http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q#t=260
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Interesting video. You hear a lot of hunters and ranchers complain about wolves. This video would be good for them to check out. I seem to be in the minority among my hunting friends, but I for one am happy to see the wolves return to their natural habitat. They are beautiful and amazing creatures. I love to hike in yellowstone and photograph them.
I have no qualms over the reintroduction of wolves. My heckles rise when they reintroduced them and let them do as they please. Every other animal is controlled in order to keep the balance in check, but the wolves run rampant and unchecked. So long as their numbers are sustainable and growth is controlled, I see no problem.
In the areas surrounding the park, and within close proximity to private land and ranches i absolutely agree we should manage them. Inside the park, however, the park service usually tries to let the animals keep their own balance. If the wolves get too large in number they will eat themselves out of food until their numbers drop too. It all balances out at some point.
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You are right about that, it's estimated that Americas patriarchal Shiras moose herd is down 99% in the park from pre wolf numbers. Hard to imagine any animal climbing back from those odds. Elk numbers have over shadowed everything. But the fact is the much smaller Shiras cannot put up the formidable defense of their much larger cousins in the north to the Canadian introduced super killers. I think it's ironic that even though a snake is a snake people recognize the terrible circumstances if pythons in Florida, but the same people can't recognize the harm of introducing a subspecies of wolf twice the size of its extinct predecessor. Just look at subspecies mammal research from south to north North America. The body size of almost all species grow dramatically, Yukon bears, Canadian bison, moose, whitetail deer, etc ...
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I am wondering if your have anything to back up your statistics regarding the size of the reintroduced wolves, and also the reduction percentage of the Shiras Moose? From what I've read, yes indeed there was a moose decline, but I think you're 99% figure is a little high. And it was primarily due to the wildfires in 1988 that destroyed their winter range. The declines started in 1988, not 1995. The native wolf of Yellowstone is the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf. The kind of wolf that was introduced to Yellowstone in 1995 is the Mackenzie Valley Wolf which is only slightly larger than their native cousins. Definitely not twice as big. I know from your other posts, MY T PIMP, that you are an avid hunter. And it just seems that all hunters love to demonize wolves and make them out to be these vicious, horrible killing machines that should all just be eradicated. I also am an avid hunter, and I know it's hard to share the herd with these predators, but I, for one, am willing to share my piece of the pie in order to preserve what last remaining wild places we have left as the way they were before people came in and started killing everything.
Here is one particular good read on the matter, I will get more.
http://www.mt-sfw.org/gh/PhotoPage+U...Species+Title=
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This is an excellent read;
http://rmefblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/get-facts.html?m=1
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I will find the moose info.
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If you look and remember, you'll find that I have been involved in my share if volunteer efforts in conservation and have donated my dollars to the same. To label me as you have ahansen is completely unjustified. My efforts have been involved in causes that create and preserve new habitat for all wildlife. But the fact is with out human management there is no natural selection for the introduced Canadian gray. Their pray falls dramatically in population and their own numbers don't. Their is numerous recorded instances of them targeting a lot more than just the weak and feeble. The Sierra club and other pro wolf organizations dump allot of money into controlling the web search engines so that what first appears is a bunch biased info and "facts", making it difficult for anyone to find conflicting research, but it's there and you'll find it can back up it's finding as good if not better than pro wolf. Look if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service wants to use Yellowstone as a test tube for invasive species than by all means, but outside the park is a different story. Hell Siberian tigers need help too, I'm sure paleantologists can find a fossil of an extinct large cat in Alaska, let's give it a whirl, it might be the only chance the big cat has;-)
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