/reflections-on-fatal-bear-attack-in-wyoming

    In autumn, grizzlies are in the physiological condition known as hyperphagia when they are trying to consume as many calories as possible prior to denning.  Thus, for humans, there is a need not only for heightened awareness among all those who go into the mountains but it is critical that people consciously contemplate what could possibly happen and know how they would react.

    An honest effort here not to victim blame, for the Bears also died, but the “conscious contemplation/how they would react” scenario was obviously not observed. Surprise of suddenness of attack and clients inability to fire gun.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      And we can also look at the bear spray/gun debate. Actually neither worked as the bear spray was not utilized in time, and the gun could not be fired, at least from accounts provided. We weren’t there, so the chaos that was experienced by men and bears likely something none of us will ever experience.

    2. rork Avatar
      rork

      My reflection is 1) two bears is worse than one, and 2) it’s bad if the other people don’t help you. The guide could have had a better client. That there’s strength in numbers is key.
      I’m glad it’s my brother next to me when I’m in griz country. We joke about only needing to be faster than the other guy, but it’s only a joke, about inconceivable behavior.

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        Inconceivable behavior, but the guards were down when the attack occurred. I’ll put something forward in regard to learned behavior, though it’s just a hunch, which also ties into the joke of who is faster, you or your brother.

        In particular with hyperphagia affecting bear foraging, the bears, Specifically the female, along with her cub, quite well may have been adept at stealing elk from wolves. No bluster, no bluff, charge in, wolves disperse, claim the kill. Wolves are fast enough, and more aware of what is going on around them due to sense of smell and hearing, to avoid the charge. Not so the case of the guide and his client.

  80. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Also, what is usual when hunting? Some here have mentioned leaving the elk for the next day. Isn’t that unsanitary?

    It would appear to me that the client was only interested in the trophy, not the meat, because certainly the carcass would have attracted the carnivores, the scavengers, and insects within that time? Not to mention weather.

    Not wise – but then people do not have to be responsible for their behavior, only the animals pay for interfering with human activities. The world belongs to humans, and we are not benevolent dictators.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      “Also, what is usual when hunting? Some here have mentioned leaving the elk for the next day. Isn’t that unsanitary?”

      No.
      Cooler nights, esp mountains, like a refrigerator.

      Only problem that might occur is if GI tract contents mt into body cavity, can ruin meat, or at least make it unpalatable. Proper shot/arrow placement preclude above from happening.

  81. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Here’s a similar story:

    “Dennehy said the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife forensics lab in Ashland was unable to recover any of the cougar’s DNA left on the hiker’s body during the attack.

    “When the evidence was recovered, it was believed to be several days after the attack occurred. Heavy rain fell during that time,” she said.”

    https://www.opb.org/news/article/mount-hood-cougar-diana-bober-hiker-death/

  82. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
    Mareks Vilkins

    one can take a look at those maps and compare them with large carnivore (>40 000 grizz, wolves, Eurasian lynx, wolverine)distribution maps:

    1)Population density of US with European equivalents
    https://i.redd.it/2b7uoxjoprqz.jpg

    2)Population density of Europe with US equivalents
    https://i.redd.it/zmelimmbkgqz.jpg

    3) Distribution of large carnivores in Europe in 2011
    https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Recovery-of-large-carnivores-in-Europe%E2%80%99s-modern-Chapron-Kaczensky/7a61113bf165f65486040bbd943c889faf976383/figure/0

    bottom line:
    core populations of grizz and Eurasian lynx live in countries with Virginia, Arkansas and Maine densities

    core populations of wolf live in countries with Illinois,Virginia, and Delaware densities

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Wonderful news! 🙂

  83. Elk375 Avatar
    Elk375

    https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/quick-thinking-good-fortune-saves-man-mauled-by-grizzlies-in/article_84e7e5ef-c4f5-56de-83d4-f8943cdf57ac.html

    Currently the this forum has a fixation of the incident outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This bear attack happen several weeks ago in the Beartooth Mtns near Granite Lake on the Montana/Wyoming Border.

    What interest me about this incident is that 51 years ago, four 15/16 year old’s with newly minted drivers licenses took a backpacking/ fishing trip in this exact area. I was the driver, driving a 1961 ford sedan with three on the tree. When we returned and got home mothers were in a panic because while we were gone in Glacier National Park two women had been killed by two different bears, “The Night of the Gizzlies”.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      An excellent documentary of the accounts that took place that night (Night of the Grizzlies)

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        Thanks Nancy

    2. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Not sure I’d call it a fixation, Elk, as much as a discussion/interest in finding out what took place and how tragic incidents like this, could of been avoided?

      Back in the 60’s, around parks, bears were considered nothing more than entertainment (around trash dumps) and expected to be frightened away by humans, wandering around in THEIR habitat. But then bear numbers (grizzlies) were in the low 200’s?

      The numbers of bears has increased over the decades but so have the numbers of hunters & hikers (not to mention livestock) into what’s left of THEIR habitat – roads carved into areas and the human toys like ATV’s, mountain and dirt bikes, that come along with that invasion.

      So maybe it’s time to re think (as they did in the late 60’s) re: the impact humans are having on not just bears but wildlife in gerneal, in what’s left of their habitat?

    3. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      I did not know about this attack – but any time an animal has to be killed because of an encounter with humans, it is cause for concern, and to examine what went wrong.

    4. rork Avatar
      rork

      I recall staying pretty alert in that county, especially when I had cutthroat trout on me, but we saw no griz. We saw goats several times who were bold, hoping to eat our cloths.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      I welcome this ruling, but as per WM on the 17th:

      “I do not believe grizzlies should be hunted in any of their GYE range, but it seems apparent that about 8-10 percent of the entire population gets in some kind of trouble with humans every year. I don’t know how many result in mortality of some sort, but as the population grows I bet the percentage as well as the total number of bears increases substantially, unless they get more range and fewer (not more) people and domestic stock with which they can have the bad encounters, including roadways where they are hit by cars (or even trains).

      Those who believe the population can continue to grow without bad PR and significant conflict and management that eliminates conflicting bears in larger numbers are naive.“

      Delisting for the purpose of random killing does little to ease these conflicts. It just makes sense that management of the bears is better served by the surgical removal of problem bears. Perhaps a Conservation/management license in a lottery system for this purpose. Just throwing it out there for sake of discussion.

