Idaho’s Lolo Wildlife Management Zones Devoid Of Elk
February 27, 2010
Yesterday I received a copy of the recent aerial elk counts for the Lolo Wildlife Management Zones 10 and 12 in Idaho. Zone 10 counted 1,473 elk, while Zone 12 tallied 705. So how does this compare with previous years when aerial counts were done?
Zone 10:
1989 – 11,507
1992 – 7,745
1994 – 9,729
1998 – 5,079
2003 – 2,643
2006 – 3,452
2010 – 1,473
Zone 12:
1989 – 3,763
1992 – 3,452
1994 – 3,315
1995 – 3,832
1997 – 2,667
2002 – 2,048
2006 – 1,658
2010 – 705
Wolves were reintroduced in 1995. Any idiot can see there is an elk management problem……more like a wolf management problem.
What we hear perpetually from the wolf advocates and environmentalist is how the elk counts in Idaho show the number of elk growing or holding steady. What they refuse to tell you is that in those areas where the wolves are flourishing, we see numbers just as are shown above. When the wolves have eaten everything in sight in the Lolo Zone, they will move on to find more prey and destroy it as well. Only until they have completed that task will we see the “natural” management kick in where wolves will starve to death and/or die of disease and cannibalism.
Allowing wolves to grow in these numbers such that they virtually wipe out elk herds is not good wildlife management and contrary to what we all hear this is not the kind of Utopian “natural” wildlife management any of us should aspire for. It’s irresponsible.
Let’s cut the wolf numbers back in order to allow the elk to sustain and grow again.
Tom Remington
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Does this “idiot” believe wolves are a contributing factor in the decline of the lolo elk herd?, of course. However,I did a little research and came up with the following. There has not been a major fire in the Lolo since 1934, it is a climax forest and the trees are crowding out the clearings. Elk need clearings to forage and calve. The Lolo elk herd peaked around 1980 and was in decline by 1990. Wolves entered the picture in 1995, in 1997 there was a severe winter. So it is my opinion that a combination of events that caused the decline of the Lolo elk herd and eliminating all of the wolves would not bring that herd back to it`s glory days.Wolf control is nothing more than a band-aid approach to a bigger problem.
The Sawtooth Zone elk herds are in the same shape as the Lolo elk herds. I agree that other circumstances apply, snow pack, harsh winters, even some areas over hunted. Seems dumping wolves into the mix was not to smart.
If lack of habitat is the reason for declining elk existance, why not do a little logging instead of waiting for mother earth to fire kill the forest so that it cant be used by anything for years? Because the greedy bad man has no right to use what God has provided? I think wolves are the reason for no logging too. Its all tied together one step at a time to eliminate hunting.
Hey frank, havent you studied the environmental mental genious how wolves force elk out of clearings so that aspen can grow and bugs and birds and beavers make the ecosystem whole ? What is it lack of habitat or lack of common sense?
Jay-m makes a valid point I am sure everyone concerned about the wildlife in the Lolo would welcome logging as a tool to improve habitat. The present economy does not lend itself to a lot of logging and I am not sure of the quality of the timber in that area. It is pretty thick up there and rugged, which is the main reason they have only harvested 11 wolves there so far. If you remember your history Lewis and Clark had a heck of a time getting through there and had to kill a colt for food so they would not starve.
As far as the clearings I am not a botanist so I do not know if an aspen grove could survive in a climax conifer forest. Usually the conifers crowd out the aspens. Maybe what J.m is refering to is riparian areas where elk used to spend more time there and browsed down the stream side vegetation. Now with pressure from wolves they are supposed to spend more time in heavier cover. The theory is that the willows etc. grow thicker,improving water quality , enhancing. trout habitat attracting beavers and providing more nest cover for birds . We do not have wolves where I live so I have not seen it first hand except in Yellowstone
The Yellowstone Theory does not apply to Idaho, Idaho has not been to ungulate carrying capacity in our life times. That theory was and excuse to try out this ongoing wolf experiment and as far as I am concerned and several contacts living near Yellowstone are concerned, it’s bullshit. The theory claims 20,000 elk were destroying the habitat of 2 million acres, 4-6 months of the season they were on it. We all inhabit the plains, and we have landlocked elk into mountain ranges, and they winter at the lower elevations of those ranges, before we took the plains, those elk migrated to those plains to winter. Putting the wolf back into the mix the way it is today requires strict management of wolf numbers, or there will be no balance, and crashes of ungulates and predators will occur, this scenario is fine for the wolf freaks, it is not what we agreed to do, and it is not fine with hunters who have a couple brain cells between their ears, unlike the evolutionary believing quacks who think we can just get out of the way and let this rewilding THEORY occur and live among it.. These elk even though managed, like herds of cattle in these closed in ranges, are still wild, and are still a valuable resource. That resource is being destroyed by wolves and the humans who have made this dog their god. Ultimately they will cause the destruction of the wolf, I call it loving them to death.
I do live where wolves have been forced upon us. People that live the wilderness experience on the disney chanel think that dogs are people too. They give the dogs names like buffy or limpy. They watch the predator at work and think wow look how fast they kill those animals. The disney chanel doesnt show how wolves will eat its prey alive, while screaming in agony a slow gut wrenching death. They dont show how in deep snow wolves chase and kill more than they need so ravens and magpies can feast. Where I live logging opened the forest allowing vegetation to grow, the ungulates thrived on the bounty and man prospered and used the forest to build his homes. Now logging is basically non existant on federal land. The thick renewable forests are dieing because bugs are killing the trees, fire is inevitable rendering it useless. Where I live its not the elk that are getting hit as hard as the dwindling deer. Tho there is plenty of vegetation there are few deer to eat it. This isnt theorie I see it because I live here. New York coffee shop environmentalists are dictating what happens here in the west. They sit and stroke each others egos and fabricate ideas that “sound” good. Where are you from frank?
Priest Maughan tells the New Yorkers and any body else who will listen to his lies before wolves were ” reintroduced ” out here, elk were tame and just stood around like content domestic cattle and us hunters were spoiled because we never really had to hunt elk before. That would be funny if the lie did not piss me off to no end. I’ve lived right next to Idaho’s Wilderness areas my entire life and I have never seen elk act tame and or content to just stand around and get shot. I knew a lot of hunters in the 70s-80s-90s who flat out could not find elk to harvest, or if they did find elk, they failed consistently to finalize the kill.. Tame contented elk my ass. That’s why the Priest censors his blog site, he hates it when his bullshit lies get challenged, and he needs all those donors from out of state to keep sending him cash.
In north Idaho the wolves are actually keeping the elk down in the thick draws and drainages, which in turn is knocking the hell out of the willows and dogwoods, ferns etc. If the elk go to the tops of the ridges to often they end up being lunch meat. This winter while hunting the dogs, we were finding the moose and elk in brush so thick you couldn’t crawl through it let alone walk. The more time the elk and moose spend in these places because of the wolves the more willows etc. they tear up and knock down. Maybe it’s not all working according to their plans, but what the hell would I know I only live here.
Frank
Aspen do not survive in climax forests.
Google Earth and look at the checkerboard logging in the Lolo area which took place on Plum Creek Company lands (part of the railroad land grant gifts of the late1800s). The public, while driving through the area and observing their forest lands being denuded in such a fashion, complained so the forest service put up signs saying that is private logging – not on USFS lands.
Most of the unlogged areas not currently in wilderness areas of the west are remote; the cost of building roads is greater than the value of the timber – timber sales are money loosers paid for by the taxpayers. Logging rarely improves habitat.
I have a friend that is a retired fisheries person from the Idaho F&G. According to him the primary reason for the decrease in salmon in central Idaho was the silting caused by the logging of steep granitic mountains in the Boise National Forest during the 1960-70s; the Snake River dams didn’t help either. The salmon-steelhead fisheries and wintering grounds of ungulates were adversely affected by the Dworshak dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River, Idaho.
Jay-M
I was raised in Idaho and have lots of relates and friends there, many of whom wanted wolves back in the ecosystem.
I dont have a problem with wolves in general Lee, they likely serve some purpose. But they dont have to exist in numbers that require that I forfeit my right to hunt so that they can eat and fead all other scavengers of the forest.
You’re full of it again. lee
Jay-M
I have a problem with the word purpose. The word function I understand.
Purpose to me implies a higher entity which I do not endorse. No animal in my opinion has a purpose. They exist. Again, you do not like their competition with your right to sport hunting.
From whence did this right to hunt come?
ar
You are obtuse or is it acute?Have your ever read Flatland by a Square (Abbot)?
” you do not like their competition with your right to sport hunting.”
Bullshit. I call it resource hunting. A resource man managed to repair and build up after the abuses of non managed hunting by man in the latter 19th Century, and early 20th Century. The wolf has a purpose or God our Creator would not have made the wolf, the wolf will not function with out strict management of the wolves numbers when living amongst man, as is the case in rural Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. These pretend wilderness areas are surrounded by roads, towns, homes, and people.
