Timber wolf lottery permits?

[Craig_S]

The following information session is at Bemidji State:

"Wolves and Mountain Lions in Minnesota - Facts, Uncertainty and Fiction"

Presenting will be John Erb, a wolf / furbearer biologist with the Department of Natural Resources Forest Wildlife Research Group, Grand Rapids. Erb will present current information about the status, distribution and management of wolves in Minnesota, followed by a review of what natural resource professionals know about mountain lions in Minnesota and surrounding states. The presentation is designed to be of interest to the general public, landowners, and hunters as well as natural resource professionals. Erb has been employed with the DNR for 10 years, having spent seven of those years in his current position. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming. The presentation is scheduled from 3 to 4 p.m. on Monday, December 17. More information and the full schedule of Natural Resources Consortium events are available online.

Assuming John can be trusted , it might be informative.

Craig

[Ferny]

Brassman, I too have seen turkeys in pine Co...except when hunting them By the way there are plenty of turkeys in the bordering counties of WI. Last time I checked they could fly and I didn't see a big fence at the border.

Mutha, shh...what was that??? only kiddin ya, don't hurt me.

Everybody, I used to go down to the DNR building and dig around their fisheries dept files (pre awesome website). They would bring out every file I asked for. I have been there since and have always been treated like they worked for me not above me! I usually pick the CO's brain every time I get stopped too, they are a wealth of info. Don't forget about the forestry guy's also they are in the woods a lot. No conspiracies here.

I seem to remember reading that nobody believed reports about Lynx in MN also. Didn't they finally found proof in scratching post traps baited with lure? It just took time.

I do think there is a lag time for most of the info the DNR has to make it to press. I think with fisheries it's over 1 year to make it onto the web ie. lake surveys.

I have yet to find any DNR employees being deceitful to me in the 20 years I have dealt with them.

Would I shoot a wolf if there was a season...why not?

It would make an awesome wall hanging! peta would love that last comment

Ferny.

[livintofish]

Fisherman222,

There are many aspects that are affecting the elk in the greater yellowstone area. One of the main concerns now being brucellosis (a disease that causes aborted fetuses),this is present in elk, bison, and cattle of the area. The elk population in the area has historically been very high and crowded in the park, due to it being a refuge from hunters which lined the outside of the park. In the park overbrowsing is also a big issue and elk have struggled to find food in winter, sparking managers feeding them. Elk hunters out West are talking about wolves being the demise of the high elk populations much like some do here in MN about wolves killing vast numbers of whitetail. Wolves do kill some elk, thats an obvious fact, but the other thing people don't think of is how they are acting as more of a natural control, and curbing many elk deaths due to starvation due to high population density and that also slows the spread and effects brucellosis has on the herd. Since wolves reintro of course the elk have been displaced a bit they no longer have the park as a safe refuge cause now in turn wolves can(but do not frequently) hunt them anywhere. By the same token if you think about this it is a: making them tougher to hunt by being corraled in the park with hunters skirting the borders; b: causing hunters to think that populations are much lower then they are, just because the herds have spread out more. Population densities in the park were too high for the avialable food supply anyway. I guess the thing to always remember is that any time a animal is reintroduced that means that the animal did historically occur in this range before and we presently have elk there and deer in MN, neither of these animals have been even close to threatened even when wolf densities were high. People will see some difference and the animals may be tougher to hunt with more carnivorous potential predators in the woods, much like deer and such are tougher to come by after their opening day of firearms season there out there just a little wiser to being hunted. hope that makes sense the way I worded everything.

[fishermann222]

liventofish i would love to read some of the studies you have pulled your info from. can you please give me the links to them?

Thanks

[fishermann222]

Livingtofish i just spoke to a friend who use to be a bio in Alaska working on wolf management and is now working out west in the lower 48. He said the wolves primary prey currently is the elk. He said disease has not been a factor in the decline of the elk population anytime recently. I have some studies and reports being mailed to me. If they are good I will scan them and send them your way. THey are from Bio's from some of the states out west.

Of course wolves once roamed the areas long ago. And i think its great they are back, however they were hunted before, just as they should be now. The other thing to consider is less elk to hunt means less money coming in to fund fish and game in those states, which in turn means poorer management of the resources, which leads to MAJOR problems.

THe second paragraph is my personal opinion, the first is straight out of the bio's mouth.