      1. rork Avatar
        rork

        Like with wolves, I might like giving permits to landowners, where the permit is for their land not for them as an individual. You can give permits to several landowners. State can revoke permissions at any time. Landowners can say if a professional from the state can do the killing in the case of “problem” bears, but I’m not sure about merely “trespassing” ones. Problem bear on public land would be pros only. People from outside the area are excluded is one of my goals, the other being no elective hunting on public land. It’s what I want for wolves in MI. For trespassers in villages I’m uncertain – maybe local authorities could be permitted to act. That hasn’t happened with wolves here yet, but with black bear it does, but usually hazing suffices, and some places have designated hazers with lots of tools and skills, who make life miserable for the bear. I’m not sure we actually have a permitting process for that or not, or what the laws are. I’m pretty ignorant about what to do about griz, but hazing might be hazardous. I’m willing to learn, and change my views – also just throwing it out there.

        1. rork Avatar
          rork

          That came out bad – people from outside could do the killing, but it would be at owner’s invitation. Might get “ugly” cause people might pay for the privilege. Haven’t thought enough or seen examples.

        2. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          “I’m pretty ignorant about what to do about griz, but hazing might be hazardous. I’m willing to learn, and change my views – also just throwing it out there”

          So look at the site I posted previously Rork and you can learn exactly where grizzlies are being “eliminated” in large numbers, in just the past 3 years, because of “human conflicts”

          https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/data-tools

          Not hard to see the pendulum that continues to swing in the direction of human occupation.

          Early on, claiming choice spots for livestock or now, occupying more and more of wilderness areas, by building right up against what’s left of those, use to be, wildlife habitats.

          I’ve witnessed it firsthand, where I’ve lived for the past 26 years. And everyone coming in, taking advantage of the land that’s now opened up by ranchers (a few acres here and there tossed out on the real estate market) take their clues from old time ranchers, who pretty much hated anything that might interfere with their lifestyle – like ground squirrels, badgers, hawks, eagles, coyotes, wolves, bears and even ungulates, till they figured out how to make a few bucks re: private land hunting.

          Agenda? I got no stinking agenda 🙂 unless some of my words make an impression on those that don’t take the time to venture out here or question what local and federal government is doing to public lands and the wildlife on those lands, in the name of private enterprise/profit.

          1. rork Avatar
            rork

            “It would appear from this list that black bears (who are hunted regularly) are responsible for more human deaths over the years then grizzlies/brown bears. Deaths by grizzlies, also seem to happen more frequently in areas where they are also hunted – Alaska & Canada – so the idea that hunting them will make wary of humans, doesn’t float.”
            Nancy, that is the tortured data analysis I was talking about. It reeks. I am sorry if there’s human overwhelm near you. There are thousands of new homes in formally mostly empty spaces near me too.

        3. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          Rork, your comments, Immers below, and the comments on grizzlies are all connected. The general theme is to:

          Protecting predators until they become a burden on those living with them.

          Continue to allow abuse federal laws and wasted tax dollars regarding truly non-endangered animals.

          Cram them down the throats of the local people to the point they rebel.

          Act as if you have “natural” is on your side, knowing full well that the dynamic here in (where these predators and laws are abused) North America IS and has been predator/prey/man NOT only predator/prey.

          Have no regard or compassion for the primary prey and secondary prey animals.

          Act as if managed game herds densities (outside of places like National parks) were non-sustainable or “unhealthy” even closely resembling inside the parks where again man was not part of the dynamic. (do not include private lands in this dynamic).

          BUT, the bottom line is that in the end we always yes ALWAYS, end up with the conundrum of what to do too kill the inevitable access that bleeds into places they cause trouble as you have noted here. Rork, Do you think groups like HSUS, Defenders of Wildlife actually continue to push the compassionless abuse of our Environmental laws in order to drive local people to the point resentment, to a point where a extreme minority of them do what’s in Immer post below……because it’s good for business and donate now buttons and promote hate for the local people?

          1. rork Avatar
            rork

            I do not support HSUS or defenders. Can you even write a comment without putting words in other people’s mouths or is it your only ability? Did you entirely miss the part where I was talking about the details of how to go about killing bears and wolves? That’s not exactly protection. I think not hunting in many National parks is bad for the land. I will hopefully be killing deer starting Monday.
            I’m not averse to having local resentment though – times change, land use changes, sometimes for the better.
            I can’t even tell what you are pointing out about Immer’s “comments below”, and a few other sentences are also unintelligible to me.

            1. Mat-ters Avatar
              Mat-ters

              I put no words in your mouth or anyone else! I first stated the facts as “most” local people see them. THEN, asked you a simple question. You had acknowledged the fact of the inevitability and I acknowledged that “as you have noted here” … I didn’t ask you if you support them and you didn’t answer my question. “You” in some instances of my comment clearly pertains to “the General theme” …. and not Rork!

              Immer comment is the one where the local people killed the wolf…. his “not bothering anyone” made my morning coffee come up when I read from the article HE POSTED “On December 1, 2017, a few days before the killing, a person who remained unnamed in the complaint reported seeing a Mexican wolf “crouched down” behind a log near his family’s hunt camp near Dipping Vat Springs. It was 20 or 30 yards from his two young daughters, the person told a wildlife manager at the Arizona Game and Fish Department. He wanted to know at what point the wolf could be shot.” this particular wolf (in my opinion) was set up for failure at which groups like DOW and HSUS actually want…. for its good for business!

              1. Nancy Avatar
                Nancy

                “I put no words in your mouth or anyone else! I first stated the facts as “most” local people see them”

                And where exactly do you live again, Mat-ters? Pertaining to facts as most “local people” see them?” Out here.

                I live in ground zero, where I’m thinking you just visit on occasion? Or maybe just spend time hunting and commensurate via emails, and often? “with those locals” who feel frustrated or hampered by the attempts of some to re-establish relationships, with wilderness and wildlife, after what? a century of ranching, logging and hunting abuse?

                Come on Mat-ters, give me just a little clue as to what you and your “bros” are so fricken angry about?

              2. Louise kane Avatar
                Louise kane

                Please go and look at how many deaths or attack’s by wolves
                Mexican or otherwise

                Your firey fear mongering sadly works in some circles but hopefully that’s changing

                2 fatal attacks in more than a hundred years in all of North America

                Seems absurd to spend so much time hating an animal whose dna gave life to our beloved domesticated canines

                There is a common thread of twisted perverse that seems to infect those who hate predators

                Wonder what a psychological profile would look like?

                1. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  Louise Kane, Any wolf that is crouching down behind a log eyeing up some children is not exhibiting normal wolf behavior and is currently and rightfully an automatic target for removal. Even wolf hugging biologist like Carter Niemeyer and Adrian Wydeven would admit that much. It is not normal wolf behavior because for the last 12000 years MAN has been smart enough to automatically kill the habituated vermin leaving behind a more farouche wolf. We can thank those smart enough to do that for the reason that we only have 2 KNOWN fatal attacks in all of modern North America!

                  Demanding that those in affected areas tolerate that behavior and calling them haters is a great way to eventually kill the program. One must wonder about the psychological profile of a person that is that demanding and can’t empathize with that situation. Do they think wolves are more related to the Pit Bull or their Havanese? Does the hate they have for certain groups of their fellow man override their caring for the welfare of all wildlife? Are they willing to set the supposed animals they love up for failure just to stick it to those they hate?

                  In general, one must wonder about groups that have that “demanding” mentality and their true motivations, their hate and if they really care about the long term success of the programs they interject themselves into.

                  In the end wolves, cougars and grizzlies will still need to be killed…..just a fact some haters can’t come to grips with.

          2. Louise Kane Avatar
            Louise Kane

            Wow
            Really
            The primary burden on ecosystems seems to be our gross mismanagement of all species
            Your description of how to manage and manipulate Predators and how you perceive the need to repress some species for the benefit of others is s big part of the problem

            Managing predators is a history rife with gross callous actions that are indefensible ignorant and intolerable

            On another note
            http://montanauntamed.com/get-outside/article_a804b88e-3ec6-5a02-9bb6-0b942c43efba.html

            Wondering if the thugs are emboldened by all of the nasty actions coming from
            The new hunting club aka Dept of interior

            I love my dog but I don’t think dogs should be in Yellowstone

            Shouldn’t there be some places just for wildlife?

  84. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    “U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen ruled grizzlies weren’t sufficiently recovered to sustain hunting, pointing out an estimated 50,000 bears once roamed the contiguous states.”

    Of course they aren’t. This article examines WY and ID’s ‘options’, such as leaning on Congress, and ignoring the ESA! So much for cooperation for the good of the species. 🙁

    https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/judge-restores-protections-grizzly-bears-blocking-hunts-58054405

  85. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Minnesota Wolf Population Stable and Healthy

    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/09/24/wolf-population-stable-and-healthy

    Good. Unless they are causing problems, just leave them alone.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/10/24/minn-ranchers-welcome-more-federal-cash-to-stop-wolves

      Anyone know why the 2017 wolf removal numbers still have not been posted on the MN DNR site?

    2. Louise Kane Avatar
      Louise Kane

      Yes Inmee exactly

  86. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Shot taken from 200 yards, not bothering anybody, ID’d as a wolf. No reason for this other than hate. 50K to the program and at least 1/2 year in jail for ignorance. This is why wolves are listed as endangered or threatened. Got no problem with protecting livestock, pets, yourself, etc. this is just pure unadulterated hate.

    https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-area-men-charged-with-killing-mexican-gray-wolf-10870323

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        Sad. But I do also agree the the program is valuable not only for science, but for the protection of wolves.

        Stress or tranquilization reaction? They said their ‘procedures’ are going to be altered.

      2. Mat-ters Avatar
        Mat-ters

        According to my math ….. these wolf biologists have abused more females than Brett Kavanaugh.

      3. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
        Mareks Vilkins

        ‘A wolf that died before transport to Isle Royale National Park (IRNP) is believed to have overheated after being taken to a holding facility’ … The park is still awaiting a diagnosis from an necropsy of the dead wolf

        http://www.mininggazette.com/news/2018/10/trapped-wolf-dies-in-holding/

        “The animal actually appeared to be coming out of any difficulty in the anesthesia,” Green said. “It quickly reversed its situation. Our vets did CPR, they provided oxygen for it, but they couldn’t save that individual.”

        Ten or more wolves have been captured so far, Green said. Most have been released back into the wild due to health, age or gender balance reasons.

        The park is ahead of the anticipated pace of one animal per week,

  87. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Criminal Complaint in regard to Mexican Wolf Shot by Kunkel.
    https://images.phoenixnewtimes.com/media/pdf/wolf_shot_info.pdf

    1. Larry Keeney Avatar
      Larry Keeney

      Another example of, “I shot it because I could”. None of the normal self-aggrandizing reasoning nor even applying the contorted application of “sport” to the slaughtering of wildlife. The court should but won’t take away his 2nd amendment rights. Such willful and knowing crimes should have lifetime consequences.

  88. Larry Keeney Avatar
    Larry Keeney

    RE: https://phys.org/news/2018-10-grazing-access-western-good-ranching.html UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). This is another prime example of Leopold’s, “Burning the furniture to keep warm”. Pretty short sighted to propose that continuing to do that which is bad is the best option. Bundy types would agree since they support slavery as “At least they could grow a garden and work as a family”. And while I’m at it, we could not find anyone with less respect for nature than Kavanaugh.

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      “And while I’m at it, we could not find anyone with less respect for nature than Kavanaugh.” Who is “we” Larry…..?

      1. Larry Keeney Avatar
        Larry Keeney

        . . . doesn’t deserve a responsive explanation to you as the subject is much to serious to us.

  89. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Hunters can’t legally shoot grizzlies for sport, but they don’t seem to have a problem killing them.

    https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/grizzly-bear-shot-by-hunting-guide-in-northern-wyoming

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Continuing to prove the point that a hunting season is not necessary.

      1. Hiker Avatar
        Hiker

        Big beautiful bear! Living right outside Glacier National Park. What kills more people in our country? bears or alcohol? Bears or motor vehicles? bears or people with guns? When I was a park ranger in Yellowstone I told people I preferred bears as neighbors because they never pointed a gun at me, like people have in Los Angeles. Don’t like to live with bears? MOVE!!! Did you know the wild animal that kills the most people in the USA is the deer? By your logic we should get rid of all the deer!

        1. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          And the mask come off! MOVE? I’m glad self-centered, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, self-seeking, self-interested, self-serving comments like MOVE have no place in wildlife management. Groups like DU and RMEF that protect habitat amid and with respect the rights and lives of those living in the habitat are the shinning star in the environmental movement. Any group run by “selfies” and “MOVERS” need to do reassess their goals and reputations! Any state or federal employee with a selfy and move attitude needs to be canned!

          1. Hiker Avatar
            Hiker

            just saying it’s not hard to live with bears. probably easier than having YOU as a neighbor. I’ve lived in wildlife habitat for over 30 years and enjoyed it, never had a problem. Also, when you resort to name calling it doesn’t help. It looks like you’re not rational. Just calm down and realize we differ. I’m ok with you having a different opinion. In fact your posts always make me laugh.

