Anyone care to try and talk some sense into this guy?

[mikemulligan32]

An elk hunter welcomes wolves

Though elk numbers are alarmingly low in the San Juan Mountains, I am an elk hunter who welcomes the return of wolves to Colorado.

durangoherald.com

Please people from Colorado, stop this while you have the opportunity.

 

[NoWiser]

If given the chance, I'll hunt where there are wolves every time. I love them.

That said, I'm against the ballot initiative to reintroduce them.

 

[Ripnbst]

If given the chance, I'll hunt where there are wolves every time. I love them.

That said, I'm against the ballot initiative to reintroduce them.

Love them because you love shooting them? This is the only appropriate response. Why else would you love wolves? They will decimate an elk herd.

 

[MTLabrador]

Love them because you love shooting them? This is the only appropriate response. Why else would you love wolves? They will decimate an elk herd.

They sure haven’t done a very good job of decimating Wyoming’s elk herds.

 

[TOGIE]

i dunno, i'm not too concerned

i hate the funding problems, and a legislature that won't appropriate funds for it and a ballot initiative that stipulates hunters pay for it if the legislature doesn't

it's going to pass, no sense in getting worked about it anymore

 

[NoWiser]

Love them because you love shooting them? This is the only appropriate response. Why else would you love wolves? They will decimate an elk herd.

I wouldn't expect someone from a state with zero wolves to understand how I feel about them, nor would I care what they think. I did shoot one a few years back. Probably won't shoot another.

 

[old school]

Look what they did in Idaho before Game and Fish started shooting them. The data speaks for itself. You don’t reintroduce wolves and have it increase the elk population.

 

[ShootsManyBullets]

Mountain bikers don't care about elk but they love wolves. So pretty

 

[nrpate05]

It is actually kinda nice to see this, as opposed to painting all hunters as 100% anti-wolf. Althought, I don't really agree with much he wrote. As a CO resident, my concern lies more with ballot box biology than the wolves themselves. Also, some elk herds are not doing well and part of me feels that introducing wolves could really be the straw that breaks the camels back, or whatever that saying is. I'm not sure I get his argument that because elk herds are dwindling that we should release more pressure on them. He also writes that he respects CPW. Most of the reason I don't like this initiative is because it undermines the agency.

I also really dislike this narrative of "restoring ecological balance." No one has ever explained what this means in a state that is gobbling up habitat and developing trails at alarming rates. Seems like all that human activity may upset the "ecological balance" no? I suppose it is just a talking point that the people who don't really know what's going on can latch on to.

 

[WapitiBob]

Look what they did in Idaho before Game and Fish started shooting them. The data speaks for itself. You don’t reintroduce wolves and have it increase the elk population.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Great article. I’ve hunted many areas w/ wolves. Hunting experience is better with them IMO because the prey populations are more properly balanced, and act more like prey should. Less habitat degradation from overbrowse/overgraze, less disease outbreaks, more natural distribution of animals on the landscape.

IA used to be very thin on small predators such as owls, hawks, foxes, coyotes, eagles, bobcats, etc, and the small game species were in over-abundance. Now that they’re all back in force the prey animals are in better balance.

 

[Sytes]

Randy Newberg

"hm-huh, Well, I almost want to go to Colorado and start saying, 'Hey! Someone read this because you guys are headed down a path here' --- I feel like they're in the Titanic and that everyone knows the iceberg's there..."

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

"No wonder in our region that there are only 20 elk calves that survive to adulthood born from 100 cow elk. Statistically, at least half the calves should live, not a mere 20%. There is too much stress. Our advanced technologies for hunting and outdoor recreation mean that we are constantly in the backcountry. Elk have no respite. So it is time for wolves. It is time for natural big-game management."

I don't follow this logic... is the author suggest we end hunting of elk all together?

 

[beginnerhunter]

"No wonder in our region that there are only 20 elk calves that survive to adulthood born from 100 cow elk. Statistically, at least half the calves should live, not a mere 20%. There is too much stress. Our advanced technologies for hunting and outdoor recreation mean that we are constantly in the backcountry. Elk have no respite. So it is time for wolves. It is time for natural big-game management."

I don't follow this logic... is the author suggest we end hunting of elk all together?

Bizarre, but can't really be interpreted any other way.

Not sure it was really meant to convince elk hunters or help justify a vote in favor for those on the fence ("see, even this ELK HUNTER thinks it's a good idea").