[jaydog]

for the price u can do your self cheaper we did 3 years go the equipment pays for it self the frist year

ps recipe comes from foley locker and its great

[livintofish]

Fman222,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I have been very busy with studies and have not had time to mess with FM. Glad your still interested in talking about this, it will be nice to see what your friend has to say as well. Where is he working exactly and has he published anything on pred/prey relationship stuff? I'd be interested, as well as whatever your getting mailed. It's not my main area of study, but still very interesting to me as are all things about nature. I did get a couple links that I think you will find interesting, I'll post at the bottom, there is much much I have looked at which I did not save to this computer and don't have time right now to find the hard copies. What I have here is more related to other misconceptions of gray wolves, and not specific to their predation of elk, some is. Anyway a couple things if you want to look into this further on your own I got a few for ya. First off general disease is not the issue, but look up brucellosis, if its not a big deal you wont find anything on it to do with elk, bison, and cattle; but I can tell you there will be a huge list even on a generic search like google(jstor, bioone, ....are better for reputable sci. articles but you can only get the abstract w/out a subscription). Another thing "feed lots, Jackson WY", lots of gov. dollars going out to feeding wild elk, and not for no reason. Now like you said in your post about "this is my opinion, and this is from the bio" understandable that you value his opinion and its hard to do that with some yahoo named livintofish on FM. Thats good we should always be sure of our sources, there are some bad ones around. I use reputable sources, be they major gov orgs, other nature conservancy type orgs, and reputable science (pubs). There is some opinion in just about everything, including what biologists say. The important thing is that the "opinion" be based on strong ecological and scientific principals. I am a student in bio, ecology....going for PhD soon, have had a chance to work with some great scientists already and studied ecology and the likes for several years interupted by military obligation. Something like wolf reintroducton and whether or not we should be shooting them, or the elk for that matter is a rooted issue(I do like hunting by the way, just enjoy keeping all nature around too ). Managing nature and people together is one of the toughest things out there to do successfully due to these complexities that we overlook due to technology in our lives. So with this what I am saying is, one cannot simply say "wolves are eating all the elk" and merely look at that there is a complex system of interactions going on there and wolves, elk, and people aren't all that are involved either. Brucellosis, overabundant elk herd, wolves eating elk, wolves eating livestock, coyotes eating more livestock, and elk, vegatation coming back with less elk to overbrowse, species relating to that veg. coming back..... the list goes on. All concerns and all happening, the fact is there are so many facts we as humans are always tying to study and learn more and even the best scientists/biologsts don't know all and thats what makes them the best....never ceasing to learn. I am going in lots of directions, sorry about that, not trying to sound preachy either, I'm just passionate about such things. Back to elk.... So the herd was close or exceding its "carrying capacity" which means the herd was on the brink of huge problems. With a major natural preator removed and other habitat mods the elk will/did flourish. When the population gets too high they will soon crash! It was happening, overbrowsing and need for food lots, disease and other things eventually WILL bring the herd down. Now wolves are doing it and it will all balance with good managment and natures way of always supporting life. Also remember things are still balancing it's only been 10 years since reintro. Also wolves roamed not so long ago, it hasn't been that long (70 years). One other thing ...(I didnt quote outa your last post but I'm answering it now, as you can tell) Wolves were not hunted, they were destroyed by means of poison, shooting in mass numbers, trapping and what ever else it took to totally kill the population. I have no problem with hunting wolves as long as there are plenty of them. Also, hunting doesn't control predator populations. I believe I posted about compensatory mortality and such previously check that out. Its just like coyotes everyone thinks they are "thinning the herd" shooting and trapping a few. They just come back, less competion, more resources available, bigger litters this type of phenomenon occurs in many species in different ways. Like I said just trying to show the complexities. It wont totally kill elk hunting, but I do strongly agree this is a problem.....I also think this is a much bigger problem than hunting licences sold, the environment we all love needs help but the very people who love it complain when licence fees are raised a couple bucks, there are posts like this on FM, crikey! I'm rich by no means, just know whats important to me, other means need to be made to fund our resource managment. That is my Opinion! Wow this took a while still got lots to do, well talk soon. I really want to make it up to AK soon well have to talk about that some time.

links:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/nwrc/is/07pubs/gese075.pdf

http://search.usda.gov/search?q=cache:suE7_5fiFYoJ:http://www.nass.usda.gov/wy/internet/livestock/sheep.pdf+livestock+loss&access=p&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&client=usda&num=10&site=usda&proxystylesheet=OC

or

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=SEARCH&mode=simple&q=livestock+loss&site=usda

http://www.greateryellowstone.org/media/pdf/Wolf_report-GYC-Peck.pdf

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/severity/index.htm

[Muthagoose]

Livin,, your right about pred bounce back after culling.

There are few people that continually harvest yotes year after year.You had more people harvesting during the past active fur trade era than than at any time...

Economy/gas prices have effect..

If year after year we kept on them they wouldn't have such noticeable increase.

The incentive and talents are being lost.

[fishermann222]

Thanks for the post livin i will read some of that over. The man was a bio in alaska for a number of years, highly respected, and he is now a bio in Idaho. I believe he is their wolf expert currently.

Just to throw out a few numbers on the reintroduction of the wolves.

We went from 35 wolves introduced in idaho in 1995 to a minimum of 720 that we have counted as of April ( prior to pupping). So we have pile.

I am also well aware of the eradication, yes eradication, of the wolves in the past, i disagree with that, however i do believe there should be a season on them to manage them.

[fishermann222]

one other thing about license fees and such.

I have 6 great friends who are still bio's in alaska and they don't make HALF of what they should make for the work they do. I will agree on that 1000 times over.

I totally agree iwth fee increases to better fund the management of our resources.