Visitor Counter

hitwebcounter web counter
Visitors Since Blog Created in March 2010

Click Below to:

Add Blog to Favorites

Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Subscribe via email to get updates

Enter your email address:

Receive New Posting Alerts

(A Maximum of One Alert Per Day)

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Let us not completely demonize Rocky Mountain Wolf haters..............They exist in all geographic regions of the USA ...........And they will make up stories, distort the truth and plain out lie about Wolf ecology so as to scare the general population and make them feel threatened by wolves......Maine hunters are paranoid about coyotes and the prospect of Eastern Wolf rewilding.............Their artificially high deer herd has begun to sink back to more ecosystem carrying capacity under the dual strain of snowy winters and an increased coyote population.................Deer historically did not exist in the Northern 2/3 of the State until Cougars and Wolves were eliminated and timber was clear cut..............The new "highway North" without tolls(carnivores) and with young regenerating browse(clearcut recovery) was the perfect storm to cause northern deer migrations during the early and mid 20th century...............Now folks are used to the deer and "freak" at the mention of wolves, cougars, coyotes and bears...............the "4-corners" of effective deer control in any part of North America

Keeping Wolves from Maine's door


As preposterous as it sounds, it appears once again that the U.S Fish and Wildife Service (USFWS) is toying with the idea of introducing wolves into the Northeast, Maine included. Just what Maine's moose and troubled deer populations need, right? Another major predator.

The whole scheme is complicated and woven into a web of wolf subspecies and environmental politics of the most expensive kind. Because of lawsuits brought against USFWS by animal rights groups, critics believe that USFWS is using Northeast wolf introduction as a ploy to mitigate its legal problems with Defenders of Wildlife and other well-heeled, litigation-happy fringe groups.
Wolves are fascinating critters. Visitors to Yellowstone Park love to watch these big canids through telescopes and field glasses. For every happy wolf looker in Yellowstone, though, there are a dozen ranchers, elk hunters - and maybe even some state wildlife biologists in the West — who wish that wolf introduction had never happened. The wolf controversy has to be eating up a lot of USFWS's time that might be better spent on other projects.

In Grangerville, Idaho this spring, a local newspaper headline screamed, "Idaho Fish and Game Responsible For Creating Public Safety Nightmare." Although the Canadian Gray Wolf was never a natural part of the Idaho wildlife mix, according to Idahoans, USFWS, with the help of Idaho Fish and Game, introduced the Gray Wolf anyway as an experimental program. Mike Popp, a spokesman for a committee called Wolf Free Idaho, contends that the Idaho wolf introduction was intended to be a well-controlled and restrained experiment that has gotten way out of hand. He says that the U.S. Congress violated its own laws and procedures in the way it handled the Gray Wolf introduction in Idaho.

The Gray Wolf in Idaho is known to be carrying a complex new parasite that is said to be potentially disastrous, not only to domestic animals, but humans as well. The Idaho state legislature, this spring, enacted emergency legislation ordering Idaho Fish and Game to address the problem.

Dr. Delane Kritsky, a respected parasitologist at Idaho State University, says that "the only way this parasite can be eliminated in our area is the elimination of the wolf."

As you can see, the simplistic, romantic notion of introducing wolves into a state where they do not now exist is fraught with hidden perils, of the social, legal and medical kind. There are historical accounts of what was thought to be Gray Wolves wolves in Maine long ago. But apparently there were no coyotes here back then either. All of this is further complicated by the fact that our contemporary coyotes are becoming larger and increasingly wolf like in their physiology.

Looking at the problem-plagued history of the wolf introduction program in the West, Maine might do well to put wolf introduction in the same category of Roxanne's Quimby's dream. We need federal wolves here like we need a federalized National Forest.

Matt Dunlap, the interim director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, this spring testified about wolf recovery in front of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Among other points he made was this:
"We believe the taxonomic information utilized by the Service as the factual and scientific basis to support the proposed rule is not simply logically flawed; it constitutes paleobiological fiction — a complete invention — to justify a sweeping prioritization to policy dominance of wolf recovery in the United States."

Those are commendable words, and not minced. Dunlap made another excellent point, referring to the Endangered Species Act, which started this whole wolf restoration quest: "Protection and restoration, which is the ultimate goal of the Act, should also take into context public tolerance and expectations.
Restoring the Great Plains to suitable habitat for wolves is beyond social capacity in the 21st Century, as is restoring the boreal forest ecology— including a full restoration of the type of wildlife populations that were abundant here in the period preceding forest, farm and urban development."

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program "Maine Outdoors" heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM-FM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is paul@sportingjournal.com and his new book is "A Maine Deer Hunter's Logbook."

No comments: