S. Dakota, Colorado File “Firearms Freedom Act” Bills

The movement continues nationwide as state after state gets on the bandwagon seeking 10th Amendment separation of state and federal government. Seemingly fed up with the strong arms and broadening Federal Government controls, states are hoping a law, the same or similar to Montana’s Firearms Freedom Act, will set the ball rolling to regain some of the states’ sovereignty.

For those not familiar, the nation’s first Firearms Freedom Act, appeared in Montana, sponsored by the Montana Shooting Sports Association. The Act essentially declares that any guns or gun parts manufactured in Montana and remain in Montana, cannot be regulated by the Federal Government. Montana passed that Act and it was signed by Gov. Schweitzer. The state is seeking declaratory judgment from the courts.

South Dakota and Colorado are the two latest states to file bills that are clones or near replicas of Montana’s bill. State Senator Larry Rhoden has introduced the South Dakota Firearms Freedom Act as SB 89. In Colorado, Senator Dave Schultheis has just introduced the Colorado Firearms Freedom Act as SB 10-092.

This now makes Firearms Freedom Acts passed in Montana and Tennessee, and introduced in these 21 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.

It’s likely that FFAs will be introduced soon in West Virginia, New Mexico, Idaho, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina and possibly elsewhere.

Tom Remington

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Migrating Elk

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Elk Rutting In Downtown Estes Park, Colorado

Also take notice of the number of people who are clueless about how dangerous elk can be during a rut.

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Blissful Ignorance Is Dangerous To Your Health

It wasn’t until I was able to see other parts of the world and be a part of the lives of people from “strange” countries that I came to a belated realization that Americans are quite ignorant of what goes on in these “strange” lands. It’s not so much that we’re not smart, it’s more that we are spoiled brats who see little need of knowing what others do. In some cases we probably just don’t care. I think we may have a bit of a chip on our shoulders. What do you think?

I was first embarrassed when I sat down and talked with a 12-year old boy from Japan. It was when he began asking me questions about the United States’ influence around the world and rattled off a list of remote islands scattered across the globe that the U.S. owned or once owned, the years in which purchases and sales were made, etc., that I could see I knew nothing. Why would this kid know this stuff?

I don’t think I’m the only American so lacking in knowledge.

Does this same blissful ignorance carry over into many other things we do?

About a month ago, I sought and was granted permission to republish an article that appeared in The Bugle, a publication of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The article, “Wolves: When Ignorance is Bliss” by Dr. Valerius Geist, helped us to better understand that we don’t understand. We are ignorant in our knowledge and understanding of wolf behavior and we are in desperate need to expand that knowledge base.

The opening sentence of Geist’s article says a mouthful – “Nothing convinces like personal experience.” How very true but also how very dangerous and scientifically unfortunate if we have to wait for personal experience in order to discover or be willing to discover the truth about things. This is where Americans seemingly lack for want to discover how the rest of the world comes into play.

Our personal experiences with wolves in modern America are basically non existent. We have some history in Alaska and Canada but we cling heavily to the notion that wolves have little interest in man. Even when facts show wolves have attacked humans in North America, many simply are not willing to admit it.

Our own history tells us that as settlers went West, they were blamed for many things, including the near extirpation of the wolf. This seemed to be the focus on our history with wolves, not so much about wolf behavior.

It wasn’t until just recently, through the English interpretation of foreign country documents about wolves, that we have been presented an opportunity to dig into world wide accounts of wolf behavior. For those who don’t know, Will Graves wrote a book, “Wolves in Russia: Anxiety Through the Ages“, in which he documents for us the centuries of how the people and government of Russia dealt with wolves. The human encounters by wolves and the circumstances surrounding those encounters is eye opening and reveals many things we Americans need to learn if we are going to live with wolves in our back yards.

So, why are we insistent in turning a blind eye to facts? I wish I had the answer, or at least a simple one. Some of it seems to be that for some to admit that under the right circumstances wolves will attack people, it will shatter the sought after Disneyesque dream scape of cuddling up with a wolf. Those refusing to gain a better understanding of wolf behavior based on “personal experience” that Dr. Geist speaks of, may in fact become a victim of blissful ignorance. That would be unfortunate and unnecessary.

Bringing to light historic facts of global wolf documentation and human encounters should be received with open arms. Why then do we end every wolf story in the media with a statement that wolves rarely attack people, blah, blah, blah? This only serves to plant the thought in readers’ minds that there is nothing to be concerned with.

One of the problems I encounter is that whenever I try to present facts that run contrary to the wolf lovers’ talking points, I’m immediately labeled as one who wishes all wolves be killed. Because I desire that Americans, whether living in Central Idaho or next to Central Park, become educated with the truth, why am I a nutjob, wolf killer?

The Bugle recently received a letter from a reader who responded to Dr. Geist’s article on wolves. The writer was a former Army Captain stationed in Iran back in the mid 1960s. He was interested in sharing his “personal experience” with wolves in Iran.

We lost five men from one of the outlying local villages during the winter I spent in the province of Azerbaijan, Iran to wolves. I doubt the local papers fed the story to any international news services. There is no doubt of the truth of the story, but the men were local villagers and would not have been considered of importance to anyone but their families.

There were special circumstances that contributed to their deaths, but there may be special circumstance surrounding our future experiences.

The Army Captain went on to explain some of the circumstances that he felt led up to the attack on the five men. Those circumstances were a severe winter that drove the wolves’ prey base down to the low lands where the people lived. A second circumstance was the men were walking at night in a remote area and a third is that under Iranian law, these men were not allowed to own a weapon. All they could carry was a stick for prodding and a small tomahawk.

There were several other incidences that year according to the Army Captain.

It would be quite unfortunate that we Americans would have to first suffer “personal experience[s]” before we are willing to begin discussing that under the right circumstances wolves will attack humans. What is the harm of that? Let’s get the facts, all of them, out into the open so we can have rational debate. What are the circumstances that people need to learn that will increase their chances of an unfortunate encounter with a wolf, or a bear, or a mountain lion, etc.? It is irresponsible to turn a blind eye to facts from other corners of the globe as though somehow it can’t happen here.

Tom Remington

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Donna Munson Fed Wildlife……Literally!

“This is True” covers more on the Donna Munson story, the 74-year old woman who routinely fed bears and other wildlife, and met her demise recently by getting eaten by one of the bears she fed.

Tom Remington

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Colorado Woman Eaten By Bear

Officials in Ouray, Colorado are thinking a bear is the cause of a 73-year old woman’s death because a bear was found over her body eating it. The same officials point the finger at the woman, faulting her with her own death because she continually fed bears, the report says.

An autopsy will be performed on the unidentified woman and a necropsy on the bear in efforts to determine if the bear found eating on the woman was the same bear that might have killed her.

In the meantime, reports are coming out about increased human/bear encounters in Ouray County, Colorado, the same area where this woman was apparently the target of a hungry bear(s).

Officials point a finger at a lack of natural food and people not taking care of their personal garbage as the two major reasons encounters are on the rise. While there’s little that can be done about the lack of natural food, brought on by natural climate conditions, it appears officials are bent on focusing on only one very small aspect of bear management – increasing fines to those who refuse to take care of their trash. They actually think this is the remedy.

Granted, if you don’t want bears rummaging through your garbage and posing a potential risk to you and your family, then people should do what they can to minimize the problem. On the same token, not once in the two articles I have referenced in this piece, did any wildlife official or anyone else mention the idea of population control of bears.

Why is it that all the blame is put on resident’s lack of effort to reduce bear encounters and none on the fish and game department and other wildlife officials, to better manage bears? When you decide to buy a home, camp or cabin in bear country, you assume a certain amount of responsibility to learn to deal with bears and other creatures. But on the same token, you would expect fish and game to take responsibility, other than levying stiffer fines, to control bear numbers. Since the beginning of time, we have had to deal with seasons when there is a shortage of natural food.

So, are we to assume now that buying a home in Vail, Colorado is living in bear country and if a bear gets hungry enough and opts to munch on one of the family members, we need stiffer fines for that same family? Will a $10,000 fine deter a hungry bear?

And here’s another question I’ve been chewing on for awhile. If officials keep raising fines on people who won’t take care of their garbage, who won’t stop leaving food out on their dining room tables, who refuse to stop baking cakes and pies, who go outside and garden, who mow their lawns, who entertain guests on their back yard patios, who allow their children to play in the yard, and suppose in theory every ounce of man’s property was “bear proof”, then what? None of this will stop bears from getting hungry. None of this will create natural food when Mother Nature dictates the bounty. None of this will control the populations of bears.

In theory, once the state creates their perfect little restricted world, complete with multi-thousand dollar fines and there are still bear/human encounters, are we then to expect humans will be expected to stay inside 24/7 and lock their doors, bar their windows and live in fear?

Tom Remington

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Wolf Hunt In Idaho Regardless Of Fed Decision On Delisting? Not Profound

A report last week in the Idaho Mountain Express said that Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner, Randy Budge, declared that there would be a wolf hunt in Idaho this Fall whether it’s legal or not.

“It will either be a state-authorized one or it will be an illegal one,” he said.

Budge was speaking before a conference of Western Attorneys General in Sun Valley when he made his claim that if the courts ruled to put the wolf back under protection of the Endangered Species Act, enough sportsmen are fed up that they will take matters into their own hands and begin shooting wolves in order to save the elk, deer and moose.

That statement really is not very profound. What it doesn’t do or what this report fails to tell readers is the extent to which such an “illegal” wolf hunt would take place.

One doesn’t have to be in law enforcement to know that a certain amount of “shoot, shovel and shut up” is already taking place. I reported some time ago that the longer the unreasonable environmentalists continue their bratty ways of throwing all their deceptively garnered funds at the courts to “save the wolf”, the chances increase dramatically that their effort will backfire in their face.

People are fed up, not only that they are beginning to see the wolf advocates are unreasonable but people are now seeing first hand the destruction of the wolf – a destruction they were promised would not happen.

What is also happening is that millions of dollars being wasted in efforts over many decades to restore elk populations in these same regions. Idaho’s elk hunting is now becoming so poor, license sales have dropped and out-of-state elk hunters are opting for other locals, like Colorado. This is fish and game revenue no state can operate successfully without.

Mule deer hunting success in some areas of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming has dropped off so significantly many sportsmen are no longer willing to spend their money to buy a license. One report has that success rate as low as 16% – absolutely unacceptable.

Anyone who is completely honest, as was the case with Commissioner Budge, will say that the matter of wolves will be taken into the hands of some and unfortunately wolves will be killed in an unmanaged way. The idea of a managed wolf hunt is to take out wolves where too many exist.

The Idaho Mountain Express report asked if making such a claim as Budge did would “play into the hands of conservationists”, yet failed to ask the same question in regards to how the ridiculous stance of the wolf lovers is going to affect their efforts.