            1. Mat-ters Avatar
              Mat-ters

              Hiker, “calm down”? No need for someone calm to calm down…. any feelings of upset, angry, or excited are in your interpretation of my words. It might be easier for you to interpret my words correctly by making believe their coming from the mouth of Christine Ford. The
              “…..”cadence.

              1. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                oops Dr Ford

              2. Hiker Avatar
                Hiker

                It’s just the way you write I guess. All the accusations and name calling. I feel I’m reading a transcript from one of Trump’s speeches. Why all the put downs? Are you that insecure? BTW many of your points I find valid. I just have to read your post four or five times to find those nuggets I agree with. For example I agree that humans are part of the ecosystem. Even places that are protected like National Parks or Wilderness Areas have lots of people. Also, hunting is part of our history, like you said. I have great respect for anyone who eats what they hunt. I just have a hard time with your “it’s my way or the highway” “black and white” writing. Maybe you are just trying to make a point, it just seems like your rhetoric is inflammatory. That doesn’t seem like a solid way to convince people that you are right. If anything I think it alienates them. Also, you have an annoying habit of picking one item from a post to attack while ignoring what I feel might be valid points. It almost seems like you just like to attack people. If that’s the case then I’m asking you, one human to another, to be nicer.

                1. Nancy Avatar
                  Nancy

                  + 1 Hiker and follow up to your comments:

        2. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          Repetitive photos of what amounts to the same couple of bears do not make Creston a “modern day grizzly habitat”

          Drag the map around in any direction and its not hard to see why a bear will show up around town on occasion.

          https://www.google.com/maps/place/Creston,+MT+59901/@48.3026239,-114.1359114,4495m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x53664e89857d9a5d:0xccf190882f0f9fbd!8m2!3d48.1894036!4d-114.1373429

          Pro-active ways to live with wildlife:

          http://blackfootchallenge.org/?cat=12

  90. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Hunting Moose in Canada to Save Caribou from Wolves

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/science/moose-wolves-caribou.html

  91. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
    Mareks Vilkins

    LOL

    https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/d2beb3_116a15f46ec748cfbf121bea66dd1743.pdf

    The Court finds for the Plaintiffs on both grounds. By delisting the Greater Yellowstone grizzly without analyzing how delisting would affect the remaining
    members of the lower-48 grizzly designation, the Service failed to consider how reduced protections in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem would impact the other
    grizzly populations. Thus, the Service “entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem

  92. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
    Mareks Vilkins

    LOL

    https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/d2beb3_116a15f46ec748cfbf121bea66dd1743.pdf

    Further, the Service’s application of the ESA threats analysis is arbitrary and capricious for at least two reasons. First, by dropping a key commitment-the
    commitment to ensure that any population estimator adopted in the future is calibrated to the estimator used to justify delisting – the Service illegally
    negotiated away its obligation to apply the best available science in order to reach an accommodation with the states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Second, the Service relied on two studies to support its determination that the Greater Yellowstone grizzly can remain independent and genetically self-sufficient.
    However, the Service’s reliance is illogical, as both studies conclude that the long-term health of the Greater Yellowstone grizzly depends on the introduction of new genetic material.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      Almost impossible to escape microplastics. Proponents of sea salts might be surprised at how much plastic they ingest due to the plastic floating around in the ocean.

  93. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    The Impact of Wolf Predation on Western
    Canada Boreal Woodland Caribou Populations:
    A Critical Review of the Evidence

    http://cwbm.name/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/4-Proulx-Point-to-Ponder-Vol-6-Issue-2.pdf

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Well. So much (permanent) destruction of wolves based on what might be wrong assumptions about them. Or not facing up to what is the real cause of caribou decline – continual encroachment into habitat for human activities. Not surprising tho. 🙁

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        Read above prior two wolf/caribou postings,
        There are many more

    1. JEFF E. Avatar
      JEFF E.

      and to think even at that weight they can move incredibly fast

      1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
        Mareks Vilkins

        http://www.speedofanimals.com/animals/brown_bear

        brown bear / grizzly bear: top speed 21.7 – 34.8mph

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footspeed

        The record was 44.72 km/h (27.8 mph), measured between meter 60 and meter 80 of the 100 meters sprint of the World Championships in Berlin on 16 August 2009 by Usain Bolt.[4][5] (Bolt’s average speed over the course of this race was 37.58 km/h or 23.35 mph.)[6] Maximum human sprint speed is strikingly slower than that of many animals. Compared to other land animals, humans are exceptionally capable of endurance, but incapable of great speed.[7

        https://www.healthline.com/health/mens-health/average-weight-for-men

        The average American man over age 20 weighs 195.7 pounds

        By comparison, the average American woman weighs 168.5 pounds

        1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
          Mareks Vilkins

          Who’s faster, a bear or a human with a bicycle?
          https://www.quora.com/Whos-faster-a-bear-or-a-human-with-a-bicycle

          +

          some other variations on a sideline question list

  94. Mat-ters Avatar
    Mat-ters

    Wonder how the wildlife is doing. If this is how they treat pets and rodents…..

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5449023/Venezuelans-eat-rats-dogs-economy-nosedives.html

    “Zoos are forced to slaughter animals to feed others in Venezuela”

  95. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
    Mareks Vilkins

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_of_Venezuela

    Overall, around 8,000 species (the world’s 5th highest total) are endemic to the country. Venezuela,being a very tropical country,has a very large supply of fossil fuels, gasoline,and minerals.

    Venezuela hosts a total of 1,417 bird species, more than 351 mammals, 341 reptiles, 315 amphibians and more than 2000 freshwater and marine fishes.[1] Invertebrates groups have not been inventoried exhaustively, but among the well known groups there are around 900 species of marine molluscs, 1600 butterfly, over 120 dung beetles species and 39 species of blowflies.[2][3][4][5][6]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_of_the_United_States

    An estimated 432 species of mammals characterize the fauna of the continental U.S.[2] There are more than 800 species of bird[3] and more than 100,000 known species of insects.[4] There are 311 known reptiles, 295 amphibians and 1154 known fish species in the U.S.[5

    1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
      Mareks Vilkins

      Why Venezuela Reporting Is So Bad
      Review of Alan MacLeod’s Bad News From Venezuela
      https://fair.org/home/why-venezuela-reporting-is-so-bad/

      For almost 20 years, the US government has been trying to overthrow Venezuela’s government, and establishment media outlets (state, corporate and some nonprofit) throughout the Americas and Europe have been bending over backwards to help the US do it.

