http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39017137/ns/us_news-environment

And this state is in the process of setting up 14 new colonies of wolves . Can you say idiots?

Sure is funny how they can get to the state of controlling the herds but we can't kill seals and sea lions.... Odd isn't it?

What's the difference between the two, they both have a heartbeat......

Keith

Salmon are public property, so losing them to seals or sea lions, along with being natural, is considered acceptable. Those cattle lost to wolf depredation are private property. And in the U.S. nothing is more sacred than private property. Poor wolves; maybe they should switch to eating salmon.

Oh NO! Now look what you've done Salmo!

It makes me wonder what will happen when tag sales decline.

Hunters spend a lot of money in Oregon and Washington.

When you have less tag's sold........

Some day I can only hope that ODFW and WDFW remember who actually support them.

OK-After plenty of research and after reading a couple of books on Yellowstone wolves I'm starting to come around a wee bit to the hunters/ranchers side of this issue. I still don't see where a couple of packs in Wa. would be the end of the world though. Pretty much comes down to a numbers thing. When the packs get too big they start killing more then they need just because they don't know what the rest of the pack is doing so they end up with three kills when they only needed one. Enough to send the hunters off a cliff! Plenty to worry about with the couple of packs we already have, no need to make up stuff....................



Really? They using black helicopters to set up these colonies? Crab endorsement card paying for it? Four in Yellowstone wasn't enough eh? Wa. going all out with 14?

Love to see a source on this as I keep a pretty close eye on this issue and haven't seen or heard anything other then trying (albeit lamely) to manage what we know is already naturally expanding into Wa.

Cool photo Twitch! That dietary changeover will make wolves in WA socially acceptable, at least as acceptable as seals and sea lions.

I don't mind having a few wolves in WA, making the ecosystem a bit more natural. But I think management is important since the ecosystems of the region are anything but natural anymore. I recall the BC wolf biologist who said, when the first groups were transported to Yellowstone and Idaho, that these animals would absolutely take off beyond expectations when transplanted into good habitat. Apparently Y'stone and Idaho are really good habitat considering how the populations have grown. At first I thought WDFW was jumping the gun to start work on the wolf management plan. Now I'm glad they did. It's going to be needed. WA doesn't have very much wilderness that is good wolf habitat, so the animals will definitely move into ag grazing lands as the populations increase.

Sg

I think they have already planted wolves in the Mt. St. Hellens erea. I know a guy who just seen one a few weeks ago. Spent some time watching it with his spotting scope.

It's been talked about just like other places were right before they turned up.
I might have to make some trips up this winter and see if I can find them around the elk in the flats and get pics.
Kris

Dcrzfitter,

Who is the "they" who would have planted wolves around St. Helens? If WDFW had, it would have been in their press releases. And if USFWS did it, I would have heard about it because I work in the same building they're in. Unlike stocking spiny ray fish in lakes, I doubt any "bucket biologists" stocked wolves in this state. Everything I've heard from WDFW is that wolves are migrating into WA from BC and Idaho. Okanogan to St. Helens is quite a little jump.

Sg

Not sure who would have planted them but I wouldn't put it past some groups.(non gov) We will just have to see if they start seeing more in the erea in the next few years.

Wolves turned up in spots in Wa along way from Idaho and Canada with no sighting inbetween.

Kris

I just hope that when the hunters who want to shoot a wolf in Washington start lobbying for it, they don't try and play the poor rancher card, and just say what they mean...that they want to shoot a wolf.

Fish on...

Todd

Those wolves are bad news. Shoot them all. A pack will do some serious damage on the deer and elk pops. In Idaho and Montana the deer and elk pops are high and can sustain that predation, but here in our great state thats not the case. I doubt wolves were planted in st helens but I don't doubt they could have migrated there. They will eventually. Heck there was a moose in town in Cle Elum a couple weeks ago. That was a hell of a migration.