It should be pointed out that I know of no legitimate sportsman’s organization that is advocating for an illegal wolf hunt should the courts reverse the current standing of state-managed wolves. Frustration levels are acutely on the rise simply because this entire effort has exceeded the bounds of rational thinking. The courts’ rulings, not based on science, have brought this entire effort to a pinnacle. The only question will be to what extent wolves will be illegally killed, if again the environmental extremists have their way with the courts?

Tom Remington

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New Revelations about Reintroduced Wolves

Republished with permission by George Dovel, author.

In the early 1980s the 197-page unpublished research report, “Wolves of Central Idaho,” surfaced. In it, co-authors Timm Kaminski and Jerome Hansen estimated that elk and deer populations in six of the nine national forests in the proposed Central Idaho Wolf Recovery Area could support a total of 219 wolves without decreasing existing deer and elk populations in those forests.

They based this on an estimated 16.6 deer or elk killed by each wolf annually, and on estimated increases in elk and/or deer populations from 1981-1985 in the two-thirds of forests where they had increased.

But even if their estimated prey numbers and calculations were accurate, their report said only 17 wolves could be maintained in the Salmon National Forest, five in the Challis NF, and none in the Panhandle, Sawtooth and Bitterroot Forests. Yet the obvious question of what to do when the number of wolves in any National Forest or game management unit exceeded the ability of the prey base to support them was not adequately addressed.

Relocating “Problem” Wolves in Idaho Wilderness

Although there were increased reports of sightings of single wolves or pairs in Idaho during the late 1970s and early 80s and credible reports of at least two wolf packs with pups, no confirmed wolf depredation on livestock had been recorded for nearly half a century. Realizing that livestock killing would occur as wolf numbers increased, Kaminski and Hansen recommended relocating livestock-killing wolves into the central Idaho wilderness areas.

That was written more than 25 years ago yet the recommendation was still followed by FWS and the Nez Perce Tribal wolf managers even after wilderness elk populations had been decimated by severe winters, excessive hunter harvest and excessive wolf populations.

In September of 2001, Idaho F&G Commissioner Alex Irby complained that FWS relocated two breeding pairs of “problem” wolves from Montana to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness despite the fact that the number of elk hunters there had “been capped for several years due to declining herds.” But Tribal Wolf Recovery Leader Kurt Mack responded that these and other livestock-killing wolves probably wouldn’t remain in the wilderness very long and were released there “to keep them out of trouble temporarily until they relocated someplace else.”

Wolf Impact on Big Game Populations Ignored

Tribal, FWS and State biologists all ignored wolf expert David Mech’s warning that relocating wolves that killed livestock did not stop their killing livestock. Transplanting even more wolves into areas like the Selway and Lolo Zones, with inadequate elk calf survival to support any wolves, guaranteed an accelerated decline in the elk population and the exploitation of alternate prey.

At a Predator-Prey Symposium in Boise, Idaho on Jan. 8, 1999, the featured speaker – North America’s top wild ungulate authority Dr. Valerius Geist – spent two hours explaining to federal, state and university wildlife biologists why wolf populations must be carefully controlled to maintain a healthy population of their prey species. Idaho biologists and members of the Idaho Wolf Oversight Committee appeared to listen carefully – but later invented excuses not to follow his expert advice.

“New” Wolf Plan Prohibited Hunting Wolves

In the 2002 Legislative session, Idaho Senate Resources Committee Chairman Laird Noh introduced legislation to approve his Wolf Oversight Committee’s seventeenth version of a proposed Idaho Wolf Plan. Previous similar versions had been rejected by both Idaho legislators and several former Wolf Committee members but alarming increases in wolf numbers convinced some groups that a state wolf plan that offered no solution was better than no plan at all.

The Wolf Plan promoted by Sen. Noh would not have allowed wolf hunting until five years after delisting occurred and Idaho assumed management. It included the statement, “The plan must satisfy the USFWS, wolf advocacy groups…and a diverse public,” and gave IDFG full authority to update the plan solely at its discretion without Legislative oversight or accountability.

Two reviewers of the Plan, each with several decades of wolf research experience (Mech and Boertje) both predicted that Idaho wolves would multiply far beyond the alleged management goal of 10-20 packs before delisting. Boertje added that conflicts with too many wolves was probably the greatest threat to the responsible future conservation of wolves in Idaho and said pre-wolf prey data was vital to estimate wolf impact on elk and deer.

Major Wolf Plan Flaws Corrected in Senate

Despite the pressure to pass the Plan that was written explicitly to please USFWS and pro-wolf extremists, a motion to amend it succeeded. Senators Bartlett (Judy Boyle), Brandt and Hawkins re-wrote parts of the Plan to shift the emphasis to protecting Idaho big game herds, livestock, property rights, and the physical and economic well-being of Idaho citizens as spelled out in the Idaho Constitution.

The Plan, which became official on March 15, 2002, directed the Idaho F&G Commission, with assistance from the Governors Office of Species Conservation (OSC), to: “begin immediate discussions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to define unacceptable levels of effect on ungulate populations by wolf predation; specifically, they will define how these effects would be measured, and will identify possible solutions.”

Even before amendment, the Plan directed the Idaho Fish and Game Department (IDFG) to conduct annual census of selected important prey populations to include at least total population estimates and age-sex ratios, along with the annual census of wolf populations. As Alaska wolf researcher Rod Boertje emphasized in his review of the Plan, comparison of that prey data with data from pre-wolf introduction was of paramount importance in estimating the impact of wolves on prey.