      …. In the US and UK establishment media, you are way more likely to see a defense of Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship than of Venezuela’s democratically elected government. Any defense of Venezuela’s government will provoke vilification and ridicule, so both Alan MacLeod and his publisher (Routledge) deserve very high praise for producing the book Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting. It took real political courage.

      …. MacLeod’s approach was to assess 501 articles (news reports and opinion pieces) about Venezuela that appeared in the US and UK newspapers during key periods since Hugo Chávez was first elected Venezuelan president in 1998.

      1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
        Mareks Vilkins

        WSJ’s Epic Distortion of Colombian and Venezuelan Refugees
        https://fair.org/home/wsjs-epic-distortion-of-colombian-and-venezuelan-refugees/

        The Politics of Food in Venezuela
        https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13855

        A nuanced understanding of contemporary Venezuela requires going back not to Chávez’s election in 1999, but centuries earlier, to the period of colonization and the inception of interrelated patterns of extraction and social differentiation that continue today.

    1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
      Mareks Vilkins

      “That book is still being sold. I tried to get that off the shelf, but it’s selling too well.”

      +++

      just take a look at amazon’s one-star reviews

      https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Ecology-Behavior-Endangered-Species/product-reviews/0816610266/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar

      PLEASE RESPECT THE AUTHOR, DON’T BUY THIS BOOK

      Don’t buy! The author has asked for the book to stop being published.

      Dont get this book the author has asked the publisher …

      The author has debunked his own theories.

      Much of the information is sorely out of date, for example the whole idea of “Alpha” wolves and pack hierarchy has since been debunked

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        As I sit here during another unfortunately gray northern MN morning, we skipped October and went directly to November… I have a copy of said Mech book in my lap. Hard cover, obtained sometime in mid 70’s, signed by the author at the 1995 International Wolf Symposium. I remember him commenting at the time of the books information as “old”.

        Interesting example of how the ability to gather information evolves, in particular in regard for animals where so little was known, save for the equally limited information known by those who lived among wolves.

        Back in the lates 60’s and early 70’s, there wasn’t much literature available about wolves. There was Murie, Lois Crisler’s Arctic Wild from 1956, Rutter and Pimlott’s The World of the Wolf, also in my possession and not a whole lot more for those interested in the wolf. Currently, we have an animal that has been comparativley been studied to death.

        Information continues to pour in, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Living in wolf country as I do, the wolf is fairly easy animal with which to share the land. Young dogs like to investigate and unfortunately chase, whereas the older dogs either know better, or find the effort not worth their while. Musing over my experiences with wolves, all interactions have been positive,with wolves either showing idle curiosity, continuing on in the direction they were heading, or rapidly disappearing with indignation, yet, in particular with dogs, situations can change quickly.

        Back to Mech. I’ve always liked this quote. “Wolves are neither saints nor sinners save for those who would make them so.”

        1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
          Mareks Vilkins

          I am always interested in someone’s bookshelf – that’s why I love photo’s from N.Chomsky’s office, Keith Richards’s library or D.Mech’s office for that matter. Love that worn dust jacket of Wolves

          https://brightestyoungthings.com/articles/the-secret-of-noam-a-chomsky-interview

          http://colleencollinsbooks.com/blog/2015/4/15/keith-richards-rocker-librarian

          1. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
            Mareks Vilkins

            and of course those who rewarded Mech’s book with one star are Mat-ters /Rockholm /Gillett /Nugent-types who are determined to spare the public of another misinformation source

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      When this guy was born, there must have been two choices for brains remaining that day. And both included a box of rocks.

    2. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      For some reason this song popped into my head when I read the article and saw the photos of “lets kill something for the fun of it” Blake Fischer’s African hunting trip

      1. Jerry Black Avatar

        No surprise that this guy is an Idaho Game Commissioner

    3. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Just awful. How could anyone do such a thing. Beyond selfish and greedy. 🙁

    4. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Good grief. A public apology that means nothing will not suffice. He needs to resign. Young were killed.

  96. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    The baby baboon looks to be in agony. What an insensitive lout to do such a thing, and hide behind ‘legal and ethical. But it is immoral. He needs to resign or be made to. It does show the agency in a bad light, that belongs in another era, along with the handlebar mustache. 🙁

    1. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      Immoral? What is immoral is those that know of the inevitability of management for animals “we don’t eat”, YET, continue the “outrage” with that inevitability in tow! Those (groups and individuals) that absolutely know of the inevitability and use the uninformed to garner the clicking of their “donate now” buttons are where immorality lies! NOT with those that understand it & provide the resources to keep true balance and habitat protection of those very animals.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-dont-cry-for-lions.html

      Predators like Wayne Pacelle love this stuff! And people like him know of the inevitability of having to manage an animal like he baboon! Think of the immorality of those that promote and stand with the “killing” of viable babies in the womb and no answers for an expanding and habitat taxing baboon population – typically they are the same ones that have love for Cecil! Sad!

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        That’s a discussion for a different day (and blog).

        The question I have is how can people justify, and rationalize away, the causing pain and suffering and misery, to another sentient being – and then pose for photos with a big, crap-eating grin on their face!

        Do they not think anyone else feels pain but humans? That’s a long-outdated notion, and is being challenged by current research into the sentience of animals. Do they not care? And they need to balance their own habitat.

        1. Immer Treue Avatar
          Immer Treue

          “A week later, my mother gathered me with nine of my siblings…”
          Perhaps part of the problem

          “to explain that her uncle had been attacked but escaped with nothing more than an injured leg. The lion sucked the life out of the village: No one socialized by fires at night; no one dared stroll over to a neighbor’s homestead.”

          Compelling argument, however, Cecil the lion was lured out of a preserve not endangering a village. It was slaughtered for fun.

          1. Mat-ters Avatar
            Mat-ters

            And here on full display is how some have disdain and contempt for the proliferation of man in one breath and promote the unfettered proliferation of the grizz, wolf, lion and baboon in the next.

            Immorality is obscured in the light coming from ones false idols like the wolf, lion, grizzly & baboon. It gets a little clear in the light coming from the reflection off the box of rocks!

            1. Moose Avatar
              Moose

              Morality…immorality…how about just some honesty…he enjoys killing “things”.

              1. Nancy Avatar
                Nancy

                Namibia’s trophy hunting is controlled by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, which issues special permits for hunting big game such as zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, impalas and other animals. But, Fischer told the Statesman, “baboons are free.”

