Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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Our only hope is that lawsuits will be filed to stop this shoot on sight plan in Wyoming. The lawsuits can’t come fast enough.
++The lawsuits can’t come fast enough.++
Yeah, that will solve the problem. How’s it working for ya so far, jon?
With R’s controlling the House, and maybe even the Senate and the White House if things go sideways, a win in the courts for wolf advocates can be expected to produce a legislative change. It certainly has in the last two years. What is going to change that?
Another way of looking at the statistics is how many livestock kills/injuries per wolf per year. Of course, the wolf population needs to be localized, to eliminate those areas where there are no opportunities for livestock to interact with wolves (say in the National Parks). Then these “trivial” numbers actually begin to take on some meaning for those who make the decisions to “remove” problem wolves. That has been one of the issues all along. And, in that regard, the statistics IMHO should include verified injuries to livestock in the tables and not relegation to a footnote that disappears somewhere along the line when the analysis is done. For example footnotes, from the 2011 report by Jiminez:
* A horse broke its leg and had to be euthanized after being chased by wolves in a pasture on private
property. Six additional horses, 3 calves, and 1 dog were injured in 2011.
** One dog was also injured by wolves but survived.
^ (2012 to date) At least 7 additional calves were injured by wolves.