The anti humanist elites are users, and they are using the wolf as a tool to destroy our resources, and our right to hunt and fish to provide a food source for ourselves. It’s called being Independent. Saying hunters are in competition with predators is redundant, that’s like saying you are in competition with other shoppers at your Safeway Grocery Store you frequent. The hunting community has done more for predators than any other group in our history.
The environmentalist faker conservationists groups have done more harm to wild game, watersheds, our Declaration of Independence and our economy than any other group of American traitors in our history.. You should be very proud, Comrade Barbara Lee Rupers.
Would you prefer bad-mouthing, name calling or just plain being called a liar right to your face? I have been nice to you thus far; even tho everything you offer is untrue, unrelated or it makes no sense, whatsoever. If this is too dull i could pick it up a bit and bantor your ass all the day long. But, i desire, instead, that you give an ounce of trust to god- fearing men but that will not happen as uyou seem to believe in nothing. God started this thing called earth for you and me; Get over it.
I learned a long time ago not to throw pearls to swine. I tossed pearls in your direction over and over again. Oft times not, just to give you some time to think on the things you write about on this blog and how absurd they are. Others have done likewise – to no avail.
And, while i’m being obtuse, your subject matter switches off-topic and la la la la la. What are you doing here on this blog if not looking for truth. It is here and I’m glad you are here. However, I prefer Not to engage your stupid shit. Now that I’ve lowered myself into your wagon-wheel rut, I feel like shit. Does that make you feel better?
But, as is always the case, this will morf into something else by your comments; it sucks you won’t have anything to do with truth and you claim it yourself all the day long in error. No one likes to be called to the carpet, lee.
Everytime you make untruths, exspect to get run over with truth. Bring truth with you when you come here, please.
Well Lee if you dont believe in a creator and chose to believe you are evolved one step above a monkey, even you might agree that allowing dogs to run the eco-system will mean that you eventually will compete with it. I on the other hand too exist with your precious wolf idol. Whether God given brain or random evolutionary reason wolves need control.
I think the one thing I’ve learned from this blog… ok there’s been more than one but the one thing that’s relevant to this is that hunters don’t want the wolf to go away completely. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe their concern is wolves, being reintroduced into an area that had elk numbers slightly declining to begin with. Now with the wolves spreading in an unchecked fashion, it’s adding to the downslide in numbers. It’s not a hatred for wolves. It’s a hatred for those trying to cram things down their throats without so much as a by your leave to look at evidence they see sitting in front of them every day!
Here’s a question for Greg because I’m sure he knows the answer. When it was first introduced, what was the definition of the word ‘endangered’ and what was the criteria for getting an animal or species onto the list… and getting off that list? Isn’t there like several levels. It’s endangered, it’s threatened and so on and so forth? Not meaning to imply anyone else out there won’t know the answer but I know Greg’s pretty sharp about these things and frankly at the moment, My head’s so stuffed it hurts to think of trying to hunt down that knowledge at the moment. I just remember, not too long ago, couple of years maybe that bald eagles were endangered and they they were moved off the list and it got me thinking is all.
And Lee, when you speak of not believing in a higher power, you and I must part any resemblance of a way were may have been traveling together. I give you the respect to believe in what you want to believe in. Or not believe in. I hope you do the same for the rest of the people here.
Harley, even if you have an “open season” the wolves would still overpopulate an area….they are too cunning, and capable to get shot except on hap-hazard occasions when they are seen…and they are usually going to hunt in the dark when they are considered to be a hunted specie.
The last generation to “contend” with the wolf knew that, and knew they would overpopulate an area…that’s why they carried on an “extermination” program, so they knew they wouldn’t have to come back and do it all over again. I truly doubt that wolves can exist except on protected regions, like the Yellowstone, without totally depleting the deer and elk populations, and any other game as well as livestock…..Not that I don’t appreciate hearing them, or seeing them on an occasion, but unless they are seriously limited by hunting and trapping and aerial shooting, they will soon decimate all the game that hunters have worked so hard to restore. You might compare them to grizzly bears, in the sense of the damage they can cause, and that you don’t want them in your back forty, unless you want to live in a wildlife preserve…(of course, these days, people stay at home, and look out their windows and at the TV and internet, and don’t venture far into the outdoors, unless they’re hunters) That’s why hunters are more involved in this story…..and it’s not because we’re scared, it’s because they want us disarmed and impotent….
” what was the definition of the word ‘endangered’ and what was the criteria for getting an animal or species onto the list… and getting off that list? Isn’t there like several levels. It’s endangered its threatened”..
These clowns have twisted this definition so many ways and so many times it is just retarded now.
” As stated in section 2 of the act, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.”
Obviously wolves did not fall into that definition..
Imminent danger of extinction, a species in danger of going extinct, 107,000 wolves on the planet does not qualify the wolf of being endangered.
It is being misused and abused.. There is a mountain of documentation to dig through, it is like most things in governmental history, starts out good and right, good faith and good intentions are in the beginning of it, and then it gets hi jacked by thugs.. They use it to steal peoples lands, rights, etc. etc.
Right now they are using it to kill hunting rights..
wolf reintroduction plan
http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/NorthernRockyMountainWolfRecoveryPlan.pdf
If the above 1984 human made documents are of any validity then so are the 1974 Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History document on the 24 sub species of wolves which is proof the wolf reintroduced into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming are direct violations of the original endangered species act.. They installed the wrong species of wolf..
The professionally sanctioned taxonomy of mammals is published by the American Society of Mammalogists and follows taxonomy in Mammal Species of the World used by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The gray wolf taxonomy currently recognized by the American Society of Mammalogists continues to be based on Mech (1974), which identified 32 taxonomic subspecies of gray wolf worldwide, including 24 subspecies in North America. The scientific community has yet to formally endorse and accept a revised gray wolf taxonomy. The current taxonomy identifies C. l. irremotus as the wolf subspecies that historically occupied the Northern Rocky Mountain area. The range of C. l. irremotus abutted the ranges of C. l. occidentalis and C. l. columbianus some distance north of the Canadian border, and it abutted the range of C. l. nubilus on the east. Under a strict interpretation of the current taxonomy, wolves that were introduced to YNP and central Idaho were from founder populations of C. l. occidentalis and C. l. columbianus. In the 1978, rangewide listing of the gray wolf, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated, “The Service, however, can offer the firmest assurance that it will continue to recognize valid biological subspecies for purposes of research and conservation programs.” The ESA [Sec. 3.(3)] defines “Conservation” as meaning, “… to use and the use of all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this Act are no longer necessary” (i.e., the species can be delisted). Additionally, National Park Service policy states, “The NPS will manage the natural resources of the national park system to maintain, rehabilitate, and perpetuate their inherent integrity. The NPS will strive to restore native species to parks whenever all the following criteria can be met: (1) Adequate habitat exists and a natural population can be self-perpetuating, (2) The species does not pose a serious threat to safety of park visitors, park resources, or persons or property outside park boundaries, (3) the species used in restoration most nearly approximates the extirpated subspecies or race, and (4) The species disappeared, or was substantially diminished, as a direct or indirect result of human-induced change to the species or the ecosystem” (USFWS 1994:Chapt. I, p 4). ( This is only the first paragraph ^^^^)
Here is another document these frauds like to ignore
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/animals/mammal/calu/all.html
The following is a list of criteria that must be met in order to list a species. Be it noted that the same criteria must be fulfilled before a species listed can be removed.
SEC. 4. ø16 U.S.C. 1533¿ (a) GENERAL.—(1) The Secretary shall
by regulation promulgated in accordance with subsection (b) determine
whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened
species because of any of the following factors:
(A) the present or threatened destruction, modification, or
curtailment of its habitat or range;
(B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific,
or educational purposes;
(C) disease or predation;
(D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or
(E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued
existence.
More here: http://epw.senate.gov/esa73.pdf
Subduction zones on Earth have certainly been deadly and very destructive for people in the past couple of months. Have you looked at the destruction in Dechato, Chile – not directly by the earthquake but by the tsunami that followed?
Sorry, I spelled it wrong: Dichato, Chile. A fishing and tourist village with a beautiful sandy beach.
Tom,
Thanks for listing the criteria – this type of information and sources are not easy to find.
having just read the article i have to agree with the facts he puts out there . my son and i hunted the lolo zone 10 and 12 the last two years . it has been shocking the difference just from one year to the next . in the ten days we hunted ,walking game trail and old logging roads we covered nearly 60 miles glassing far rigdes and peaks only saw two live elk in the distance but came across so many carcasses we lost count . one thing to remember the wolf that was reintroduced is the canada grey wolf (120 lbs) not the timber wolf (65 lbs) a pack of grey wolves can take down a 1200 lbs moose what chance does a 500 lbs bull elk have or 350 lbs cow , calves have no chance . as what normally happened in the past is happening again man thinks he is smarter than nature sticks his hand in and everthing gets out of balance . won’t be going back to idaho in the future .