                Fischer probably spent his weekends as a kid, shooting coyotes, badgers and ground squirrels. Cuz ya know, out here in the west, they are “free” too…

                https://www.npr.org/2018/10/15/657485097/idaho-game-commissioner-criticized-for-killing-family-of-baboons-in-africa

                1. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  Nancy, you have a real grudge for the “trophy hunter” don’t you??? It sounds like baboons are a real nuisance for the good people of Africa. I applaud the locals that recognize their(the baboons)plight and are proactive in keeping them from becoming vermin…. You know what vermin are don’t you Nancy?

                  The grizzly bear is coming close to being on the list of vermin, as was said here on TWN 8 to 10 percent of the populations is causing issues in poorer habitat they are now moving into. I honestly think groups like HSUS are tickled pink to have them failing at such rates and to have a law that they can abuse to no end in order to wear the grizz on their sleeve. It’s good for business. Long term damage to the ESA has been done thanks to groups like them and those with a grudge. In the meantime their welfare lawyers lap up EAJA dollars left and right!

                2. Nancy Avatar
                  Nancy

                  Mat-ters, you really do need to get a life 🙂

                  There are many good examples & studies out there by qualified researchers (researchers not paid by governments, hoping to sideline concerns) as to why other species, who we humans share the planet with, are now labeled as pests or vermin.

                  http://theconversation.com/why-southern-africas-iconic-baboon-is-on-the-decline-55042

                  And a link below to a good read and who knows Mat-ters, YOU might find some answers as to why you feel this innate need to discount; every other living species around you, that doesn’t fall right into that neat, comfortable, little pattern of life, set up by your ancestors before you?

                  https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human

            2. Immer Treue Avatar
              Immer Treue

              There you go again, going out on your ledge and putting words in the mouths of others. The only mega organisms on the earth with unfettered population growth are humans.

              Immorality and False idols? Your propensity for application of your own dogma upon others is not complimentary to you in anyway. Suffice it to o say I’m as comfortable in my own skin as I guess you are with your sky god.

              It gets a little more clear, that when one looks around at the footprint of humans on the earth, their rapaciousness for resources, and waste production compared to the creatures with whom we share this orb, that comments like yours provide great clarity to the likelihood that you and Fischer were in a race for one box of rocks or the other.

              1. Mat-ters Avatar
                Mat-ters

                I suppose you are (comfortable)… The general narrative here is unequivocally consistent with my statement “And here on full display is how some have disdain and contempt for the proliferation of man in one breath and promote the unfettered proliferation of the grizz, wolf, lion and baboon in the next.” I put no words in anyone’s mouth! JUST a sound observation! My morality wants nothing to do with that observation and those adding to the narrative can do so all they want…..

            3. Ida Lupine Avatar
              Ida Lupine

              No wildlife will ever have unfettered proliferation of their populations ever again. There’s actually a squirrel census going on in Central Park (and you know what that might mean.)

              There are certain rhinos that are nearly extinct, whose horns are used to make false idols. Meanwhile, the human population is 7.6 billion as of May 2018.

      2. Louise Kane Avatar
        Louise Kane

        ugghhh Mat-ters you’ve got so little appreciation for anything but your own dogged take on human superiority. attitudes like yours are why we are in a sixth extinction with some populations of large mammals counted in the hundreds and imminent extinctions as common as the stars in the sky. sad man

  97. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Another Grizzly encounter. Bear Spray worked, sort of.

    Via Mountain Journal and Todd Wilkinson

    Greg Gibson and Bob Legasa: glad you guys are okay and thanks for sharing details….insights and lessons to be learned for all….

    This post from Bob Legasa
    16 hrs

    “Before rumors spread and things get blown severely out of proportion this morning I was mauled by a Grizzly Bear bow hunting in Montana.
    Due to the closeness (12 yards) I did not have time to react besides getting into a defensive mode/stance,
    My hunting partner Greg Gibson and I surprised a Sow grizzly and her cub as we were moving in on some Elk. We walked up to with in 12 yards when we all saw each other And before I could even reach for my bear spray she was at full charge. I was able to get my arm up to someone at protect my face when she knocked me over, Greg was only a few steps behind me and he was able to get his bear spray out and give one shot to the bear which stopped her and she reared up and came towards him, he was able to give her one more blast where she and her cub retreated.
    Readying myself for another attack I was able to get my bear spray out of the holster and unfortunately during all the chaos sprayed my self.
    My arm is broken in two spots where she grabbed on with her mouth and I have a nice couple of scratches on my face where she got me with her claws.
    We were able to make it to Livingston to the ER room. Because of the bear bite and fractured bones they were afraid of infection so they put me in an ambulance and sent me to Bozeman where they needed to do surgery to clean out the wound.
    I will be here until Monday as they want the wound to drain lessening the cause of any sort of infection.
    Just received an updated tetanus shot and started a series of rabies shots.
    Huge shout out for my hunting partner Greg has his quick response was able to minimize the damage and severity of this attack.
    All in all I am in good shape.My arm is screwed up a little and sore and the vision is good, I will be fine.
    Huge shout out to the Livingston ER room and the Bozeman hospital and surgeons, nurses, etc.
    In a few days I’ll give you a little bit more of a update.”

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      It is important to start relating to and understanding our relationships with wildlife, in what’s left of wildlife habitat:

      https://www.jscimedcentral.com/Behavior/behavior-2-1009.php

    2. Larry Keeney Avatar
      Larry Keeney

      Big salute to Greg Gibson and Bob Legasa in spite of the obvious fact that the event could have turned on a dime and ended in tragedy their report of the encounter has a strong tone of respect for the bears. Soooo glad such a bad incident turned out no worse for all four.

    1. Immer Treue Avatar
      Immer Treue

      One’s first impulse is to say good. There seems to be no lack of biting insects up here, mosquitoes, deer flies, blackflies, the occasional horse fly, the ankle-biters, the hordes of stinging insects…the tree killers such as spruce budworm, emerald ash borer gettin nearer, etc. not to mention the plethora of arachnids including spiders of all varieties and tine ubiquitous ticks, but then one realizes the interwoven nature of nature.the only real insect eaters we have up here are the warblers and woodpeckers. When the warblers arrive in May, the air is festive with their song. I believe that outside of the tropics, there exists a greater variety of warbler species here, than anywhere else in the world. It’s always a challenge to remember their song, and to observe them in the trees before the leaves fully develop. They do a great job on spruce budworm except in pure stands of balsam fir and white spruce.

      Woodpeckers, save the seasonal flickers, sapsuckers and redbellied, include the Hairy, Downy, the jackhammer of woodpeckers the Pileated, and the rarer three toed woodpeckers including the northern and blackbacked. The latter two appear to rummage through fallen balsam, with their tell tale calling card of chipped bark littering the ground along the fallen trees.