Oh well, it's done anyway. Feds might be able to stymie the effort but I doubt the next group will be anything but helpful. Good luck everyone.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

Great article. I’ve hunted many areas w/ wolves. Hunting experience is better with them IMO because the prey populations are more properly balanced, and act more like prey should. Less habitat degradation from overbrowse/overgraze, less disease outbreaks, more natural distribution of animals on the landscape.

Factually unsubstantiated.

AK - Wolves
MT - Wolves
ID - Wolves
CO - No wolves (until last year)
UT - No wolves

Are you arguing that elk management in MT, shoulder seasons, 12 weeks of hunting season, etc are the same as Colorado's management goals and strategies and therefore you are able to definitively say the wolves are the variable leading to these differences?

Can you say that for even the same DSUs/GMUs in the same state?

Penn doesn't hunt like Minnesota for whitetail... QDMA, private v. public land ownership... etc

habitat degradation ... yeah I have the Youtube, that video is a f-ing joke in the context of this conversation.

Yellowstone is a aberrant, nowhere else in the world is there a spot that had that many ungulates, with no predators, that didn't allow hunting.

The highest density of elk in Colorado exist in a Wilderness area that is likely the most heavily hunted area in the state. Last time I checked there were 16 different outfitters packing hunters into that wilderness area.

Colorado does not have a national park with substantial elk (+3000 resident elk), nor does one exist anywhere else in the United States?

CWD and wolves, red herring, the implication they are related is completely spurious.

Wolves will hunt elk on private land where otherwise they may not be hunted. - Valid, one of the few factual statements I've ever heard on the topic.

At the end of the day this is not a "science" conversation, it's a do you like the aesthetic, the rest is horsepucky and I'm over it.

I want grizzlies in CO, why because I like grizzlies and want to see them. There is no scientific, ecological, or conservation driven reason. They are awesome, I like seeing them.

People want to see wolves or hear them when they go into the flattops, cool.

Stop pissing down my neck.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”- Leopold​

Leopold isn't suggesting that wolves are some ecological catholicon. Rather, I believe, he is suggesting that when humans try to "improve" nature they destroy that which makes it beautiful. Why do so many of us want so desperately to hunt Alaska, and so despise killing deer over a feeder in Texas? Is this not the green fire dying magnified to a landscape level? Yet is not Texas a much better place to hunt deer, if your goal is simply to kill deer?

Leopold is discussing aesthetics, not purveying ecological factoids.

 

[AlaskaHunter]

Moose populations in Alaska have increased when wolf populations were reduced,
but they also increased as wolf populations increased.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...se_densities_following_wolf_control_in_Alaska

North of the Alaska Range (unit 20a) wolf populations and ungulate harvest rates
were reduced for a 7-year period (1976-1982), moose density increased from
0.18 to 0.48 moose per km2, and the Delta caribou herd increased from 2,200 to 7,335 individuals.

However, after 1982 wolf populations increased and moose populations continued to increase.
Moose density continued to increase during and after wolf recovery, reaching a peak of 1.36 moose per km2 in 2003. By then moose population showed clear signs of approaching a nutritional carrying capacity, as evidenced by the lowest recorded reproductive rates among non-insular North American moose and the highest browse removal rates measured in Alaska. The moose population was then
reduced with any bull and antlerless permits hunts throughout the unit.

Why did moose populations continue to increase as the wolf population increased?
Likely several reasons including relatively mild winters and high winter survival,
high moose numbers relative to wolf numbers, increased browse via wildfires,
relatively low bear predation in the unit.

 

[MTLabrador]

"No wonder in our region that there are only 20 elk calves that survive to adulthood born from 100 cow elk. Statistically, at least half the calves should live, not a mere 20%. There is too much stress. Our advanced technologies for hunting and outdoor recreation mean that we are constantly in the backcountry. Elk have no respite. So it is time for wolves. It is time for natural big-game management."

I don't follow this logic... is the author suggest we end hunting of elk all together?

I finally took the time to read the article and I’m wondering the same thing...

 

[LuketheDog]

If given the chance, I'll hunt where there are wolves every time. I love them.

That said, I'm against the ballot initiative to reintroduce them.

Exactly, I care very little about whether we have them, but I AM concerned by all the idiots that will become empowered and the management tools we'll lose with the ballot initiative. They also will not do any "restoring of the natural balance", the natural balance is long gone in the rearview. Frankly, I'd rather have grizzly bears than wolves here in CO, that will reduced the human impact on any semblance of natural balance we have...

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

If given the chance, I'll hunt where there are wolves every time. I love them.

That said, I'm against the ballot initiative to reintroduce them.

CO in particular has a horrendous record of ballot biology, trapping, spring bear, etc