Increased funding was approved by the Idaho Legislature for annual deer and elk census flights yet they were not conducted every year. Instead, IDFG biologists continued an unsuccessful effort to prove that declining habitat – not wolf predation – was the primary reason for both declining elk numbers and unhealthy calf-to-cow ratios in a growing number of elk units.

Idaho Is Allowed to Kill Wolves Impacting Elk

In 2005 the Department of Interior announced that all of the criteria for delisting wolves had been met in December of 2002. On February 7, 2005 FWS promulgated a new version of the 10J (Nonessential Experimental) Rule which allowed states with approved wolf plans to take over management of wolves under the new provisions until wolves were delisted.

On January 5, 2006, four years after the Idaho Wolf Plan was adopted, Interior Secretary Gail Norton and Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) giving Idaho broad powers to manage wolves including the following:

“The State will begin to implement its federally approved Idaho Wolf Conservation and Management Plan of 2002 to the extent possible as permitted by the 10(j) rule.

B. The State shall:

6. Implement lethal control or translocation of wolves to reduce impacts on wild ungulates in accordance with the process outlined in the amended 10(j) rule.”

Before the Wolf Plan was adopted in 2002, the Idaho F&G Commission had already significantly cut the number of elk hunters allowed to hunt in the Lolo Zone, the Selway Zone and the Middle Fork Zone by placing caps on the number of tags that could be sold in those three elk zones. Total elk numbers and the percentage of surviving calves were severely declining in the Lolo Zone by the end of 1997 and the Commission capped the number of B-Tag (rifle) hunters for the 1998 elk hunting season at less than one-third the previous seven year average.

Sales of both “A” and “B” Elk Tags were capped beginning in 2000 and 2001 in the other two Zones for the same reason. That is why the 2002 amended Wolf Plan required the F&G Commission, with help from the OSC, to immediately obtain any requirements from FWS to reduce the impact of excessive wolf numbers on elk.

Later IDFG Big Game Manager Lonn Kuck told the Commission and the media that a specific decline in an elk herd over a five-year period was the IDFG criteria for removing wolves. Although some Idaho big game hunters and their elected officials saw the 2006 Agreement with DOI as the answer to halt declining deer and elk populations, IDFG Large Carnivore Coordinator Steve Nadeau continued to insist IDFG had no evidence that wolves were causing the elk declines.

The following FWS charts of minimum fall (end-of-year) wolf population estimates and minimum breeding pairs by FWS provide facts to refute Nadeau’s claims:

The July 1993 Wolf EIS predicted limited impact on elk from a recovered wolf population in the Central Idaho (CID) Recovery Area (estimating a maximum 10% reduction in cow elk hunter harvest and no reduction in bull harvest). This was based on a recovered wolf population of 10 breeding pairs – about 100 wolves.

It was also based on a post-hunting season CID ungulate population of 241,400, including 76,300 elk and 159,500 deer; and on 100 wolves killing only 495 elk (only one elk killed for every 2.36 deer killed). But, instead, the wolves killed nearly four times as many elk as they did deer and that was only one of the flaws in the prediction.

As the FWS charts clearly show, by 2001 there were already twice as many wolves just in known packs as were supposed to exist in a recovered wolf population. And by 2005 there were at least five times as many wolves as were supposed to exist in a recovered population.

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If 100 wolves would have required a 10% reduction in cow elk harvest as predicted, five times that many wolves – each killing three times as many elk as had been projected – would methodically destroy the elk herds. And 15 times as much wolf killing of elk as had been predicted in the EIS is exactly what happened while IDFG officials continued to claim wolves were having no impact on elk. Read more

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Cute And Cuddly vs. Sometimes Cruel Mother Nature

I came across an article today in the Colorado Springs Gazette online about wolves, wolf puppies, the current plan to remove protection of the wolf from the Endangered Species Act list and efforts to exploit the wolf cubs to stop the delisting.

In the article, the writer visits with a caretaker of a local wolf rehab center. The caretaker described the upcoming decision to delist wolves as creating a “blood bath”. She also said she planned to use two 5 1/2-week old wolf cubs to warm the hearts of people and hope to gain influence to incite people to call Interior Sec. Salazar and tell him to stop the blood bath.

Of course everyone loves a cute cuddly little puppy. Check out this feller preparing himself for bigger things in life.

I got thinking that even though I would be kidding myself if I didn’t think that wolf cub was the cutest darned thing, so is a new born elk calf like this one.

Unfortunately for those interested in seeking the truth, we know that both of these guys grow up……well, not exactly. You see if the little elk guy happens to get born in an area that has too many wolves, his odds of surviving aren’t too good. The chances are real big he’ll get eaten up by one of that cute little wolf cub’s parents.

As a matter of reality, the odds are just as good that the wolf cub’s parents won’t wait long enough for the elk calf to see one day of life in the wild. Wolves like to eat elk calves hot right out of the oven……before they are born.

I don’t want to snatch away anyone’s delight in that wolf cubs are cute and cuddly but so are elk, deer and moose calves. They are the cunningest things. This is real and it is genuine to present the complete picture than only a small part of it.

Tom Remington

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Pregnant Woman Runs From Bear. Bear Gets Killed. Hate Attacks On Woman

You might think this was New Jersey or something the way people carried on so about giving bears more rights than people, but nope, this was Colorado Springs, Colorado. A 6-month pregnant woman out for a walk finds herself being followed by a bear. As fear builds, she ends up running to get away and gets hit by a passing motorist who leaves the scene of the accident.

The woman makes it home safely and notifies police of the incident and within hours the woman is made into a victim by nasty, animal loving fools only concerned on blaming the woman for the unnecessary death of the bear. The bear was subsequently put down.

We live in a perverse society that would fault a woman for doing nothing except escaping danger and doing what she deemed the right thing to do in calling police.

Tom Remington

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Colorado Honor Student Expelled For Having Fake Drill Rifles In Car

The absurdity continues as a high school honor student is expelled from school for showing up at her school with wood and plastic fake rifles, used for drill team, in her car.

Tom Remington

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Does Trophy Hunting Spoil The Gene Pool?

Yesterday I posted a rebuttal to a Newsweek article that supported the theory that trophy hunting was creating “weak and scrawny” game animals. The Newsweek article used information from a study done on big horn sheep on Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada, that made the claim by some involved in that study that in 30 years it was trophy hunting that had caused a reduction in body size and horn length and mass. Since that posting, my mailbox has filled up with information.

Trophy hunting, as used in this post and related articles, can be best described as the effort of hunters to select an animal for harvesting that has large antlers/horns in combination with big body mass. The theory is that this type of harvesting selection is creating weaker and smaller species because hunters are culling out the best of the litters to hang on their walls. This simply is not true.

The study conducted on Ram Mountain is long and varied. Much of this controversy began in 2003 when Nature magazine published an article, “Undesirable Evolutionary Consequences of Trophy Hunting”. This link will take you to Nature.com but you have to pay a fee to obtain the whole article.

As I said before, Newsweek referenced the study on Ram Mountain and one of the junior scientists on the project.

Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada, is home to a population of bighorn sheep, whose most vulnerable individuals are males with thick, curving horns that give them a regal, Princess Leia look. In the course of 30 years of study, biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet of the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec found a roughly 25 percent decline in the size of these horns, and both male and female sheep getting smaller. There’s no mystery on Ram Mountain: male sheep with big horns tend to be larger and produce larger offspring. During the fall rut, or breeding season, these alpha rams mate more than any other males, by winning fights or thwarting other males’ access to their ewes. Their success, however, is contingent upon their surviving the two-month hunting season just before the rut, and in a strange way, they’re competing against their horns. Around the age of 4, their horn size makes them legal game—several years before their reproductive peak. That means smaller-horned males get far more opportunity to mate.

Whether intentional or not, Newsweek didn’t do their homework. Had they, they would have discovered that much controversy followed the Nature article and the Ram Mountain study. It seems that a good chunk of the science community vehemently disagreed with the assessments printed in the Nature piece. Some of those scientists submitted rebuttals to Nature but their work was refused. I have copies of some of the rebuttals.

Dr. Valerius Geist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science, The University of Calgary, Canada, was one of the scientists who disagreed with proclamations of the Ram Mountain Study that trophy hunting was producing “undesirable evolutionary consequences”. Dr. Geist submitted the work I’ve provided below to Nature but was denied. (For the complete text of his work, including cited references, click this link to a pdf file.)

TROPHY MALES AS INDIVIDUALS OF LOW FITNESS (DRAFT)

VALERIUS GEIST, Professor emeritus, Faculty of Environmental Design, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

While wildlife trophies get a lot of attention in modern times in North America and Europe, such infatuation has a long and instructive history. Already in the Upper Paleolithic, cave painters invariably chose to paint large, complex antlers on male deer and long horns in ibex, bison, and wooly rhinos1. The trophy mania hit its high point in medieval central Europe when huge red deer antlers were used as gifts of state, when hunting records of nobility were recorded in exquisite detail and antlers were venerated objects of display in castles built to house trophy collections2. Such castles have survived into modern times, i.e. the castle of Moritzburg close to Dresden, Germany displays red deer of unequaled size3. These have, naturally, raised the question, “How might such antler growth be duplicated?” Moreover, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the vagaries of treatment of wildlife in central Europe led to declines in the trophy quality of antlers which lead to an early “Quality Deer
Management” movement4. This movement reversed the decline within about a quarter century, and generated an intense interest in how to produce huge trophy antlers. We see, currently, in the United States the birth of a similar “Quality Deer Management” movement5,6. Some of the most interesting experimental deer management for trophies was carried out during the Third Reich on the Rominten Heath by Walther Frevert7. There is, consequently, a rich historical background on the biology of “trophy males,” but this is currently poorly known.

The recent study by Coltman et al.8 which demonstrated declines in horn and body size in bighorn rams with hunter selection for large-horned males, confirms the findings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries on European cervids9,10,11. The ongoing removal of males with superior antlers led to a severe shift in sex ratio in favor of females. This imbalance was primarily addressed by the culling males with inferior antlers, while sparing males with good antler growth. Wildlife eugenics, the culling of undesirables, was made popular by Ferdinand von Raesfeld’s “Hege mit der Büchse”12 (husbanding with the rifle) which subsequently was institutionalized in Germany’s 1934 wildlife management legislation13. One thus suspects that, contrary to Coltman et al.’s fears, the declines in horn and body size in bighorn rams are not permanent, but can be reversed by similar means. Even if merely left to themselves, the selection pressures favoring horn size in bighorns14 would return normal horn growth in time. Moreover, the rehabilitation of formerly strip-mined bighorn habitat in Alberta15, as well as the reintroduction of bighorns to former ranges throughout the United States has not merely
increased the wild sheep population of the continent by nearly 50 percent in a quarter century16, but has also resulted in the growth of many rams with record-sized horns17.

In central Europe, management for trophy deer also led to deliberate population reductions, habitat improvements, and the introduction of males with superior antlers from other regions18. The latter, however, was considered a failure19. The interest in improving trophy quality led to research into the nature of body and antler size variations in red deer, with the aim of reproducing antler sizes such has been seen in medieval times 20,21,22,23,24. This illuminated the “biology” of trophy males in clinical detail and led to surprises. One can summarize the findings as follows: Deer varied in body size along a peadomorphhypermorph axis, so that small-bodied deer retained juvenile proportions compared to largebodied deer25,26. Body size was plastic, but slow to shift and it took some five generations for medium-sized deer to reach maximum body size27. This finding, rediscovered three decades later, was labeled the “maternal effect’28,29,30. Continuous access to highly digestible feed rich in protein calcium, and phosphate was a necessary condition for large antler and body size. However, trophy stags were exquisitely sensitive to shortages in food quality31, which indicates that medieval foresters must have been very concerned about the possibilities that their treasured and pampered stags might move off somewhere else. It explains, in part, the brutality with which these foresters treated peasants who disturbed deer. While a high plane of nutrition was a necessary condition for exceptional antler growth, it was not a sufficient condition in itself. Optimal results were achieved by artificially preventing males from rutting33. Males that did not rut had no need to heal the severe rutting wounds suffered by rutting males33, and were thus able to shift their body resources from
repair and re-growth into increased body and antler growth. Moreover, the absence of wounding would lead to the desirable symmetrical antler growth.

However, stags that reached maximum antler development were severely handicapped by their unwieldy antlers in fighting and tended to lose out to normally antlered males. Not infrequently trophy stags locked their complex antlers and died34. Large trophy antlers conveyed no apparent benefit to their bearers, quite the contrary. This suggests that in freeliving populations, male deer with exceptionally large antlers may be non-breeders, and thus individuals of low fitness35. During eight years of field work with habituated mule deer in Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada, I was fortunate to closely observe three bucks with exceptionally large antlers. All three became “shirkers” during the rutting season. They avoided other deer, bucks especially, and thus failed to court and breed females. They merely fed and rested in seclusion. However, one of these bucks had a surprising history. He had been a normal rutting buck up to three years of age. During a fight with an old buck, he was flung upward and landed on his back in some wind-blown aspen trees. He quit rutting that
year and for two more years. By then, he had grown to a very large body and antler size. The next rutting season he reversed and became a fully engaged, breeding master-buck. He continued as such for three rutting seasons. Hence, “shirking” is potentially reversible. Nevertheless, managing populations for trophy size remains highly questionable, as do the stated concerns of Coltman et al.

In addition to Dr. Geist’s rebuttal efforts, Wayne Heimer, Sheep Biologists for Alaska Department of Fish and Game (1971-1997), Director Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, put together his own rebuttal to the Coltman et al study. He enlisted the expertise of other fish and game experts and scientists for their contributions.

The complete text of “Inferred Negative Effect of “Trophy Hunting” in Alberta: The Great Ram Mountain/Nature Controversy”, can be found by following this link (pdf). Below I have chosen to publish selected pieces of interest.

Wayne Heimer made the following notes and comments:

Compiling Author’s Note and Comment: The wild sheep community is diverse. Specialties within this community range from focus at the molecular level of life increasing in complexity through the cellular level of disease mechanisms and the physiology of life leading to individually adaptive whole-animal behaviors we define as autecology. In animal groups, these individual responses to environment are first defined as “population biology,” and ultimately, synecology. When modern humans interact with mountain sheep synecology, the integration of these diverse disciplines, with the goal of producing human benefits while conserving wild sheep, produces the overarching effort we call “management.”

For optimal management, complete and rational integration of information the diversity represented within the wild sheep community is required. This almost never happens because few “basic researchers” understand the complex nature of management, and few “managers” appreciate the imputed significance of some “basic research.” In the words of actor, Stroether Martin’s prison-warden character in “Cool Hand Luke,” “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Whether we are “basic researchers” or are working in management at the political level, all of us exhibit the human tendency toward thinking our specialty is the touchstone of successful wild sheep conservation.

The “Great Ram Mountain/NATURE controversy” illustrates this common human weakness compounded by sensationalized communication efforts. Dave Coltman and his co-authors applied molecular genetic analysis to the Ram Mountain (Alta.) data, and published an interpretation which others in the wild sheep community did not find particularly helpful. If the “Nature Science Update” (an electronic digest) hadn’t emphasized Coltman et al’s more extreme suppositions as fact, and if the “NATURE Publishing Group” has not made much of the hunting management- critical interpretations, Coltman et al.’s “Letter to NATURE” would have probably gone largely unnoticed. However NATURE’s radical representation of hunting management criticisms in the tabloid press was interpreted as “anti-hunting,” and was, thus, impossible for other researchers and managers to ignore.

The following collection of essays was produced by way of critique, commentary, and rebuttal. Their “target audiences” vary from the “deeply scientific” to the “popular.” The Frisinas review the contributions hunter-funded conservation has made to wild sheep welfare and cite data which appear to refute the broad “hunting/genetic-harm” claims attributed to Coltman et al.. Rominger points to the unacknowledged variance between the Coltman et al. letter and previously published conclusions where the “et al.” were senior authors. In these unacknowledged papers, density-driven nutritional scarcity was the common rationalization for observed declines in horn and body size on Ram Mountain. Geist discusses the history of “trophy selection” in Europe and suggests alternate (non-genetic) explanations for the changes in horn and body size reported from Ram Mountain. Geist’s essay was submitted to NATURE a rebuttal. It was not accepted for publication. Finally, Heimer and Lee answer Coltman et al.’s allegation that managers have not considered genetic factors in regulation of wild sheep harvest management. They also place the arguments in the unique context of resource management politics in the USA.

If there is any value to recording this event, it is probably simply as a case study where academia and management collided. If there’s a lesson in this history, it may be that “academics” no longer live in a sequestered world. Hence, it may be helpful for everyone in our community to understand what “managers” learned long ago from bitter experience: “Be circumspect in communications with the press because what ‘comes out’ isn’t going to look very much like what you ‘put in.’”

Perhaps more importantly, the wild sheep community, from the loftiest academic to the lowest manager, should realize that scientific data, their interpretation, and the inferences drawn from them have considerably less influence on the decisions that drive management in the “real world” than publicity in the tabloid press. That said, it is perhaps worth noting that, in spite of this spate of creative controversy in the wild sheep community, the world seems to have pretty much forgotten this ever happened…and it’s only been three years. Nevertheless, this “scientific finding” is “out there,” and it would be naïve to presume politically partisan publicists will not resurrect it for use as it suits the anti-hunting agenda. I may be paranoid, but my experience at all levels of involvement in the wild sheep and management communities suggests a high probability it will pop up again…it’s just a matter of when. [WEH]

Michael R. and R. Margaret Frisina, Biologists, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, offered their own contribution. Here is a portion of it.

It is obvious that genetics plays a role. If male, you are likely to end up with the hairline of your mother’s father. Still, it is common to overlook how much genetic diversity there is within a specific animal population. Remember the forgotten 50 percent. Ewes contribute half of the genes determining individual sheep characteristics. It is also true that it isn’t only the biggest rams that do the breeding. A recent study of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep found that although a few larger-horned rams (age 8+ years) had a very high reproductive success, younger rams sired about 50 percent of the lambs. Mating success was not restricted to a few top-ranking rams each year. When all is said and done, the potential for horn size may be set by genes, as are other horn characteristic such as curl tightness and overall shape (probably influenced by both parents), but achieving that potential is limited by the environment occupied by the sheep population. A favorable weather cycle may have contributed to the recent bonanza in huge bighorns harvested, but could not have done so if the genetics for large horns had been previously compromised by harvest management.

Eric Rominger, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, submits a critique of the letter submitted to and published by Nature. The scathing opening paragraph chastises the authors of the Nature piece as going against their own scientific conclusions.

The conclusions of Coltman et al. (2003) in their recently published NATURE article contradict nearly 20 years of analyses published primarily by two co-authors of the manuscript (i.e. Jorgenson and Festa-Bianchet). After asserting, in a series of refereed scientific publications (e.g. Jorgenson et al. 1984, 1993, 1998, Festa-Bianchet et al. 1997, LeBlanc et al. 2001), that reductions in body mass and horn size of rams from the Ram Mountain population were the result of density-related decreases in forage availability, these authors have either chosen to ignore or recant their previous work. They have not acknowledged their apparent changes in perspective. Apparently these authors now conclude that, in fact, trophy hunting has induced the declines observed in ram body mass and horn size on Ram Mountain. In confusing contrast, a paper published in BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY shortly after their NATURE article reports that 77.2% and 86.8% of the variance in body mass and annuli base circumference were explainable by a liner mixed effects model describing the effects of resource availability and age (Festa-Bianchet et al. 2004).

Wayne Heimer and Raymond M. Lee, coauthored their own work, “Undesirable Consequences of Unqualified Speculation on the Negative Effects of Trophy Ram Hunting”. Raymond M. Lee is President/CEO, Foundation for North American Wild Sheep.

Status-enhancing, but highly speculative, publications such as Coltman et al.1, may compromise wild sheep conservation. Such research communications encourage emotionally driven anti-hunters to contravene biologically sound management programs, particularly in the United States. Coltman et al.’s1 letter grossly exaggerated hazards to wild sheep populations resulting from managed human harvests. It’s secondary references to “sport harvesting” as “one of the most pervasive and potentially intrusive human activities that affect game mammal populations globally2, and the statement that “little attention has been paid to the potential evolutionary consequences, and hence the sustainability of harvest regimes3,4” are incorrect and damagingly expansive. The letter reported larger-horned, larger-bodied rams sire more lambs than smaller individuals; and made much of the fact that human harvesters prefer the largest rams available. These findings are not new. Reproductive success was quantitatively linked to dominance three decades ago5. Modern “sport harvesting” management of wild mountain sheep has typically limited harvest to 3-10% of available rams for more than 40 years. In Alaska, the most prolific and harvest-friendly wild sheep jurisdiction in the world, harvest strategies have been specifically designed to foster social order among rams for almost 20 years6. Alternate rutting strategies among thinhorn sheep resulting from differing ram mortality levels were identified and factored into sheep harvest management in Alaska beginning in 19847,8. Coleman et al’s failure to acknowledge these facts was compounded by sensationalized reporting of these non-revolutionary findings by the “NATURE Science Update” and the NATURE Publishing Group9,10. Similar under-researched and over-sensationalized “scientific communications” are often used by animal rights groups and “anti-hunters” to orchestrate politically saleable, but biologically counter-productive ‘corrections’ in management programs through so called “citizen’s initiatives” in the United States. These actions serve neither science, conservation, nor the managed species will in the longer run.

These are only selected parts of the completed piece put together by Heimer. I apologize for the length of this writing but I feel that it is important, not only to educate interested readers but to clearly and scientifically refute articles such as has been published in Newsweek magazine. It is this kind of media that not only damages the decades of work done to save and conserve our game species, through time and fees from hunters, but it also puts the very species we work to protect in danger.

As I concluded at the end of yesterday’s post, I am left only to conclude that the author’s objective in penning the Newsweek article is strictly political.

For more information on wild sheep and goats, visit the website of the Northern Wild Sheep and Goat Council.

I would also like to thank, Dr. Charles Kay, Dr. Valerius Geist and Wayne Heiman for taking the time to respond to my requests and unselfishly giving of their time and expertise. It is because of people like these that we can, at least for now, be assured the hunting and wildlife community has the right people working for us all.

Tom Remington

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Elk Poop And Other “Pathogens”

Hat tip to the “Western Wanderer“.

Initially, I didn’t believe what I was reading, but the Western Wanderer explained it quite well. The Denver Post reported that elk and the droppings they leave behind are making kids in school sick in what is called the Evergreen area.

Elk and the poop they leave behind are “virtually everywhere around Evergreen, including near homes and schools” containing an E. coli bacteria believed to be making some kids sick. I think Western Wanderer’s explanation as to why is quite reasonable.

What do you think?

Tom Remington

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Wolves In Great Lakes To Go Back Under Protection Of ESA

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled today that the USFWS is breaking the rules of the Endangered Species Act by attempting to delist the wolves in the Great Lakes area. As I understand the ruling, the court is saying that because wolves were listed as endangered everywhere south of the Canadian border, then removing them from protection cannot be done until evidence shows recovery everywhere south of the Canadian border exists. In short, never!

I am in the process now of analyzing the ruling but if this is the case, then this is a clear indication of a faulty ESA, one in drastic need of amending. A ruling like this, if upheld, would have sweeping consequences across the entire country.

I’ll have more on this ruling tomorrow.

Tom Remington

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Maybe Hunting Leases On Private Lands Not Such A Great Idea

The ideal thing for hunters is for every landowner to leave his or her land open to hunting during the various seasons. We know that doesn’t happen for a variety of reasons, one of them being the realization that in some cases a landowner can rake in a sizable hunk of change by selling the hunting rights to his land. In some cases, landowners might be having to rethink that strategy as destruction to crops might be more costly than what they get for a lease.

Back last February, a Moffat County rancher named Rodney Culverwell, started killing elk that he says were destroying his property. He was charged with 16 counts and found guilty on 4 felony counts of illegally killing elk, etc.. He could face jail time and hefty fines of up to $400,000.

Elk trampling crops, knocking down fences and being costly to ranchers in Northwestern Colorado isn’t really new news. Taking the actions Culverwell did is.

Some of what Culverwell claimed in court and even prior to his shooting the elk is that the Colorado Division of Wildlife didn’t do enough to help him protect his property and better manage the herds of elk. Perhaps he is right to some degree but what did Culverwell himself do to help himself other than shoot the elk that were mangling his fence?

Northwest Colorado is promoted as prime elk hunting. Some ads say it is the best in the world. Therefore, landowners can demand pretty inflated prices for a hunting lease. According to testimony at Culverwell’s trial, last year he charged $80,000 for a hunting lease on his own ranch. One would have to begin recalculating the business decision to take the $80,000 considering what happened.

When you sell the lease, as a landowner you may not have the control you would like to get the number of elk off your land. If you were to leave your land open to public hunting, even though sometimes the negatives that come with that angers the landowner, the obvious question then becomes which is the better business choice?

The trend that is sweeping the nation is for hunting leases. I’m not fond of them but understand the why’s and wherefore’s. From a landowner’s perspective, I want to have full control over access to my land. As a hunter, I want affordable access to land so I can hunt. Both the landowner and the hunter, along with the fish and game departments need to manage these game populations which requires a three-way cooperative effort, one that doesn’t always happen.

So, maybe the idea of a hunting lease on private land is now starting to come back and bite the landowner because wildlife managers aren’t able to control populations through the issuing of tags. With exploding populations of game that can be destructive, the landowner is now having to swallow added expenses from the damage caused by the animals.

Some, especially in Colorado, think the answer is to import wolves to control the elk populations. There’s a lot of problems if this should happen and one that I certainly do not support. It’s really a matter of exchanging one set of problems for another. If the elk numbers were reduced, unmanaged populations of wolves would turn around a destroy the ranchers livestock, etc.

Part of the problem landowners face now from wolves is that advocates for sprinkling wolves around the world, continue their lies and deceptive practices. Many people were reluctantly convinced that wolves should be brought into the Yellowstone area. They were told that once populations reached a certain level, state management would take over so that there would be minimal property damage and human conflicts. Once that goal was reached and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attempted to turn control of the wolf over to the states, wolf advocate groups sued to stop that action.

Now areas in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have some serious wolf issues and with things tied up in the courts for what could be decades, why would anybody in their right mind willingly bring wolves into the state of Colorado? And why should anyone believe what these groups say now that want wolves brought into the state?

To make wildlife management programs work, requires cooperation from everyone – landowners, hunters and state game departments. Mess up any one of those influences and problems begin to surface.

Tom Remington

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