      Other than the insects, and arachnids hitching rides on the dogs upon entering the cabin, and those fishing spiders that seem to appear from nowhere, they are seasonal, not missed when gone, but appreciated to have vanished, as with winter’s passing into Spring, and another bug season, yet part of Winter’s joy is coming inside to feel warmth surround one’s body.

      Ahh bug season, kind of like the long winter, part of what makes the Northwoods unique

    2. Mat-ters Avatar
      Mat-ters

      I’m wondering the effect bird-watching has on this issue….. bug eaters like Chickadees, Nuthatches, Nighthawks, Swallows, Sparrows, Yellow Warblers, and Woodpeckers have only recently been given a pass by a disnified public. Grandma once told me there were less birds in her youth. Bird-watchers have poured billions into feeding a clientele that in turn “unnaturally” kills bugs….. now, don’t get me wrong! I’m all for the Emma Marris model of wildlife management and urbanite’s right to attract in that trophy nighthawk. Again, I’m wondering the effect bird-watching has on this issue….. they best be on watch for the “hyperalarmed” climate expert taking aim at their past-time….maybe not??

      1. Immer Treue Avatar
        Immer Treue

        Sigh…

    1. timz Avatar
      timz

      Yes, but his replacement will likely not be a whole lot better.

  98. rork Avatar
    rork

    I have gray foxes now (in SE lower MI). That is new. I was amazed. Red fox has obviously declined – they used to be abundant. I did not know, but the two are not that related, they just happen to be 2 canines of about the same size. I have mined trapper blogs and it looks like this is a trend. Up north gray is almost the only fox, and perhaps was most places in eastern N America before European-American agriculture and the war against their enemy, the trees. New things near me are 1) more forest, much more than 80 years ago, and 2) coyotes, which were never here before. I think coyotes are most of the cause, but am merely a beginner. Red fox is more vulnerable to them. Gray can climb trees, and sticks to forest more. Both are magnificent to observe hunting. I’ve not seen rearing of young for gray’s, yet, but my place has some good spots, and 50 chipmunks per acre (its a big white oak year).

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      I see the red from time to time (the one with socks), and they are so beautiful. Now I’m confused – coyotes, coywolves, gray fox and red fox.

    2. Louise Kane Avatar
      Louise Kane

      coyotes are the more dominant predator but maybe the trappers are the cause of decline….

  99. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Interesting coat color analysis on wolves.

    http://www.explorebigsky.com/research-links-wolf-color-to-survival-and-reproduction

    The black allele is dominant, yet…

    I don’t know if this explains why there are fewer black wolves in comparison to gray. As an observer in regard to black vs sable (wolf color) of which there are lighter and darker variations GS, the black color all but disappears in the woods, even when snow is deep as they just disappear into shadows and trees.

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Fascinating. 🙂

    2. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
      Mareks Vilkins

      in “Decade of the Wolf” page 18-19 Doug W Smith talks about black vs gray female genetics:

      “… the average life span of a gray female wolf in Yellowstone is roughly four years, while the average age of a black female is roughly eight. In other words, there seem to be some big advantages to being black, as opposed to being gray.

      …we’re speculating that the gene for being black could be linked to another gene that actually enhances a wolf’s immune system

      … gray wolves shine when it comes to pups, enjoying a slightly higher survival rate than black ones;this advantage seems to disappear once the animals get through their first summer.

      https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&hl=lv&id=U4a51XDu26IC&q=black+wolf+pup+survival#v=snippet&q=black%20wolf%20pup%20survival&f=false

      1. Louise Kane Avatar
        Louise Kane

        wow that is fascinating

      2. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
        Mareks Vilkins

        BLACK COAT COLOR: caused by K-locus gene thought to have originated from historic hybridization with domestic dogs 500-14,000 years ago
        https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/ys-24-1-yellowstone-wolf-facts.htm

        1. ma'iingan Avatar
          ma’iingan

          The latest DNA research techniques have narrowed down the hybridization to ~7000 YA in the area of the Northwest Territories.

          1. Ida Lupine Avatar
            Ida Lupine

            Good to see you posting!

    3. ma'iingan Avatar
      ma’iingan

      There are fewer black wolves because the homozygous black wolves are significantly less fit than homozygous grays or heterozygous blacks, for reasons that are not currently understood. Annual survival rate for homozygous blacks is only on the order of .50, while heterozygous blacks and homozygous grays survive at around .80, and recruitment is around .30 for the hardier grays and blacks, but less than .10 for the homozygous blacks.

      Homozygous blacks lag in other measures of fitness as well – breeding life and reproductive success. So even though the black coloration is a dominant trait, it’s likely that grays will always outnumber blacks.

  100. Louise Kane Avatar
    Louise Kane

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/19/the-plight-of-the-pyrenees-the-abandoned-guard-dogs-of-the-west/

    more ugly underbelly of the livestock industry
    dogs in hunting and in livestock seem to suffer tremendous abuse….along with the land and predators.

    1. Ida Lupine Avatar
      Ida Lupine

      Sad. Harming a dog in any way is just shameful. Some of these people just don’t want to put in any extra effort to take care of their animals, it seems. Just send the government the bill for any livestock losses.

      I’ve always wondered – can investigators tell which was a predation and which was a cow or calf that died from other causes and found by a carnivore?

      1. ma'iingan Avatar
        ma’iingan

        I’ve always wondered – can investigators tell which was a predation and which was a cow or calf that died from other causes and found by a carnivore?

        Not difficult in most cases – dead animals don’t struggle or bleed out. If we’re still unsure based on the scene, we skin the carcass and look for bite marks.

  101. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Op-Ed: Will Trophy Hunting Grizzlies Make The Wilds Safer?

    https://mountainjournal.org/does-trophy-hunting-animals-make-wild-places-safer

    “But research conducted in Canada and Alaska shows that the hunting of grizzlies does not decrease these sorts of tragic events. Even if the hunting seasons had gone forth, it would have been illegal to kill sows with cubs. Sow grizzlies are naturally and sometimes aggressively defensive of their cubs, and grizzlies can be aggressively defensive of their food caches. It’s their nature. Dead grizzlies don’t learn to avoid humans. “

  102. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Snow leopard vs Himalayan Blue Sheep. Amazing!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ulF9R7r4Jok

  103. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Yikes, carnivores have to work hard for their dinner! That illustrates how cats always land on their feet for certain. 🙂

  104. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

    Who would have not figured this would happen.

