Coyotes Finally Where They Belong – Manhattan

Many of us who complain that it’s the city dwellers who dictate to the country folk that we should put up with wolves, coyotes, bears, etc. Well, finally it seems there might be some coyotes invading Manhattan. This is cause for a huge celebration! I immediately suggest that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service place the coyote in Manhattan on the Endangered Species List so nobody can harm them poor innocent animals.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Eating Wolf Scat And Howling At The Moon

It was Thomas Jefferson who once said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” How true! Evidently in Jefferson’s wisdom, he understood people of good conscience. It was perhaps a bit of a rallying cry to the people that remaining silent on issues was good recipe for tyranny, spelled out as loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

People of good conscience had an agenda foisted upon them when wolves were released into the Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. Foisted because I believe that the entire notion was fraudulent, keeping valuable information from the people and misrepresenting the ultimate goals of those behind the debacle.

I read some place recently that it is part of the character of good conscience people to politely sit by, having no desire to take up opposition or make public spectacles of themselves through protests and verbal combativeness. And as such, one has only to ask, how far can these people of good conscience be pushed before they begin to push back?

When the grass roots Tea Party movement began, most on the left couldn’t rationally deal with it. It must have come as a big shock to many when the Tea Party activists took to the streets in copius numbers, rallying fellow Americans to their cause. After all, street protests are the fingerprint of the liberal left. Still, the left cannot and will not come to grips with the concept that those good conscience people will push back when pushed too far.

After 8 years of George W. Bush, Americans wanted something different. They swallowed the campaign rhetoric of Senator Barack Hussein Obama and yet refused to listen to the facts of the man’s past. One year later, eyes have begun to open to the realization this isn’t the change they wanted. They are pushing back. We became witnesses to this thrust in New Jersey, Virginia and most recently Massachusetts. The people, good conscience people, revolted against what is being crammed down their throats. Remaining silent appears to no longer be an option.

It is acutely insulting when the good conscience people’s president appears before the nation and essentially tells them they are too stupid to understand what the health care reform bill is about. His excuse was he failed to explain it to you and me.

The good conscience people also see with their own two eyes when there is hypocrisy and double standards. When George W. Bush was president and the opposition party dissented, it was declared one of the grandest exhibitions of American patriotism. With that same opposition party now in control of the White House and both Houses of Congress, dissent is wicked and evil, very much unpatriotic.

The good conscience people may be passive and difficult to motivate but they are not so stupid that they cannot see what is before them. Today, Charles Krauthammer writes about a great peasant revolt, pointing a finger at those on the left for ignoring what the people want, citing the push back by voters in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.

Today, dissent from the governing orthodoxy is nihilistic malice. “They made a decision,” explained David Axelrod, “they were going to sit it out and hope that we failed, that the country failed” — a perfect expression of liberals’ conviction that their aspirations are necessarily the country’s, that their idea of the public good is the public’s, that their failure is therefore the nation’s……………………….
For liberals, the observation that “the peasants are revolting” is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.

Good conscience people don’t care if it’s a liberal or conservative issue. When something strikes them beside the head, if it’s large enough to cause a big enough impact, they will push back.

Fifteen years of water under the bridge, the wolf debate in the West is no closer to a resolve. There is however, a pushing back, a peasant revolt, if you will, far from reaching a “great” peasant revolt. It was nearly one year ago that I warned of “wolf wars“. The wars would be the result of the wolf advocates refusing to back down from their unreasonable demands about protecting the gray wolf, cramming down the throats of people the impacts from too many wolves they didn’t want nor thought they were getting.

Much of the political and social atmosphere that exists in wolf reintroduction country can be attributed to the actions of an unrelenting group that cares nothing at all about what the good conscience people of the area want. These wolf advocates have destroyed their support in the battle for public opinion by representing themselves as the authorities that know better what the people need than the people.

Where once they had their way, the good conscience people are pushing back. The quiet and hard working people have had enough. More and more people are seeing before their eyes the results of too many wolves, far more than the good conscience people were promised.

Groups are organizing to fight back. The good conscience people were willing to have a few wolves in their woods but not at the expense they are now realizing. It didn’t have to be this way but this was the decision the wolf advocates chose. It’s the path they now must walk.

We are also now seeing actions being taken by the border states around the wolf reintroduction area. Utah wants a law forbidding wolves anywhere in the state. Why is that? Has that state’s attitude been influenced by what they can see going on in their neighbor states? They are pushing back. Had the wolf lovers backed off and listened to what the people wanted, it might not have come to this. For wolf advocates, this is a serious blow to their efforts and a somber loss of what little respect they had.

With the refusal of the wolf advocate groups and wildlife officials to listen to others, to hear what the people want, the good conscience people, they face a rude awakening. To scoff at the good conscience people telling them the only way to contract diseases from wolves is to eat the wolves feces, is a direct insult of their intelligence. The good conscience people will not tolerate this kind of tyrannical rule. They are pushing back. They will tell them to “eat wolf scat and go howl at the moon”!

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Are Idaho Wildlife Biologists “Really That Dumb”?

The January 2010 issue of The Outdoorsman is out and full of tons of information about the ongoing debate in the Idaho, Montana, Wyoming areas where it has been found that introduced wolves are infected with tapeworms that can cause cystic hydatid disease. These worms can result in troubles with wild ungulate populations, they can be carried by domestic dogs, sheep, foxes, etc. and eventually end up causing health risk problems for humans, possibly resulting in death.

In this latest issue, editor George Dovel wrote an article titled, “IDFG “White Paper” Response to Concerns About Wolves Introducing New Strain of Hydatid Disease”. This addresses the fact that Idaho Fish and Game officials ignored warnings from the Centers for Disease Control, as well as evidence on the ground, and played down any possible serious health risks from this disease.

Fish and Game Regional Supervisor Chip Corsi emailed employees that he directly supervises and said:

“Some of you may have seen the latest from George Dovel’s “The Outdoorsman”. Based on Mark’s (IDFG veterinarian Mark Drew) assessments (attached), human health risk is quite low, provided you avoid consuming things like canid feces and uncooked organs; and I think suggests Dovel’s interpretation is more than a bit sensationalized. If you are handling wolves or coyotes, wear gloves. Risk to humans does not appear to be any greater than with other parasites found in wildlife that we, and hunters/trappers, routinely handle.”

It is highly laughable that a paid professional would in his attempt to scoff at Dovel’s concern for human health and safety, state that Dovel was being “more than a bit sensationalized”. This comes right after telling his employees, in his own being “more than a bit sensationalized”, that the only way you can be at risk of contracting hydatid disease is to eat “canid feces”.

This is of course absurd and should be exposed for what it is. For more on the disease, the risks and what you can do to reduce chances of infection, follow these links, here, here, here. I also plan to cover this issue more at a later date. Stay tuned.

Back to George Dovel’s column. He states that he has received numerous emails from veterinarians about Corsi’s comments about eating wolf scat and they want to know if Idaho Fish and Game biologists are that dumb? That’s a good question. Are they?

Maybe Dovel answers that question in a separate article in the same January issue. As is Dovel’s signature of writing, he goes to lengths to present readers with the facts about hydatid disease, covering some of its history, actual cases, how they were treated and on and on, supplying also links to where readers can get more facts and information.

His frustration begins to show as he points out the wildlife officials efforts to, not only downplay the potential risks to humans but efforts to cover up the facts. Does any of this make any sense? Are wildlife officials really that dumb?

Interestingly, Dovel includes a brief “editor’s note” at the conclusion of his article.

(NOTE: A comparison of these statements from medical doctors whose agenda is to protect private citizens from disease, with the statements from wildlife officials whose agenda is to protect wolves and their parasites from private citizens, is revealing. – ED)

As I said, I think Dovel answered the query of the veterinarians in making that statement. One would assume (arguable) that dumbness would not permit a wildlife biologist to land a job or perhaps even get a degree. From that perspective then it must be mostly about agendas, the agenda to protect the wolves at all cost.

But let’s not point a finger at just Chip Corsi and IDFG veterinarian Mark Drew. Even Ed Bangs, head wolf recovery person for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made every effort to protect his valuable wolves, seemingly at the expense of public safety. He’s gone so far as to scoff at and demonize those who are attempting to educate the public about the presence of disease, that happens to be carried by introduced wolves.

I personally find it revealing the actions taken by the collective “wolf advocates”; very defensive while downplaying the risks and demonizing those like George Dovel. I have covered this story since it first came to light about two-thirds of the wolves found to be laced with worms in Idaho and Montana. I’ve communicated with George Dovel, Dr. Valerius Geist, Dr. Charles Kay, Will Graves, as well as others, and done a lot of reading and research. Not one of these people or the heads of several sportsman’s groups have, from what I have seen, used this opportunity to exploit wolves and demand they be killed to solve the problem.

To copy Dovel’s comment, let me say that a comparison of statements and actions by wildlife officials and those of scientists and outdoor sportsmen groups, is very revealing.

Dr. Valerius Geist said it this way.

The pro and contra machinations pertaining to wolves are of little concern here. What is important is that people living or recreating in areas with hydatid disease take precautions, while steps have to be undertaken to eradicate the disease.

Would you rather listen to Dr. Geist’s advice or that of a Idaho Fish and Game supervisor saying there is no danger unless you eat wolf &^@#?

Yes, it is quite revealing!

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Defenders Of Wildlife Are Pond Scum

Does that sound like too harsh a comment to make about a radical animal rights/environmental group that does anything to steal your money? Would you tolerate it if you gave money to the Red Cross thinking it was going to go to help the needy in Haiti and you found out the Red Cross was just using Haiti to play on your emotions to get your money? Of course you wouldn’t. Would you stand for it if you found out some other group that depends on your donations to exist deliberately lied to you just to play on your emotions to get your money? Of course not!

Anybody that would do this is the lowest form of life on this planet. Any organization that utilizes such tactics should not only be put out of business, but should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Such actions make honest people nauseous.

Well, I’m more than nauseous over Defenders of Wildlife’s latest pack of lies to get your money. Defenders wants to stop a bill in Utah that would not tolerate wolves in that state. Defenders has every legal right to pursue that. This is a free country and the First Amendment gives them the right to fight such a law.

But Defenders goes beyond that. They lie. On their website, where they are attempting to steal your money, they say:

This anti-wolf bill could pass as soon as this week and is backed by the misleadingly named Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife — the very same group whose Idaho chapter has been holding wolf-killing derbies to raise funds for anti-wolf litigation.

This is a fabricated lie and for Defenders to do this makes them probably lower than pond scum. The only place wolves can be legally killed by anyone other than government agents, is in Idaho and Montana, during their sanctioned legal wolf hunting seasons. These hunts are controlled by permits. To state that anyone is holding wolf-killing derbies is suggesting that Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife sanctions poaching and doesn’t adhere to federal laws protecting gray wolves. It’s absurd and Defenders should immediately issue a public apology and a retraction of this insane accusation.

But they won’t because they are pond scum. They resort to lies in order to play on the emotions of ignorant people, those too lazy to actually ask a couple of questions and find out if wolf-killing derbies are being held. Defenders lied in order to steal your money. This is fraud as well as fund raising using fraudulent practices.

I generally do not say much or get involved with these radical groups. They are all alike. They are disgusting and make me sick. But his time this is just so blatantly wrong. They need to be exposed and put out of business.

And for the record, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife have done more for the real conservation of our fish and all wildlife than Defenders can ever do. All hey want is your money to pay their big salaries. They defend nothing. They get federal funding to use to sue the same federal government they got money from so they can stay in business. Do you really want to give one dime to this crooked outfit?

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How Pristine Where Our Ecosystems Before Western Exploration?

Oh, if only we could return to the days before man got into our wilderness areas and destroyed everything. Imagine how wonderful it must have been. Nature doing a fine job all on its own and then all of a sudden man expands his reach and destroys it all.

This is what I hear all the time. Even our education factories teach our kids this inaccurate history. Few have ever heard of what it was really like. I know I have had many discussions with people about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I admit I was one of those who dreamed about how wonderful it must have been. What could be more exciting to a man who loved the outdoors than to be a member of the Lewis and Clark troop? This would provide a participant the opportunity to see the forests, the plains, the rivers, the valleys, the birds, deer, moose, elk, bison, mountain goats, wild sheep, tons of beaver, muskrat, mink, lynx, bobcat, mountain lions, coyotes, wolves, oh, my. What am I forgetting. I might have been in for a rude awakening had I been there.

Lewis and Clark mounted their expedition from around 1804-1806 and their journey was quite well documented. We know that they took along “professional” hunters and trappers to provide food for the members. Logs show Lewis and Clark spent much of their time trading with Indians for dogs to eat because there was no game.

During the years of 1825-1860, Jedediah Smith, Peter Skeen Ogden, Milton Sublette, Joe Meek, John Fremont, Charles Preuss, Captain J. H. Simpson, and Howard Egan, explored all over the West, both on foot and horseback. They kept diaries and logs of their adventures and these accounts describe a much different picture of what it was really like before man moved into this region and settled.

Jedediah Smith is believed to be one of the first explorers of this region. In 1827, Smith and what was described as two of his best men, set out up the American River, through Central Nevada and ending up at Lake Lake, Utah. Smith’s log describes this trip accordingly.

After traveling 22 days from the east side of Mount Joseph, (Sierra Nevada’s) I struck the Southwest corner of the Great Salt Lake, traveling over a country completely barren and destitute of game. We frequently traveled without water, sometime for two days, over sandy deserts where there was no sign of vegetation and when we found water in some of the rocky hills we most generally found Indians who appeared the most miserable of the human race. When we arrived at the Salt Lake, we had but one horse and one mule remaining, which were so feeble and poor that they could scarcely carry the little camp equipage which I had along. The balance of my horses I was compelled to eat.

This expedition originally began with 14 men and 28 horses.

In 1828 Peter Skeen Ogden led an expedition into North Central Nevada. In an area that is now near Winnemucca, Nevada on the Humboldt River (Marys River), what was seen is described this way.

From clumps of sage on the hillsides, scrawny, brown-bodied men peered out upon their passage. Down in the Valley, now and again, the Indians scurried into the brush ahead of them. They were clothed, if at all, in twisted rabbit skins; They had no horses. They lived on seeds, and what wild fowl they could bring down. Ogden had never encountered a race of animals less entitled to the name of man.

The following year Ogden returned to the same area to do some trapping on the river. He describes the river as being very “unwholesome” and says the antelope, which during this time would be near the rivers are scarce. He declares, “woe to them who depend to them for support”.

In 1832 Milton Sublette led a group of trappers into the Marys River (Humboldt). There was no game and the trappers had to eat the beavers they had been trapping. His reports stated that there was not much for what wild animals there were to eat and that they were forced to eat wild parsnips, which poisoned them. The group had to leave this area and head north where they hoped to find something to eat.

Because of this it became necessary to at once abandon the river, and strike across the country towards the North, where after being four days with almost no food, and several weeks in the state of famine they reached the Snake River above the fishing Falls, they were forced, as they passed through the country, to subsist upon ants, crickets, parched moccasins, and the pudding made from the blood, taking a pint at a time from their almost famished animals.

Joe Meek recalls holding his bare hands in an anthill until they were covered with angry ants and then licking the ants off and eating them like a hungry animal.

Joe Walker later traveled through this same Marys River area and continued on into California near the Truckee River down the West Slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Having left Salt Lake and traveling 14 days into California, the expedition had not seen any game to eat and instead lived off horses they were compelled to kill to ward off starvation.

One man killed a deer, which he carried to camp on his back. The animal was dressed, cooked and eaten, … in less time than a hungry wolf would devour a lamb. This was the first game larger than a rabbit that they had killed since leaving the Salt Lake two months ago. For fourteen days they had lived on nothing but horseflesh …twenty four horses had died in crossing the mountain, and seventeen of these had been eaten.

1825 and 1826 found Ogden covering much of what we all know as Oregon today and not only did his group not find any game but the horses were starving because they couldn’t find even any decent grasses for the horse to feed on. It wasn’t just the explorers finding these wastelands. Ogden relates a story told of an Indian woman in Oregon.

The winter before had been so severe, she said, that her people had to resort to the bodies of relations and children. She had killed no one herself, but had fed on two of her children who died.

Things are pretty harsh when anyone has to resort to cannibalism but to first have to kill somebody to eat them, is unfathomable.

John Fremont and Charles Preuss covered areas of Southern Wyoming west toward the Bear River and then South toward Salt Lake. Things were tough. Game was missing and grazing grasses for the horses were non existent as well. Explorers tried trading with the Indian for food but soon discovered the Indians were starving to death themselves. It was only upon finding the Shoshone camped out along the Snake River, were they able to find a tribe living well from ample supplies of smoked Salmon.

Fremont’s party traveled the Columbia River north into Vancouver finding much the same. They even had to buy firewood from some of the resident Indians. Heading south toward Nevada, local tribes warned Fremont there was nothing for his horses to feed on. They were right.

… They had found nothing but dry, shallow basins, their way “broken by gullies and impeded by sage, and sandy on the hills, where there is not a blade of grass.”

Later Fremont would find Pyramid Lake and gorge on trout.

In all of the travels that are documented by many of these explorers, in what is now the state of Nevada, only one time is there mention of someone sighting an elk, but it is believed the person saw a mule deer and mistook it for an elk.

The Indians in this region mostly lived terrible lives, with little clothing, food or sufficient shelter. They ate mostly rats and insects and what few other birds or small game they might be fortunate to find and kill. We have visions of Indians having access to ample game animals and utilizing the hides for clothing and shelter. Such was not the case in most of the Great Basin.

Howard Egan, Sr. was the first Mormon explorer into the region of the Great Salt Lake. As a matter of fact he traveled there with Brigham Young. Egan covered much of the area between the Salt Lake and west into California as he was in the business of driving cattle there.

Egan recounts for us how the Indians crafted these remarkable corrals they would use to trap antelope. The entire episode of putting on a drive required all the men, women and children of the tribe. One had to question whether the effort put into the building and driving was worth the 24 antelope they trapped in twelve years. But when you’re hungry, some antelope is better than none.

The Indians did a similar thing conducting a cricket drive. No, I’m not kidding. Trenches were dug of about 1 foot wide by 1 foot deep and covered over with a thin layer of stiff grass. All the tribes people would begin pounding the ground with tufts of straw in a concerted effort, to drive the black crickets toward the trenches. Once the trenches contained all the crickets they could drive, they set the grass they had placed over the trenches on fire, killing the crickets. They then used the crickets for food, mostly grinding it up and mixing it with other things to make a concocted kind of flour.

These and more accounts certainly paint a far different picture of how things actually were than what we are often taught about how balanced and bountiful our forests and wilderness were before man arrived. Man certainly made his share of mistakes in being good stewards of the land but in time we figured out what we had to do to sustain game populations and to control the predators that destroyed those.

With the presence of man and bringing with him agriculture and the knowledge to plant and grow crops and tend the land, this began to create a better habitat that would support a heartier and healthier crop of game animals. We controlled the predators so people could harvest the game to feed their families and over time devised a pretty decent wildlife management plan that many around the world now envy.

Sorry, but Mother Nature didn’t really give us a “balanced” ecosystem, at least one that is the most productive. These accounts above I believe more accurately depict Mother Nature’s idea of a balanced ecosystem. There’s nothing wrong with that but I don’t think it is in the best interest of humans to have it that way, nor is it what I think people really want or are thinking about when they speak of “natural” wildlife management.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Wolves Can Magically Create A Garden Of Eden

This story deserves the recognition of a Black Bear Blog Golden Horse Excrement Award. (I don’t just give these to anybody.)

Wolves are such a wonderful animal. As a matter of fact, they are so wonderful they actually have been given “supernatural powers” just as Ed Bangs, head wolf recovery man for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, declared the other day. Of course Bangs was referring to us nut jobs who think wolves need strict management and control. He thinks we are motivated by fear.

Daniel Licht, a wildlife biologist thinks wolves are so supernatural they can magically transform our National Parks and other wild places into gardens of Eden. His theory is that if a park has too many deer or elk, just bring in a few wolves, tell them to “stay” and then give them a grocery list of how many deer they must kill in order to “balance” that particular ecosystem. And we mustn’t forget that these magical wolves, as intelligent as they are, will only select out the weak and sickly deer. I’m sure if given proper instructions, the wolves can select and kill the best breeding deer in that park as well.

Such wonderful animals these wolves. For the life of me I can’t understand why settlers from years gone by would have wanted to kill off all the wolves. Puzzling really. I guess this is just an example of how man, as cavemanish as he was, didn’t understand the wolf and hadn’t a clue as to its magical powers to transform landscapes in natural items of beauty.

Got too many elk? Import a few wolves and within a short period of time, your state and city parks can be magically transformed into vast stretches of land needing no management or care-taking. The wolves will do it.

If we ignorant humans had only learned this wonderful feature that comes as standard equipment on all wolves a long time ago, think of the millions of dollars we could have saved by employing wolves. As a matter of fact, I think Licht’s ideas are so good, reasonable and certainly backed by science (much like global warming) that dumping a few wolves in other places across the country should take high priority. I was thinking four wolves in Central Park, three on the Boston Common, a couple at the Washington Mall and certainly at least a half dozen in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. That should turn those places into a magical kingdom. Ah, the power of the wolf.

I hope most of you have figured out by now that I’m kidding. However, Daniel Licht is not. He actually is advocating that we import wolves into areas where deer and elk have overgrazed. He actually thinks if you used birth control and a few waves of the magic wand, wolves will stay put and kill off the unwanted deer and elk that are eating too much vegetation. What could possibly go wrong?

Licht’s idea is a reflection of the absolute nonsense being thrown around as science today. If this is the trash being taught in our schools, they need to be shut down. He says that the good things the wolves will do far outweigh the bad things. In all honesty, I know of no good things a wolf can do but there is a laundry list of all the negatives that such a radical and preposterous idea would create.

First off, you can’t control wolves. Just the thought that somehow you could convince a couple of wolves to stay in one area for the sole purpose of killing a few deer and elk is insane. Second, birth control is not effective and has never been proven to work. Toss that theory out the window.

Third, wolves carry disease. We already have found out that two-thirds of all the wolves tested in Idaho and Montana are carrying worms that can cause hydatid disease. They can carry rabies, neospora caninum, brucellosis, the list is a mile long.

Fourth, wolves have no place living near where humans live and frequent. Perverted thinking allows for a chance for humans to “view” wolves at work. Oooooooh, it’s sooooooooooooooo natural you know!

You know, I could go on and on but it is a waste of my time. This is the most ridiculous proposal I have ever heard in my life and any scientists (real ones) who would actually entertain this notion belong in a nut house.

Importing a small number of animals “as a stewardship tool … is counter to 100 years of wildlife management in America,” he says. “It’s going to take a different paradigm” – as well as a fair amount of money to build fences, attach tracking collars and provide contraceptives to keep the wolves from spreading to places where they’re not wanted.

Give me a break!

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

A Pack Of Death And Destruction

This pack of wolves number 22 from what I can count.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Wolves Taking Only Sick And Weakly Not Historical Fact

It is repeated like an incessant drum beat. Wolves and other large predators keep our ecosystems healthy because they cull out the old, sick and weakly of the prey species they kill. And nearly as often as the myth is perpetrated one asks, how that is substantiated? Certainly not by facts.

Clinging to the false indoctrination that wolves have an “eye” for which prey to destroy, is another allegorical fabrication that before man arrived our wilderness and all the species that dwelt within it was “balanced”, to represent or simulate some fanciful garden of Eden. Historical documents show a completely different picture.

Most who perpetuate these myths, point all blame for anything bad that happens to our environment, whether real or fabricated, on man. The truth is, much of the wildlife that Americans love to see and claim as theirs, was very scarce until man arrived and brought with him agriculture and soon followed by an understanding of the need to control predators, particularly those that where destroying the game herds man needed for survival.

We can look through many historical documents to learn that what is being indoctrinated into our children as fact concerning wildlife and the impact predators have on it, just does not agree with history. If we take, for example, many accounts published in Alaska Wildlife Digest in 1975, there’s no denying that wolves kill for food, for sport and from lust and more times than not the methods they employ in bringing down their prey are brutally cruel.

Many believe Alaska has always been a mecca for wildlife. In 1885, a Lt. Allen led the first exploration into the interior of Alaska right after the state was purchased. His journal describes the route and what was seen.

His party traveled the Copper River from salt water to the head, floated the Tanana River from near the head to the confluence with the Yukon, traveled overland from that point 100 miles to about the location of Hughes on the Koyukuk, floated down the Koyukuk and back into the Yukon, floated the Yukon to its mouth without seeing a single big game animal alive.

The expedition learned that the natives lived off rabbits and salmon as finding moose was rare. Over time, as man began moving into the Alaska wilderness, their mere presence began to create a better habitat. Combine that with efforts to control large predators and soon large game animals like moose began to flourish. It soon became a constant battle between three entities – the men who wanted to control predators to allow game animals to prosper to feed the natives and themselves; wildlife management and the environmentalist who wanted to promote Alaska as their “Disneyland” of wilderness, at the expense of human starvation and the destruction of game herds.

What was taking place on the ground in places of Alaska and what was being told in cities in the lower 48 were very conflicting stories.

Below are documented accounts in Alaska that show clearly that wolves are not discriminate hunters, culling the sick and weak animals all for the purpose of making our ecosystems healthier. It is much to the contrary.

When a blowing storm came he [wolf] did not take the sick and the lame but cut out 40 to 100 from a herd and would slaughter nearly all he took and did not even touch any for feed. If he did take time, all he cut out was the tongue…………………….
One day one of my reindeer herders and myself watched a large caribou herd stalked by 14 wolves. The herd was uneasy. When the time was ready, four wolves appeared from behind the herd and a stampede started which would head this herd straight toward a bluff which would be impossible for any game to descend. As the momentum grew more wolves appeared and as the herd approached the bluff the attack started from both sides. There were dead caribou, also many that could hardly move due to the leg sinews having been cut.

This account came from Sam O. White, known as Alaska’s first flying game warden.

One time over on the Nation River in the upper Yukon-I was up there with a mounted policeman-Clarence Rhodes was with us too-we were watching caribou in the winter. There was a bunch of nine wolves, they weren’t all pups either. There were some big ones and they were chasing a caribou. They caught up with him and we watched what happened. Well, they hit that caribou and knocked it down and they all started eating on it right then. They got their mouths full and you could see them bolting it down, right from the air.
It was a big bull. He got up and ran-took off. They let him go. They didn’t pay any attention to him till they got their meat swallowed and then they took after him again. They had the caribou down five times before he stayed down and each time they got a meal, got a feed off him. Boy, was the blood flying all over the snow, squirting out on both sides! Caribou are awful tough to kill you know-tougher than moose.

Glen Gregory – Alaska Air-Taxi operator:

I have seen nature at it’s cruelest. During the deep snow winters three and four years ago I had occasion to witness sights that made me sick. The route from Tanana to Ruby is over the Yukon River all the way. At that time there was a good moose population that congregated on the willow covered islands of the river in the winter. On several occasions I spotted moose standing in the deep snow with chunks eaten out of them, bleeding to death. The snow would be red all around them. There was no pattern to where the wolves bit first, although the rump seemed to be the favorite location. Probably because it is less protected.

This observation came from someone who used to be a gunner on aircraft that shot wolves to reduce the population.

A couple years ago, my gunner and I saw a moose kill, the moose was, at most, 1/4 eaten. The next weekend we flew by and there were three more dead moose laying within a square block of the first. These three were less eaten than the first.
We watched these kills the remainder of the year, and all that fed there were crows and fox. To me, this is a tremendous waste of good meat, just to satisfy the killing lust of the wolf.

And then there’s the accounts of Mike Stultz, who served for a few years as a Protection Officer for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. His is an incredible story that perhaps best epitomizes much of what’s wrong with wildlife management as it becomes more and more deeply influenced by politics and wildlife biologists being indoctrinated about the myths of predators through our education system.

Stultz bore witness to the complete destruction of a very large moose herd. Regardless of the countless number of times he contacted the Fish and Game Department, they refused, for whatever the reasons, to heed his words or even visit the area that was being systematically wiped out by wolves. He describes it this way:

Little did I realize that I would personally witness the destruction of one of the great moose populations in Alaska through the forces of nature and the blind stupidity of the Department of Fish and Game, and this experience would leave me with a feeling of frustration so great I can never work for the Department again.

Stultz also tells us he arrived at his job as a believer that wolves could not and would not kill moose.

That winter, flying with Dick Nicholes and Terry Holliday of Gulf Air Taxi based in Yakutat, I begin to see things I found very difficult to believe. Everywhere we went south of Yakutat Bay I observed large numbers of moose kills by wolves. Like most people I was of the belief wolves did not or could not kill healthy moose. I was worried and upset that the moose in the area were suffering from a serious food shortage or ailment that made them so weak they fell prey to wolves.

Even after witnessing first hand the destruction being caused by these wolves, Stultz continued hard to convince himself there had to be something else that was making it too easy for the wolves to kill so many moose and moose that from what he could tell were perfectly healthy. His cries for help from the office of fish and game fell on deaf ears and insistence that he was imagining things.

He continued his observations along with gathering facts and witnessing right before his eyes what was happening; events that would change his life forever.

The wolves just took so many fist size bites of meat out of the rump, side, and shoulders of the cow that within fifteen minutes the snow was red in a thirty foot radius around her, and in twenty minutes she was dead……………………………………..
I landed and examined the dead cow. I took a tooth, looked at the heart, lungs, and liver, cracked the leg bone to look at the bone marrow, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with her except she was dead from wolf bites. She appeared a fine, fat, healthy moose that was in the wrong place at the right time.

Still believing he was going to find some other explanation for what he was witnessing, Stultz traveled around to the hunting camps in his region to hear what they were saying.

I flew hundreds of hours during that moose season visiting all the hunters and their camps. Almost everywhere I went the questions and statements were the same: “I have been hunting this area for five years and never failed to get my moose within a half mile of camp the first or second day out. I haven’t even seen a moose this trip, and I have been here a week,” “What are all those big dog tracks doing on all the river bars?” “If things get much worse I will have to have to go to the Interior to hunt next year.” “If there aren’t many more moose around here anymore, why do you guys have a three month either sex hunting season on them?” “I don’t see how hunting can get much worse.”

But it did get worse and yet fish and game still refused to investigate or heed what Stultz was trying to tell them. He was told repeatedly that if moose numbers where being depleted wolves would have nothing at all to do with it. But Stultz continued his work and recording his observations.

Flying my personal airplane that winter, moose because [sic] almost as hard to spot as wolves. I would fly hours and maybe see a dozen moose. Wolf trails and dead moose invariably intersected. The moose herds on the Italio and East Rivers-two of the largest winter herds around-were all but wiped out in a three month span by wolves that were no longer bothered by aerial hunting. As winter progressed moose became so scarce that even the wolves couldn’t find them. They then started to look for other food sources. For the first time in memory wolves were spotted in town eating out of garbage cans. stray dogs running loose disappeared. People with dogs chained outside woke up to find nothing left but blood and tufts of hair. The era of the moose in Yakutat was short lived. They were for all practical purposes gone.

This observation is very important as it falls in line with the seven steps of when wolves become a danger to man as spelled out clearly by Dr. Valerius Geist.

Out of disgust, Stultz left his job and became a teacher. It wasn’t until long after his warnings and cries for help that the fish and game department realized there was a problem, a realization that came too late. From a time when a man, freshly educated with a college degree, enters the Alaska outdoors, it took a short period of time for reality to set in about what wolves are capable of. Stultz clearly became a tainted man as he makes this comment.

The winter of 1973 saw the Department finally put away their comic book entitled “Never Cry Wolf” and admit that wolves were indeed as responsible as hunters for eliminating the Yakutat herds a
peculiar statement since wolves hunt twelve months of the year without regard to season, limit or sex-but it was a definite improvement over their past utterances. Realizing at this late date that predator control was necessary they organized a Department wolf hunt in Yakutat.

So can we now assume that in 1973 biologists learned a very valuable lesson? Can we assume that biologists learned that wolves are a vicious predator, that does NOT subsist mostly on mice and small rodents? Can we now conclude that biologists have finally come to realize that wolves are not selective in their savagery, to weed out the sick and dying? Not at all!

Twenty-three years later in Alaska, biologists talked of an unexplained “die off” of moose on the North Slope. Fish and Game tossed out many theories as to what caused the “die off”; copper deficiencies, brucellosis, insects, range and habitat deterioration, and oh, yes, predation. This is what fish and game said about predators possibly having a role in the moose “die off”.

Both the bear and wolf populations appear quite high and both species are efficient predators, particularly on moose calves. The deaths of half to three-quarters of the calves born on the North Slope each year could be due to predators that thrive on the old, the weak and, most of all, the young (emphasis added).

I believe the cause was blamed on Brucellosis although I can’t find that it was ever proven.

This might shed some light on how deeply ingrained into our wildlife education system certain beliefs have become. While facts and accounts far outnumber any “studies” to show otherwise, the idea that large predators have a measurable impact on our game herds remains the perpetuated theory.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Ed Bangs, USFWS: “They’re No Big Deal” re: Wolves

Last week Ed Bangs, head wolf recovery guru for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said that the decline in moose populations in the Yellowstone National Park area was due to climate change and that his reintroduction of wolves has nothing to do with it. He also was quoted as saying that the presence of wolves worldwide, was “no big deal”. In the context in which that statement was made, let me post it here as it appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune as of January 21, 2010.

“People who don’t like them [wolves] give them supernatural powers. It’s that way all over the world,” Bangs says. “In reality, they’re no big deal.”

That’s really the ultimate in ignorant statements, especially coming from a professional working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It also appears I’m not alone in that assessment.

Tony Mayer, owner/administrator for Save Our Elk, is challenging Bangs on his statement that wolves are “no big deal”. He is asking if Bangs intends to stand by that statement and gives us all a list of reasons the presence of wolves may be a bigger deal than Bangs or others are willing to admit.

Consider the impact to an ecosystem that was previously untouched by wolves (prior to 1994). Consider that this same Rocky Mountain Wilderness area now has a top-tier predator thrust into its midst. The predator has experienced phenomenal growth and currently exceeds 2,000 to 3,000 wolves depending whose numbers you believe. This predator is a borne killer and hunts 365 days per year. It is responsible for killing 6,000 and 12,000 elk monthly. Do you still want to stand by your statement “In reality, they’re no big deal?”

Consider that Elk/Calf recruitment has plummeted to record lows in many areas where these wolves roam and is now below replenishment levels. Do you still want to stand by your statement “In reality, they’re no big deal?”

Consider that wolves are primarily responsible for rapid spread of parasites and diseases within their range. These parasites Neospora Caninum and Echinococcus granulose were largely undetected prior to the introduction of wolves and now are infecting other wildlife and livestock at alarming rates. The impact of these 2,000 to 3,000 wolves exponentially spreading disease within our borders is catastrophic, and will forever impact our game, domestic livestock and potentially to humans. Do you still want to stand by your statement “In reality, they’re no big deal??”

Consider the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been wasted and that wolves are continuing to cost our government and the citizens of our states. Do you still want to stand by your statement “In reality, they’re no big deal?”

And being as Mr. Bangs declared that wolves worldwide were no big deal, I can add to this list more than time would allow, the negative impact wolves have had on people’s lives. Mayer points out what is taking place in and around the Yellowstone area. Most of us are uninformed about the long and sordid history of wolves worldwide and the death and destruction to humans and their property caused by wolves. In America we scoff and claim such stories to be myths, as does Bangs in his own ignorance, much due to the indoctrination we have all had beat into our brains since birth. He was only one step away from referencing Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.

No, the sky is not falling or the world coming to an end. Real wildlife conservationists are interested in first protecting the health and safety of humans and then their property. Where wildlife populations once were sparse and in need of help, hunters’ money from license fees etc. brought back to the Yellowstone and many other areas of this country, bountiful and healthy species of game and wildlife. It is irresponsible to sit by and allow ignorance, driven by special interest groups, to destroy this investment.

Ed Bangs works for all taxpayers. If he honestly believes that an overblown population of a ravaging predator, known to carry diseases, is “no big deal”, then it is time that USFWS found a replacement for him.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Wyoming Guides And Outfitters Association Mifted About Wolves

WGOA Press Release:

“I’ll never forget the first time I heard a wolf howl. It was September 26, 1998 at 8:26 in the morning. I had just bugled and in response, came what I now know all too well…the howl of a wolf. Since that day, wolves have caused one of our hunting camps to be abandoned and another is only running at twenty-five percent capacity. Our bull elk harvest has gone from over 80 percent to less than 50 percent-even with fewer hunters. My neighbor outfitters are no different. I see them with fewer hunters and fewer weeks of hunting too. One week we have elk in our country then the next week we don’t. It has hit me and my family hard. We have counted on providing back country elk hunts to our guests for the last 25 years but now we are not sure where we’re headed. I do know this-Wyoming will always have wolves and we should be given the chance to manage them. It is time to delist the wolf.” BJ Hill, Jackson Hole outfitter

Wyoming outfitters employ 1,400 people, pay $6 million in local and state taxes, contribute $100 million to our economy and support wildlife management. Before wolf introduction in 1995, some family owned and operated hunting camp businesses were worth an average $500,000. Nowadays, many of these wolf impacted camps are worthless and families forced to look for other work. Those hard working, taxpaying families face financial ruin from uncontrolled wolf populations. It is shameful.

The people of Wyoming own the indigenous wildlife resources but federally transplanted Canadian wolves are decimating our wildlife birthright at an alarming rate-especially elk. Wyoming’s hunting, agriculture and tourist economies are in peril and our lives have been terribly disrupted by wolves. Hunters and ranchers have been unfairly punished by wolves and they have borne a disproportionate burden of the wolf experiment. Hunters have quit hunting traditional elk areas in northwest Wyoming because of wolf predation and they are moving to other areas around the state causing a domino effect. This increases hunter density and diminishes the quality of hunting in these areas. The time to stop the destruction caused by wolves is long past and the federal government must return control of state resources to Wyoming where it rightfully belongs.

Every month, wolves kill 700 Wyoming elk-not to mention numerous cattle, sheep, mules, horses and dogs! Ironically, the federal government won’t allow us to control those wolves. If we don’t have the right to protect ourselves and our property from wolves, then we have no rights. A government that outlaws the inherent right of self defense and the right to protect our property is a government that has over stepped its authority. The people of Wyoming must be granted permanent control of the wolf.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Montana 2009 Wolf Hunting Season

I have uploaded and made available for your reading a copy of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Park’s, Montana 2009 Wolf Hunting Season (in pdf).

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

USFWS Wolf Chief Blames Moose Loss In Yellowstone On Climate Disruption

Is this a first? Climate disruption? Because the theory behind man-made global warming has been proven a fraud, has our liberal press created a new buzz word to explain away the errors, fraud, conspiracy and manipulations of “We the People”? Climate disruption? We’ve gone from global warming to climate change and now it’s climate disruption. Is that a catch-all phrase that we can use for any excuse to place blame and pass off responsibility?

I can certainly understand how an individual, who stakes his entire life and reputation on bringing wolves back into the Yellowstone National Park area and Central Idaho, would react so emotionally when he hears that a legislator in Utah wants to kill all his wolves trying to enter the state of Utah.

Bangs is supposed to be a professional, a salaried employee of the Department of Interior/United States Fish and Wildlife Service, one whose salary is paid by the taxpayers of this country. You would expect a better response from a professional scientist.

“People who don’t like them [wolves] give them supernatural powers. It’s that way all over the world,” Bangs says. “In reality, they’re no big deal.”

The tone of the article leads a reader to think that the presence of wolves is no big deal. He seems to blow off and almost ridicule anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his outdated information on wolves. His reference to people “giv[ing] them supernatural powers” is almost a Farley Mowatt followers response. I wonder if he also believes wolves only eat mice and tiny rodents?

But in reality, did Bangs refer to the loss of moose in the Yellowstone area to “climate disruption” or did the author of the article do it? You decide.

Wolves have contributed to a decline of elk in and around Yellowstone, but moose loss is probably more due to climate disruption. “Moose can’t handle heat at all,” Bangs says. “They just lie around and don’t store body fat.”

Notice the quotations mark don’t come in until after the use of “climate disruption” and the quiet admission by the author (I wonder where that information came from?) that wolves have contributed to elk reduction. It does however seem to fit with the quoted response by Bangs saying moose can’t handle the heat – assuming he is referring to global warming. He is also saying that moose do nothing but lie around in this “climate disruption” and die. And, according to the same article, Bangs said that wolves are only a problem with some livestock.

Bangs’ comments are not sitting well with many wildlife and outdoor sporting organizations. It has been slow coming but state wildlife officials in Idaho and Montana are now coming around to admit that wolves are destroying their elk, deer and moose herds far more than they thought they would. In some places, the effect is serious, posing a real threat to elk, deer and moose herds.

Don Peay of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife in Utah asked Bangs:

I would like some scientist to explain to me how Utah – which has a hotter climate than Wyoming, Idaho and Montana whether there is global warming, climate disruption, etc – is seeing a totally different trend in Moose, than is being experienced in the wolf inhabited areas of WY, MT, and ID.

If Climate disruption is the reason that moose are declining in the Yellowstone region – it is so hot the moose populations just lie around and don’t put on fat reserves – then why are Utah moose populations increasing significantly during this same climate change phenomenon ? it would seem to me that if heat was the problem, then Utah’s moose populations should be even in greater decline than the greater Yellowstone area.

Toby Bridges, a hunter and activist who administers Lobo Watch, had a much more emotional response to Bangs’ comments. I won’t share all of them here but here’s some of what Bridges had to say:

Sportsmen here fully realize that growing wolf numbers have destroyed Yellowstone’s great elk herd, not Global Warming. Likewise, elk herds all along the mountains of western Montana and northern Idaho are being decimated by out of control wolf numbers. And when addressing this issue, the best you can do is is to toss out an “Oh well” attitude in the linked article, trying to use smoke and mirrors and a list of other factors to try covering up the real problem – your parasite carrying kill crazy wolves.

So while many sportsman’s groups in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon and Washington have united together to work in a proactive way to convince the courts to allow the states to manage wolves at a level that will provide a better balance between predator and prey, Bangs is still preaching the “wolves aren’t the problem” mantra. Our tax dollars at work I suppose.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How Much Are Mountain Lions “Eating” Into Your Hunting Opportunities?

It seems that mostly what we hear these days is how predators, bears, mountain lions, wolves, coyote, bobcat, etc., have no effect on our deer herds. This of course is not true and is really a dishonest statement. Of course these large predators have an effect on the very areas in which they live. It might be more accurate to say that we don’t really notice the effect they are leaving behind until the game we hunt, which is often the same game these predators hunt, are disappearing.

If we look at the state of Maine as an example, here is a state that in the northern two-thirds there is essentially no more deer left. We have heard all the excuses – severe winters, loss of habitat, poor management, too many predators, etc. What we don’t seem to be getting a grasp on is what happens to our game management plans when the ecosystem gets torn to shreds by either uncontrollable circumstances(weather), or unpredicted effects(predators)?

I was emailing over the weekend with a good friend in Maine about the deer problems there. He made what I consider a profound and very accurate statement. He said, “Everything would be hunky-dory if we had not had two very severe winters in a row. It found all the weak spots in the management of the Maine deer herd.”

While I believe this statement to hold a lot of water, why is it we still are feeling this need to deny discussing some of those weaknesses other than blaming winters and habitat? As I pointed out just a minute ago, predators do make an impact on the very ecosystems that they live. In a robust ecosystem, most of us never pay notice to predators. In other words, there is plenty to go around – at least for now. So what happens when the ecosystem becomes lopsided? What happens when two severe winters in a row decimate a deer herd? What happens when two severe winters in a row finish off a deer herd that has already been weakened due to reduced habitat and too many predators, or at least what now appears as too many predators? These are some of the “weak spots” my friend was referring to.

Let’s take only one example, the mountain lion. But Tom! There are no mountain lions in Maine! Officially, there are no mountain lions in Maine nor are there any wolves and from my perspective it can remain that way until circumstances warrant a change.

Perhaps two months ago, this same friend sent me a photograph he had taken in Maine of what he believed to be a mountain lion kill of a whitetail deer.

I sent the picture for an opinion to some people who I knew had far more experience with mountain lions than either the two of us. Dr. Valerius Geist, a renowned biologist and expert on ungulates, commented this way:

We live in the boonies surrounded by large predators, including mountain lions. Deer vacate the land when puma show up. We know that from old work done with radio collared mountain lions and deer. So, no big surprise that the deer have vanished. Why the surprise over puma being present in the East?

I also got a response from George Dovel, editor of the Outdoorsman and years of experience in the outdoors.

Let me emphasize I am neither a cougar expert nor an expert cougar (mountain lion) hunter but I was a close friend to and hunted with the most successful Idaho lion hunter of the 20th century, *** *****, for a few years. During the 18 years I lived in what is now the Frank Church Wilderness I examined a fair number of cougar kills and, in those I examined closely on snow, I determined the lion always dragged the carcass at least a short distance once it killed or paralyzed the animal, and often – but not always – covered it. If the kill was not concealed by brush and/or trees and also covered by leaves, needles or other debris as in your photo, it was quickly discovered by magpies, ravens or eagles. The photo you provided might indicate a typical mountain lion kill.

So I have at least stirred up the idea in you that mountain lions might be around in a few places in Maine. What effect will this mountain lion have on the whitetail deer population within its territory? Under “normal” circumstances, probably none that would get noticed by the average hunter/outdoorsman. But what if the deer herd began shrinking because of winter kill, loss of habitat, etc.?

In the spring edition of North American Whitetail Magazine, 2010, Volume 28, Number 2, there is an article in there by Dr. James C. Kroll. He writes,

Although many state wildlife agencies still won’t admit they have lions, the public is now well aware they exist in a number of places. And, they can have a real impact on whitetails. In general, a male lion will eat one deer per week, while a female with young will eat two deer per week. The hidden blessing is that lions tend to have very large home ranges, and they therefore don’t defend their territories as vigorously as wolves or bears do.

If the mountain lion was ranging over territory that comprise whitetail deer populations that were healthy in numbers, let’s say 20 or more deer per square mile, I doubt any of us would ever much notice the deer the lion took out. Dare I say, we probably would not know the lion existed. But what if this lion was now living in the same territory where the population of deer has been reduced to 2, 3 or 4 deer per square mile. Being a good hunter, a hungry lion can finish off what remains of a deer herd within its territory, if it’s eating a deer or two per week. If the lion doesn’t completely wipe it out, it certainly can hamper the rebuilding effort or make it difficult to sustain a herd.

So now we are looking at a real predator problem, well, that is if one wants to maintain a deer herd. Where once the lion would go unnoticed, now hunters want to know where the deer all went. Predators do have an effect on whitetail deer numbers and under Maine’s circumstances one mountain lion ranging about an area with a drastically reduced deer herd, can finish it off. It’s now a problem. So, why not admit it?

Managing deer in Northern Maine, as well as parts of Downeast and the mountains in the west, is a challenge simply because geographically, these areas sit on the outer fringes of whitetail deer range. There will always be severe winters here and there and as my friend said, those bad winters show up the weaknesses in the deer management plan. If Maine wants to keep a deer herd in these areas, it best be plugging up some of these holes so that the severe winters, when they hit, won’t have such a devastating effect on the herd.

We can start by admitting that predators do have an impact on deer herds. How much we notice depends on certain conditions, some of which we are witness to now. We need to more closely monitor and manage predator numbers of bear, coyote, bobcats, as well as reduce competition for food and habitat between deer and moose.

None of this will be easy but a repeated denial that predators matter, isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Interview With Will Graves: Author, “Wolves in Russia: Anxiety Through The Ages”

Below is an interview, moderated by Jim Beers, with Will Graves, author. It took place on January 24, 2010 in response to reports of cystic Hydatid disease from worms that have been reported in wolves in Idaho and Montana.

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak.

Learn more about Will Graves below.

~~~~~

The following interview took place on 24 January 2010.

Q: Will, didn’t you work and travel extensively in Asia, Europe, and Africa during your career with the US government?
A: Yes. I was very fortunate to visit and work with a variety of people in places such as Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Siberia, the Karellian Peninsula, Iran, Greece, Spain, Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italy to name a few.

Q: What did you learn about wolves based on your travels and work in these foreign lands?
A: First and foremost, that the management of wolves depends entirely on people and not on any so-called “balance of nature”. When management and control of wolf numbers and their distribution is absent, the damage to human life, livestock, domestic animals like dogs, and wildlife increases as wolf numbers and densities increase. Unlike other large predators, wolves are very adaptable, wide-ranging, pack animals that keep expanding their range both as individuals and as packs that expand as food and opportunities present themselves.

I was amazed at how little attention was being paid to both the visible danger of wolves and the hidden potential for the spread of diseases affecting people and other animals when wolves were being Re-introduced into Yellowstone Park in the 1990’s. The lack of discussion and preparation for controlling wolves and the absence of any candid description of historical and current wolf experiences and research worldwide struck me as a potential problem of great magnitude.

In addition to the substantiated deaths of many rural people especially in Russia, particularly children and women year around, outbreaks of wolf attacks on humans occur periodically in severe winters or when wolves become habituated to humans when they are not hunted as during World War II in Russia or when their numbers and densities increase with resulting losses of certain prey animals. They are particularly dangerous when they become increasingly bold around humans and human habitations. When wolves come into Russian villages or begin appearing at rural American school bus stops or when, as I was recently told by a Montana rancher, one came into his yard and actually looked in a window of his home, this is a very dangerous situation and almost certainly a prelude to an attack. While trying to chase off such animals is futile, removing such animals should be done immediately. However, this is merely a stopgap because other nearby wolves are likely to soon adopt similar behavior; when wolves exist routinely in such proximity to humans, history and research in Russia show this to be a dangerous situation requiring constant caution and constant control of the wolves.

Also in addition to the observable losses of cattle, sheep, domestic geese and turkeys, pet dogs, herding dogs, hunting dogs, watchdogs, and wildlife like deer, elk, and moose, there is the hidden damage from the stress of constant harassment of chasing and stalking all the surviving animals resulting in reduced physical capacities to survive and reproduce. This resulting stress leads to reduced resistance to disease and reduced weight and stamina that constitutes a significant loss to ranchers, farmers, hunters, rural residents and wildlife populations in my opinion.

Q: Didn’t you begin your career as a US technician working in Mexico to detect and eradicate livestock diseases?
A: That’s correct. My first job for the government was in the USDA Bureau of Animal Industry program as Chief of a “horseback-only” Inspecting, Vaccinating, and Slaughtering Brigade in a tropical rainforest in Mexico. Our goal was to stamp out the foot-and-mouth disease. My Brigade was based in Cozalapa, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Q: Will, today there is growing concern about wolves in North America and especially about wolves as carriers and vectors of diseases and infections such as tapeworms. What diseases, if any, are wolves susceptible to?
A: I am not a disease expert but I have had a lifelong interest in animal diseases and their pathology, especially the more infectious diseases. In 1978 a Russian Biology Degree candidate noted that wolves carried Brucellosis, Deer Fly Fever, Listerosis, Anthrax, and other diseases. Another Russian scientist noted that the wolf can be infected with more than 50 types of parasites including various tapeworms as you just mentioned. Other Russian specialists have reported that wolves are potential vectors of foot-and-mouth disease. Wolves, just like other Canid animals such as dogs and coyotes are susceptible to and can carry rabies, distemper, and other dangerous infections like Neosporum caninum that causes abortions in grazing animals like livestock and big game animals such as elk, deer, and moose.

Q: Can you describe how some of these diseases are spread and how this affects rural communities where wolves are present?
A: Yes. You mentioned Hydatid diseases or tapeworms earlier. There are quite a few species of tapeworms and several are fairly common in wolves. When infected wolves defecate, minute tapeworm eggs are present and may become airborne when the feces dries so kicking or handling wolf feces is not advisable. The eggs may be deposited on nearby grasses, berries, mushrooms or other plants with water runoff after rains or even heavy dew. These eggs are readily passed onto dogs that commonly have a habit of smelling other canid’s feces and often rolling in it. When the dog returns home it may lick the owner or drool in places leaving eggs on objects but most significant is the fact the dog introduces the eggs into the human living space where toddlers and others are exposed to airborne eggs or eggs on surfaces that may enter the lungs or mouth or a cut. Dogs with tapeworms often drag their anus on the floor to relieve the itching that results from the tapeworms that are spreading inside them, thereby further infecting the human living space. In Kazakhstan, where wolves are common, research indicates that rural dogs have tapeworm infection rates several times higher than that of their urban cousins. In many areas of Asia and Eastern Europe it is a long-standing tradition that dogs are unclean and thus are never allowed into buildings of any kind. Like the tradition of not eating pork in some cultures, traditions like no-dogs in homes and ritual washing of hands when entering another’s house are speculatively attributed to avoiding diseases historically associated with dogs.

Wolves, like dogs, can carry these parasites without noticeable effect while they range far and wide.
Livestock such as cattle and sheep are susceptible to infection of the tapeworms carried by wolves. One case of a horse infected with tapeworms in Washington State was recently noted. To the best of my knowledge, infected domestic livestock are mildly debilitated, although the chances of the worms entering organs would make the animal more vulnerable to disease and potentially less healthy in an overall sense. Domestic livestock can be vaccinated for tapeworms.

Wild big game animals like deer, elk, moose and mountain sheep are also susceptible to infection with tapeworms. Infected animals, like infected livestock, show little outward signs of the infection but they are similarly debilitated by various problems like shortness of breath from infected lungs. More problematic however is the likelihood of other kinds of infections in their less healthy state, and in my opinion their becoming more vulnerable to environmental factors like predation, winter stress periods, weather extremes, and periodic food scarcities.

Humans that live in or near wolf areas need to be especially knowledgeable and alert. Humans infected by certain tapeworm species carried by wolves risk having cysts and tapeworms incubating in their body for as many as 20 years. The tapeworms may infect the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, or brain. These last two can be fatal. Diagnosis of emerging symptoms can easily appear to be many other things so that examinations may miss the cause of the problem.

This is a thumbnail sketch of wolves and their relationship to Hydatid Diseases. Other diseases and infections such as Neosporum caninum, a disease probably spread by wolves and causing abortions in livestock and big game animals like deer, elk, and moose need more research, rural awareness and public education about the risks and costs of such infections. Brucellosis, Rabies, Distemper, and Anthrax are other diseases known to be carried and spread by wolves.

There is also speculation that wolves may carry some diseases or infections on their fur or in their paw pads that may be picked up near dead animals or as they pass through infected areas like pastures and big-game wintering areas. Remember that wolves don’t spend their lives in a restricted local area like other wildlife such as most cougars or bears or coyotes or foxes. Individual wolves often roam far and wide and packs have been observed to travel over large and changing areas in the course of a year. Wolves, like dogs, are fairly omnivorous so that when a food source becomes scarce such as disappearing big game or more tightly guarded livestock; wolves are fully capable of moving into new areas and then beginning to feed for example near the edge of a rural community on domestic birds like geese or turkeys or even into towns where wintering big game animals may be seeking safety. Wolves that begin feeding on cattle in pastures just like wolves feeding on big game animals in wintering “yards” will be frequenting pastures or certain wintering yards repeatedly thus compounding the chance of both picking up certain infections and subsequently spreading it to like animals from which the infection originated.

One last thing; there often seems to be many hidden agendas at work whenever we talk about wolves. For instance, when Russians are asked about wolves as vectors for foot-and-mouth disease or anthrax, they are often reluctant to say anything. This might be because of rumors about wolves spreading anthrax from a weaponized anthrax burial site where wolves were able to recently gain access. Anthrax and foot-and-mouth are candidates for biological weaponry research and thus things that can cause trouble for the indiscreet. Similarly in the US discussing claims about wolves “balancing” nature or about their danger to and disruption of rural American life are similarly clothed in fictions and political correctness about everything from lethal controls to federal government liability for damages and harm caused by their wolf protection program.

Q: One last question: what would you recommend that the US and Canada do to avoid the potentially catastrophic effects of a growing and habituating wolf population that threatens rural residents, rural economies, and rural communities today?
A: First, we have to educate the rural and urban publics about the real and hidden effects of wolves. This is a primary function of government in my view. Such education would address candid facts about:
- Lethal wolf damage to livestock and wildlife, and how to avoid it.
- The increased stress on livestock and wildlife and how to minimize it.
- Areas away from people where wolves are to be allowed and areas where they are not allowed.
- The need for constant monitoring and for lethal controls by government where wolves threaten humans.
- Diseases and infections carried and spread by wolves and how to avoid them.
- The dangers of wolf habituation and what it portends.
- The toll on rural watchdogs, hunting dogs, herding dogs, work dogs, and pet dogs that results from wolves and how to minimize it.
- The serious total consequences of these things on rural residents and rural lifestyles if not prevented.

Second, wolves need to be kept as completely as possible out of any areas where they have a probability of interacting with humans routinely. A combination of government hunters, public hunters, and legalizing the killing of problem wolves by threatened citizens without the threat of government prosecution are really permanent necessities as long as maintaining wolf populations in acceptable numbers and areas is to be achieved. This will require expensive but continuous monitoring and research to constantly adjust to wolves and their proven capacity to adapt to human changes throughout thousands of years of recorded history.

Will, thank you for sharing these insights based on your travel and experiences. More Americans than you might imagine owe you a debt of gratitude for taking the time to share this valuable information and your suggestions with us. Jim Beers.

* Details about Will’s book, “WOLVES IN RUSSIA: Anxiety Through The Ages”, may be found at his website: WolvesinRussia.com

Note: If you found this interview worthwhile please share it with every rancher, farmer, dog owner, hunter, politician, friend, and relative that you know. If you know of any publication that would use it, please ask them to publish it. This is a serious matter of national importance and all of us need to understand it before we can come together to resolve it. JB

Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7atcomcastdotnet

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

FWS Declares Hyenas Threatened In U.S., Establishes Critical Habitat

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced it would place the striped hyena, most readily found in northern and eastern Africa as well as in Asia from the Middle East to India, on the Endangered Species Act list. Once the Final Rule is published, USFWS will designate much of Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona as critical habitat for Hyaena hyaena.

After months of pressure from environmental groups, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Preserving the Rights of Hyenas, the USFWS buckled and proceeded with the listing. The three environmental groups claim they have unearthed some mysterious scientific evidence that unquestionably proves that if hyenas were introduced into these regions, they might survive. It would require removing all ranch land and the bulldozing of several towns.

Hyenas have never inhabited these regions of the United States but the groups feel, and now the Obama Administration is convinced, that there is an outside possibility that if they had of inhabited these regions and if they were there today, they just might survive. It is for those reasons the USFWS has administered the Endangered Species Act to help save the hyena.

Barack Obama stated this weekend while touring about the U.S. trying to find something the American people might believe him about, that when he said he would bring science back to its rightful place, this is precisely what he had in mind.

“Let me make myself clear. America has turned a corner. And I want to say that with the help of such qualified, honest and outstanding scientists as Al Gore, Michael Mann and Phil Jones and Michael Moore, I am convinced that ranchers and citizens in Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona have no need to prosper and protect their private property. And I want to say, they have too many livestock now and it is time they shared a little of their wealth. Let me make myself clear, again. The hyenas, if they ever find their way from northern Africa to this region, will be granted unprecedented protection and be allowed to ravage any and all livestock and other wildlife species in those regions. We are finally returning science to its rightful place. And one more thing. I just want to say, I will appoint a hyena protection czar.”

For those of you who have chosen to read this far, I hope you have been intelligent enough to realize this is nothing but an outrageous and ridiculous story. It is however not that far from the truth. Take for example this New York Times editorial one of my readers was kind enough to send me the link to.

It seems that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under pressure from the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, has opted to designate the jaguar as an endangered species in the United States and has designated critical habitat in parts of the region along the United States and Mexico border. No jaguars live in this region but if the habitat could support jaguars they might.

In prehistoric times, these beautiful cats inhabited significant areas of the western United States, but in the past 100 years, there have been few, if any, resident breeding populations here. The last time a female jaguar with a cub was sighted in this country was in the early 1900s.

But somehow magically after repeated lawsuits from the federally funded environmental groups, the feds have “evaluated new scientific information” and opted to designate critical habitat.

This is nearly as absurd as my hyena story and it’s really only about one step away from reality. Once an environmental group or groups can pester the USFWS with lawsuits and “evaluated new scientific information”, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that striped hyenas once roamed parts of the United States. With the continued abuse that has been allowed of the Endangered Species Act, we have learned that a species doesn’t have to be extinct, only missing from U.S. territory. Whether present climate and habitat can support these species anymore is irrelevant.

Actions by environmental groups and decisions being made by the USFWS on such issues has to be brought in check. If not, we just may be designating parts of the U.S. critical habitat for more things than just hyenas.

Tom Remington

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Next Page »