And what management costs would those be? Once the animals are introduced, they can take care of themselves. Sure, they might be required to be moved or even killed every now and then if they came into contact with people, but this thread has proven that there's no shortage of people anxious to do THAT last job privately.

It seems that a lot of people think that wolves dine solely on trophy deer and elk, which is not the case. They like targets with the least risk: the very young, the sick, the weak, the old, and sometimes the unlucky. A healthy adult deer or elk can do serious harm to a wolf, possibly even killing it, either immediately or by starvation if the animal is injured and can no longer hunt. Rabbits, rodents, and other small animals also make up a large part of their diet.

Yeah, I can hear your next argument: What about when a wolf kills Farmer Bob's only cow? As far as that argument goes, I seem to recall that the Sierra Club had a reimbursement program when the Mexican grey wolf was reintroduced to NM, and not one farmer or rancher ever claimed it. The government also has a program to reimburse farmers for lost cattle, and last I heard, the program was rife with abuse, with farmers and ranchers trying to claim animals that clearly died of other causes as wolf kills.

Now, which of these scenarios is preferable from the human standpoint:

1.) A pair of wolves kill a doe and eat it.

2.) A doe crosses the road at the wrong time and gets pasted by a car, totalling the car and possibly killing the driver or passengers in the process.

I don't know about you, but I'd pick #1. A deer totalling a $35,000 car would pay for a lot of cows.

And I'd be really glad to see data that shows that wolves are any kind of threat to humans. More people died in the US last year by falling off ladders than have been killed by wolves in the entire history of our nation.

It's my opinion that we should live on nature's terms, and appriciate what whatever diety you follow has given us. We're part of nature, not above it. Isn't that why we go out hunting and fishing? To keep in touch with the natural world? After all, it's far cheaper to go out and buy fish and meat at the store. It's somewhat dismaying to me to see that people who claim to love the outdoors would have no hesitation about putting a bullet in a wild animal that poses no danger because of old prejudices and the false opinion that they're 'stealing' 'our' game.

1. We have plenty of private citizens who are anxious to thin the cougar population too, but can't do so effectively because of the hound ban. Instead, the state pays a few to kill cougars that have become problems.

2. All deer and elk are part of the "very young" at first.

Yes. So? That's why they all calve at about the same time, and I know that deer fawns have no scent to make them harder to find. Deer and elk have evolved strategies for foiling predators, just as predators have evolved strategies to catch them. Deer and elk will survive with wolves around, just as they survive with mountain lions and bears like there are now.

And just for the record, I'm against the hound ban. I'm all for using hounds to take lions. But then again, the ones that cause problems are mostly in residential areas where you could never hunt them anyway.

Here is an excerpt from Wisconson. I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

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Wolf Management costs will increase from a base level of $130,000 yearly at approximately 10% per year from a base year of 1997-98, for the next five years; this does not include depredation costs. License fees from hunting, fishing or trapping will be used for wolf management only if the species is open for public harvest. Full reimbursement should be made to owners who have lost pets or livestock to wolves; normal costs are estimated at $20,000 to $40,000 per year when wolves have reached management goals. The cost of removing depredating wolves and either translocating them to suitable habitat or euthanizing them is estimated at $15,000 to $30,000 per year. Therefore the total cost of wolf management activities is estimated at from $165,000 to $200,000 per year.
----------------------------------------------------

Are you really sure about that?

WOW!
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Wolf pack doomed by its own success
Whitehawk wolves wouldn't stop preying on ranchers' stock
Idaho Statesman
April 14, 2002


Carter Niemeyer spent the past year trying to keep the Whitehawk pack alive in the White Cloud Mountains.

On April 6, he decided his efforts had been in vain. The man in charge of restoring wolves in Idaho for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carried out his own order and gunned down the remaining five marauding wolves from a helicopter.

It was not an easy decision for Niemeyer, an almost legendary peacemaker between wolf advocates and ranchers.

He had bent the rules to grant the pack a reprieve after it killed cattle and sheep a year before. But the wolves this year had become even more emboldened in their attacks on calves and lambs next to people´s homes, despite intensive harassment.

"I kept hoping the wolves would help us out and leave," Niemeyer said. "But they didn´t. They never do."

His act ignited international outrage from wolf advocates who have followed the exploits of the pack, led by the beautiful white wolf named Alabaster. It brought relief for ranchers along the East Fork of the Salmon River who have struggled through a month of sleepless nights and even the loss of a child´s 4-H project sheep. Yet they find no solace in the death of the wolves that had become as much a part of their life as anyone´s.

The killing of the Whitehawk pack highlights the growing challenge facing wildlife managers as Idaho´s wolf population rises to 300 and beyond.

Wolves have reached their population goal and now fill most of the existing wild lands of central Idaho.

With staff and money limited, federal officials no longer will be moving wolves when they kill livestock. If they can´t scare wolves off, they will kill them.

But in high profile areas such as the Sawtooth National Recreation Area where the Whitehawk pack ran, many people believe wolves should have equal or even preferential treatment.

"This is Idaho´s Yellowstone," said Ralph Maughan, a Pocatello wolf advocate who helped found the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. "We feel about it the way people feel about Yellowstone."

In the past 31 months, 27 wolves have been killed or moved out of the White Cloud Mountains and the East Fork of the Salmon River. Niemeyer is virtually certain another pack will move in and fill the void left by his elimination of the Whitehawk pack.

"There´s a lot of places where wolves can carry on just fine and other places where ranching can proceed just fine," said Greg Schildwachter, policy adviser in the Idaho Office of Species Conservation. "But it seems in this place you have an inevitable conflict."

Wolves started moving south from Canada in the 1970s and formed packs in Montana that began attacking livestock in the 1980s. Niemeyer was a government hunter for the Department of Agriculture´s Animal Damage Control agency, which controlled predators that attacked livestock.

The agency controlled predators mostly by trapping them and shooting them from helicopters. But wolves, exterminated early in the 20th century, were protected by the Endangered Species Act.

"Wolves showed up on my door, and we were forced to improvise," he said.

He became the federal government´s expert on controlling wolves, helping to develop non-lethal methods of keeping them away from livestock. The 6-foot-6-inch, plain-speaking Iowa native earned respect from both ranchers and environmentalists.

In 2001 he left ADC, now called Wildlife Services, putting down his guns and traps to run the program to recover wolves in Idaho. When wolves were reintroduced in 1995 and 1996, the conflicts with livestock were surprisingly few, and managers moving them out of harm´s way were glorified in magazines, on television and in documentaries.

"It was our warm fuzzy stage," Niemeyer said. "We all basked in that."

But in places such as the East Fork and near Salmon, conflicts began to increase. The population rise has reduced the importance of individual animals and made it more practical for managers to kill wolves than to move them.

"All of us knew as wolf managers the day was coming when we wouldn´t relocate them," he said.

For the Whitehawk pack, the day almost came in June. Soon after they left the East Fork after a calf-killing spree, a rancher moved his band of sheep on top of their denning site in the White Clouds.

On June 10, Alabaster had nine pups, and the pack killed a large guard dog and eight sheep. By the end of the month, the pack had killed another eight sheep and three calves.

"That´s when I should have acted," Niemeyer said. "I didn´t want the distinction of being the first one in the West to kill pups in a den."

Instead he worked with the Defenders of Wildlife, ranchers and the Nez Perce Tribe to organize a group of volunteers called the Wolf Guardians. They helped put up radio-activated alarms, electric fencing and other measures for protecting sheep and cattle. The Guardians also kept guard at night with herders, repelling one attack with gunfire, yelling and singing.

Once the Guardians showed up there were no more killings.

But the wolves returned to their former eating habits when they returned to the East Fork. Calving begins on the ranches there in late February and early March.

Niemeyer and Wildlife Services agent Rick Williamson put in place the same alarms and fences to protect the cattle and sheep on the East Fork private land.

At first they thought it would work. But on March 31 a wolf killed a sheep that one of the rancher´s daughters was raising as a 4H project.

"She shed tears for both critters," Niemeyer said.

Two wolves were killed in response, but a calf was killed. Three more wolves were killed and the harassment was stepped up.

When another calf was killed April 5 Niemeyer decided to kill the remaining five Whitehawk wolves. The decision was his, he said, made after counsel with several experts he trusts and his boss Bob Ruesink, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Snake Basin director.

"I just saw this was heading to a major wreck," he said. "Do we take our lumps now or do we take our lumps with a litter of puppies in the ground?"

Williamson told Niemeyer the job of shooting the five animals was too much for one man. Niemeyer was forced to pick up the gun he put away when he left Montana.

"I never wanted to shoot another wolf again, but I had to," he said. "I need to lead by example."

The wolves were up the road from the ranches when they found them, he said. They didn´t suffer.

"They were shot and died instantly," Niemeyer said.

The news hit Cheri Beno of Seattle hard. She had spent June through October coordinating the Wolf Guardian program and had become close to the Whitehawk pack and to Niemeyer and Williamson.

"I was just sick," she said in a telephone interview. "It´s like a part of my family is gone."

She and her husband, Tom, Maughan and other wolf advocates spread the news that the pack was under the gun, prompting a wave of news reports worldwide.

Niemeyer was flooded with hundreds of angry e-mails calling him a heartless killer. Many of the messages came from Europe, where there is great interest in wild animals and the Rocky Mountains.

News stories about the killings were reported in German magazines and circulated widely on the Internet.

"The mentality of having a few men deciding which animals are allowed to exist and which not, is neither responsible on a global level nor appropriate anymore for the ecological surviving of the earth as a whole," said Catherine Habegger of Walzenhausen, Switzerland, in one of the hundreds of e-mails.

Even conservationists such as Maughan who recognize some wolves must be killed were shocked by Niemeyer´s decision.

"I can´t think of anything that has happened in the wolf reintroduction which has irritated more people than the killing of the Whitehawk pack because they killed one lamb and two calves," Maughan said.

Beno said she still loves Niemeyer dearly but isn´t convinced he didn´t have an alternative. She has spent hours with him and Williamson and is convinced they love wolves with a passion similar to hers.

"I can be mad, and I can be hurt, but I know how he and Rick feel," she said.

Melody Baker, a Custer County commissioner and one of the ranchers in the East Fork. did not want to comment on the wolves. She and her family have been under siege trying to protect a lifestyle and livelihood they cherish.

The wolves were reintroduced over the objections of ranchers, and they never asked for the conflict, Niemeyer said.

"Those people have been extremely tolerant of what we´ve been doing," he said.

Lynne Stone, executive director of the Boulder-White Clouds Council in Stanley, said she could relate to the loss the Bakers and other East Fork ranchers feel. But she and other wolf advocates want to buy out their grazing permits on public lands to eliminate the bulk of the conflicts. She is frustrated and hurt that the wolves near her home keep getting killed.

On Thursday, the Western Watersheds Project, activist John Marvel´s group, called on Congress to buy out all of the 25,000 grazing permits on public lands.

So far ranchers have rejected such sweeping proposals, saying they would destroy rural communities across the West. But individual ranchers have sold easements and even land for a variety of environmental goals.

"What I´m looking to see is whether willing sellers and willing buyers in the private sector can find ways to negotiate solutions here," Schildwachter said.

Easements or other land deals are under discussion in talks Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, hopes lead to a wilderness bill for the Boulder-White Clouds. But wolves have never been a part of the discussion, said his legislative director, Lindsey Slater.

Niemeyer hopes to reorganize the Wolf Guardians again to reduce the conflicts where possible. Increased staffing at the federal, tribal and state levels also will help.

But for wolf recovery to work in the West, environmentalists must get used to the reality that wolves must die, he said.

And for free market deals, wilderness bills and other solutions to work, the level of rhetoric must drop, he said.

"We´ve got to get away from the name-calling and get the humanity back in this business," Niemeyer said.

and another, wonder how much those boys are getting paid to shoot and who is paying
-----------------------------------------------
Wolves attack woman's llamas again, this time killing one

The Associated Press
4/3/02 1:09 AM


FRENCHTOWN (AP) -- Federal officials on Tuesday verified a llama owned by Geri Ball of the Ninemile Valley was killed during the early morning by a wolf.

It was the second wolf attack at Ball's residence in recent weeks. The first time the llama survived but remains under care and is not doing well, she said.

Ball said she saw the wolf's green eyes in the darkness as she checked her llamas and it took a step toward her before she retreated to the house.

The wolf remained on the dead animal. "It didn't even run when my husband went back out there," she said. "We had to pound on metal to get it to move at all."

The couple's female llamas were in the barn, both because a wolf had attacked another llama 10 days earlier and because it is breeding season.

Three males were in the lower pasture. When the wolf approached, Catalyst ran across the field to investigate and was attacked.

"You can see where Catalyst went down to the cattails, then the wolf's tracks on a run through the mud and onto the ice, and then big gobs of hair in the field," Geri Ball said.

"It's so sad," she said. Catalyst used to pull a little cart, she said, and won ribbons at county fairs in Missoula, Kalispell and Medford, Ore. "He's been a pack llama, too."

Ball's was the fourth llama killed in the Ninemile Valley this year and the fifth attacked.

Last week, federal officials shot and killed two adult males from the Ninemile wolf pack, hoping they were the ones responsible for the attacks. On Tuesday, they made plans to kill two or more of the remaining pack members.

"It could be that we got one right and one wrong, or two wrong, or that other wolves were involved as well," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena.

"It's typical wolf stuff," Bangs said. "They avoid anything strange. But once they figure something out, once the behavior is ingrained, it's tough to get them out of there. We have had to kill whole packs before. I hate to see that happen, but part of the deal was we wouldn't let wolves prey on livestock."

Bangs said damage control officers will try to catch a wolf or wolves feeding on the llama carcass. "That's the way to do it, to be sure you've got the right animals," he said. "We'll probably end up shooting a couple more wolves."

"I don't really know what's going on with these llama kills," he said. "We've had wolves in the Ninemile for 12 years and we never had a problem with llamas until last year."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Would these be hatchery raised wolves....or nates? How would you know the difference....clipped dew claws?

i dont believe we should be throwing lead all around the pacific northwest towards the wolves, but it seems after man eradicates a predator there is allways a huge problem with population rebounding of deer ,elk, and now we got issues with cougars, now it will be the wolves, we dont know how to manage what we allready have, why introduce another predator, jus so we can have issues with it in 5-10 years.. jus look at the sea lions, to many of them, cuz there protected, we need to manage them as well, why not introduce more orca's? when is it gonna stop?

I sure would like to hear what the Arkliar has to say about the posted facts and articles I presented.

Have you decided to tuck your tail like Bri24 and HPB?? Those boys make me laugh!

How bout a lottery tag system like they have for moose, goat, and sheep? that would certainly take care of the problem of herd population control.

Not trying to start anything, please dont throw a stupid, snide remark back my way.

I think that when it is figured out, then it should be done. Until then it most definitely should not.

Curtis

Curtis, trust me I will only deliver stupid snide remarks to those deserving, anybody that is truely asking a question gets my honest opinion or sound facts.
My replies are to the point and usually lack any of the warm PC responses so many seem to like around here. I admit, sometimes they can be somewhat sarcastic But these two wolf threads were done to hopefully show some examples that by doing these warm and fuzzy, knee jerk decisions, we are so accustomed to in this state, we end up paying for it in the long run.
Not many people on the liberal left side seem to think things though, especially when it comes to scientific wildlife managment (or lack there of).
I asked one simple question (funding) I gave some "guestamint" costs and some hard costs, what did we get nothing! well we did one remark, we got a statement that said, it should come from donations and private funding and a statement stating that we shouldn't have to do anything with them once released.
Those DA remarks are exactly what I am trying to point out.
Somewhere, somehow the bleeding heart, feel good, PC crap that we the sportsmen end up having to pay for, needs to stop!

Now to answer your question, I am assuming that you are talkiing about having a drawing for hunting a wolf? and the proceeds would go towards managment?
Good idea!

Here is my opinion, nothing to back it up factually though.
I believe there would not be much interest in hunting the wolf thus in turn not generating much money for wolf managment.

Lets say they introduce 20 and allow 3 of them a year to be hunted.
Going off the Wisc. #'s the tag prices or money generated from the lottery would have to equal approx. 65,000 a tag. I just really do not see that happening.

For those that have followed these threads (GMU 346, Wolf Question and this thread) I hope it has opened some eyes and shows that we should get very active in the politics of wildlife management in our state..

Now back to my homework my grades are sucking!

8,623 moose lottery tags submitted in 2001 (Can't find 2002 records). Lets say that was the wolf, and we run each submission at $8 or so. Theres the what, 65k you said?

that work?

Curtis

That would work for the 1/3 of the funding. We would need those to be at least 24 dollars each to reach the money that Wisc. is paying out, or get another 16,000 more to join in the permit.
I also stated that I really do not think there would be very many folks interested in shooting a re-introduced wolf. Once again that is my opinion.

Uhh, unlike SOME people apparently, I don't *live* on this board. I also don't hunt (I fish), so I don't pay attention to this board unless I see the thread pop up as the most recent post on the title page.

As for my answers, I have nothing against shooting animals that are causing problems. Not all animals become problem animals, though. Would I agree to killing wolves that are running around Olympic National Park minding their own business? No. As stated in your article, Idaho has a population of 300 wolves, and they've had problems with a few individuals, and Oregon cattlemen are already pissing their pants even though they haven't confirmed a single wolf living in the state. Guess you'd be for killing all the bears, since they sometimes prey on livestock, and they've been known to kill people too. As for the figures given, $160K to $200K is a drop in the bucket, provided that it even costs nearly that much. Montana is a much more rural state, and more people live out in the boonies there.

As for funding, I agree that it should not rest only sportsmen/women. IMHO, the state could find some creative ways to fund control projects, such as vanity license plates, memorobelia, lotteries, ect. They certianly justified those two huge boondoggles sitting right next to each other in downtown Seattle, and even at the most expensive figures, you could manage wolves for 5000 years for what we paid for those things.

You said that wolves don't prey on trophy animals. They do. They prey on them when they are young, before they show their potential. I'm not arguing for trophy management, just debating your point.
The cougars that are causing problems in residential areas are a result of the cougar population boom (and the human population boom). In many cases they've been pushed out of another cat's territory.

Just as a little piece of "fyi". I live in Mineral which is a small town in western washington. About 8 years ago my chocolate lab got into a fight with a cougar 25 yards from my back door. Believe it or not the dog won. We called the game department to take care of the problem cat and they did nothing. They showed up late the next day and said "oh its too late to track it." Having that happen opened my eyes and made me wonder how many other folks in washington have had the same problem and will have that problem with wolves. I for one will shoot either one of the above on sight.
My cougar sightings have gone up drastically since the hound band, and those that don't think they'll ever see one or see the wolves when they get introduced are wrong. I saw a big cat 1/2 down the main road from my house yesterday.
Not real happy about it considering I have a 4 year old daughter and 1 year old son that like to play outside.
More go@@am flatlanders making big wig decisions up in seattle messing up my life. There is my justification for shooting on sight. Like it or not I don't care. If I get caught I'll pay the consequenses. If I get caught.

a few posts back you stated that there would be no costs for annual maintinance. That excerpt was just showing you tha tthere are costs. Washingtons situation may or may not be different, but there will for sure be costs associated with it.

Jeeze Louise,, why didnt you just come out and state your funding plan a long time ago, would saved us alot of time, oh but, you didnt think any funding was necessary... Dah!

lets keep it apples to apples OK. I have already been down this road. You want to debate stadiums and their economic values feel free to do so. I will chime in on your thread about that. We already set Magia Fimia straight a few years back. We could do it again if you so desire, but not on this format.

Hey, how long ago did you move here and was it California that you left?

glowballs,
I don't think the state would have a problem with you killing a cougar that was in your backyard. Besides, isn't the season about 6 months long? There's a good chance they'd be in season anyway, and you could just put your tag on it. Kill all of 'em I say. And I don't mean I want all cats killed, I just mean kill the ones you see. Sure won't hurt the cat population any, now that you can't hunt them with hounds.

Hey Glowball, lets stay in touch. Next cougar season we should go cleaning up around your neighborhood.

Curtis