    Researchers Have Found Microplastics in Human Waste for the First Time – TIME

  105. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    Researchers Have Found Microplastics in Human Waste for the First Time
    Tests conducted by the the Environment Agency Austria show microplastics may be widespread in the human gut
    Casey Quackenbush
    A new study found microplastic particles in human waste for the first time, a worrying sign of the prevalence of plastic in the food chain, the Guardian reports.
    In the small study of participants from Europe, Russia and Japan, all eight were found to have microplastic particles in their stool samples. Out of 10 varieties tested for, nine different plastics were identified in the human waste, with polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate the most common.
    Based on their findings, the study researchers expect that tiny bits of plastics may be widespread in the human digestive system.
    “This is the first study of its kind and confirms what we have long suspected, that plastics ultimately reach the human gut. Of particular concern is what this means to us, and especially patients with gastrointestinal diseases,” said Philipp Schwabl, the study’s lead and a researcher at the Medical University of Vienna.
    THE BRIEF
    The 12 top stories you need to know right now, chosen by TIME’s editors
    SIGN UP NOW
    The study, conducted by the Environment Agency Austria, hypothesizes that “more than 50% of the world population might have microplastics in their stools,” according to the Guardian. However, the authors underscored the need for more research on a larger sample size before drawing conclusions.
    Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters, either found in products like exfoliants or disintegrated from larger pieces of plastic such as those that often end up in the ocean.
    One study earlier this year found that fish in Hong Kong were ingesting plastic which could end up in humans. Another found that microplastic contamination in bottled water was nearly universal.
    Researchers say microplastics circulating in the human body could endanger health, affecting the immune system or facilitating the exchange of toxins, according to the Guardian.
    By the World Economic Forum’s estimation, the world’s oceans will be filled with more plastic than fish by weight by 2050. Every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in the oceans—a that figure could increase by ten-fold over the next decade if actions are not taken, according to another 2015 study.
    Visit TIME.com

      1. Nancy Avatar
        Nancy

        Ah yes, Fox News…best taken with a pinch of salt and 2 aspirin 🙂

        “Perhaps the most misleading – and certainly the highest profile – was a June 21st op-ed in the Wall Street Journal written by Pat Michaels and Ryan Maue. Michaels is director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, a think tank financially linked to the fossil fuel industry”

        http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2018/07/18/hansen-was-right-marking-an-anniversary-by-misleading-the-public/

        Discussions 5 years earlier:

        https://skepticalscience.com/patrick-michaels-history-getting-climate-wrong.html

        1. Mat-ters Avatar
          Mat-ters

          From your article “Four decades of climate model projections have fared well”

          hahhaaahhhaaaaa

          Nancy, If you believe that then you are not paying attection!

          1. Nancy Avatar
            Nancy

            Attection? No, you aren’t paying attention, Matt-ters. If Fox News is your go to source for up to date information regarding the affairs of this country and the world….. my heart aches for you.

                1. Mat-ters Avatar
                  Mat-ters

                  For the record….. I don’t watch FOX at home ….. I don’t have cable. I do enjoy watching ABC NBC and CBS make fools of themselves and their reporting when I know both sides of the story. The Kavanaugh coverage made things quite clear. They had no interest in giving background info of the accusers. When information came out on what fords x-boyfriend had to say about her, NOT A PEEP in the headlines…. when it came out about HER true experiences with Polygraphs NOT A PEEP in the headlines. When it came out about HIS overwhelming support of former highschool classmates…. I could go on and on and on….

                  I know what the Democrat/Leftist news has to say and know both sides…. and know how things are reported. If you don’t watch both YOU’RE A FOOL!

                  BACK TO WILDLIFE! The mainstream media are sheep herders!

                2. Nancy Avatar
                  Nancy

                  “They had no interest in giving background info of the accusers”

                  Nor did the GOP want to explore fully, other real concerns about Kavanaugh’s credibility.

                  http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/kavanaugh-dogged-credibility-concerns-ahead-senate-hearing

                  But yes, lets get BACK TO WILDLIFE or is it vermin? I guess it depends on how it effects your orderly, little world.

        2. Mareks Vilkins Avatar
          Mareks Vilkins

          30 years after Hansen’s testimony
          http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/06/30-years-after-hansens-testimony/

          Patrick J. Michaels
          https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patrick_J._Michaels

          In 2004: Michaels-McKitrick Climate paper basic error
          Michaels “co-operated with Ross McKitrick on another paper that managed to “prove” that global warming wasn’t happening by mixing up degrees with radians.”[28]

          LOL

          Patrick J. Michaels – funding
          https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patrick_J._Michaels_-_funding

  106. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    What happened to the ‘unprecedented collaborative efforts’ touted by the last administration to protect sage grouse habitat? It sounds more like unprecedented efforts to try to continue exploiting and developing:

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/18/the-ten-big-lies-of-traditional-western-politics/

  107. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Here’s another story that has been bothering me all day. If progressive news outlets print this stuff with the same tired reasoning, it’s hopeless (but I hope not):

    https://www.salon.com/2018/10/21/restocking-wolves-on-isle-royale-raises-questions-about-which-species-get-rescued_partner/

    1. “Restocking wolves on Isle Royale is the first time that the National Park Service has intervened in a designated wilderness area to manipulate a predator-prey relationship.”

    Restocking? Really? That word sounds like game fish and animals, or livestock. And it is true that it is the first time the NPS has done such a thing?

    2. “Supporters call this plan a “genetic rescue,” but skeptics say nature should be allowed to take its course.”

    Why start now? People have interfered with nature’s course for centuries, so much so that we have made drastic and dramatic changes that need to be corrected.

    3. “How will it choose which species to save?”

    Trophic cascades anyone? Restoring the top carnivores to an ecosystem benefits all.

    1. Louise Kane Avatar
      Louise Kane

      Restocking wolves on Isle Royale is the first time that the National Park Service has intervened in a designated wilderness area to manipulate a predator-prey relationship.

      I guess they don’t count the sickening helicopter assisted slaughter of wolves in the Lolo as a manipulation…..

      1. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        Yes! It’s done ‘in reverse’ by F&W routinely.

        I was surprised they didn’t include the reintroduction to Yellowstone.

        And who are ‘the skeptics’? It doesn’t say…..

        I was sorry to hear about the death of one of the wolves, but I think the program is a good one, to protect some of them – especially with the nefarious legislation floating around Congress constantly threatening the Great Lakes population.

        I would love to visit Isle Royale.

  108. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    More Democrats joining forces with Republicans to destroy America’s wildlife. I just do not get it! It must be that wildlife is the easiest, most throwaway concession to make without having any voter repercussions: