OT: Wolf Watch - Page 8

"I am pretty sure that all this controversy is a matter of different political and financial pressures and not a matter of wolf difficulties at all."

Probably very true.

That's just it, Hans...If there is insufficient resources for a given species, that species will die out.  If the wolves overkill their prey, then they will weaken and die out.  The only objection I have to this is that they will move from the ungulates to the cattle, sheep, and other livestock near their territories, and then they will either be shot, or they will starve and start turning on each other.  It seems stupid to me to do things the way that they have been done...But I'm not in government, so what happens out there in the wilds, happens.  WHen the government runs out of money to fiddle with nature, they'll stop and things will happen.

Conservation is one thing, but some folks carry it too far, and then we start seeing massive predations on species that perhaps the wolf might otherwise have avoided for the most part.

This issue is out of our hands.  But I hope that it doesn't go too far.  Man is intervening in many facets of life on this planet, simply because we exist, and the only way to change that is to eradicate the human species.  There are portions of it that would not be missed, but we are still inexorably entwined in nature, and we have to do the best we can to be proper stewards...That's my feeling.

And Hans, I don't hate the wolves...They are far too beautiful for me to hate them.  But neither do I love them...Magnificent as they are, they are far removed from the domesticated dogs we love.

Crys

I think it's one thing to tolerate a pre-existing condition, and adjust your life to fit around it.  But it's entirely another, to throw the rattlesnakes under your home, in hopes that they will build a den, or to build a freeway right through your lawn.  The generations that are living, didn't remove the wolves from the land they themselves grew up in, and it was certainly theirs before it ever was the Canadian gray wolf's.  You might as well bring all the dinosaurs back, including the non-native ones, and welcome them with the same glee, while saying 'move over every one else!'  One of the odd things about all this, is people are forcing the Canadian gray wolf to adapt to a climate and environment that they're not as accustomed to.  Forced adaptation.

The infinite brilliance of the biologists...

It doesn't seem to matter what changes are made...We have had many, many invasive species brought in to fill a supposed need, and those species have grown out of control.  There are tons of invasive weeds that got their start here through some fool bringing it in because it was pretty, and then let it go wild.  We have trout in our lakes here that were stocked as food for others, when in fact those species didn't eat that variety, and then the two competed for food, the invasive species running such fierce competition that the native one is dying out..There's a bounty on Rainbow Trout in Lake Pend Orielle for that very reason.

When will people figure out that a few years of college education does not equip a person to make changes to the natural order of things, such as a lake or a park?

Yes, wolves were definitely here, but all accounts of the ones that were say they were smaller wolves, nowhere near the size of the Canadian greys that are here now.  They have been gone for a long time, far longer than most of us have been alive, and now that a non-native wolf has been brought back in, things are seriously out of control...I wouldn't presume to argue with Hans, because his knowledge of the canids is pretty incredible.

But if no one does any thing, the wolves will indeed cull their own population.  Unless of course humans decide that that is unacceptable, and start carting carcasses out there to feed the wolves...

Crys

Does anybody knows what subspieces of wolf was originally in that area?
Prager Hans
http://www.alpinek9.com

Canis lupus irremotus "The Northern Rocky Mountain wolf", one of 39 subspecies.

"In the end, this is how it was done: the indigenous Gray or Timber Wolf (Canis lupus irremotus) was listed as endangered. In 1978, Canis lupus irremotus was changed to Canis lupus. In 1982, the ESA of 1973 was amended to allow the introduction of nonessential experimental populations under the protection of an endangered species (even if they were not). In 1994/95, the Canadian Gray Wolf was brought in and turned loose to drive out the truly endangered Canis lupus irremotus, multiply under protection, and wreak havoc on ungulate herds and livestock."  Lynn Stuter, 2010

There is much debate among biologists as to subspecies of the Grey wolf and their origins.

If they can't agree I think its is mute.



Moons.

Who debates?  You're saying a wolf's a wolf?  By that logic, they might as well bring in the Canis lupus dingo, too.  Did you know kangaroos existed in the Middle East before the "great deluge"?  Probably not the same subspecies, but let's put them back, as well.

There were six packs of Canis lupus irremotus [map11] existing in 1995 NW Montana before "reintroduction" took effect, and the feds brought in 66 specimens of Canis lupus occidentalis [map20] and turned half loose in Yellowstone, the other half in Idaho.  Now, they are no longer endangered, but EXTINCT!

No,
what I am saying is that the original sub-species are extinct and that biologists still disagree over their classifications today.
That it took millions of years for these sub-species to emerge as individuals.
Yet they are all Grey wolves.    


Moons.

P.S.
I do not recognize Wikipedia as an accurate source of information.

All of our domestic dogs are Grey Wolves also.