Posts from — March 2008

Now that the Wolf has been delisted the humans are also doing the howling, from both sides of the fence. The way the delisting and ensuing threats for a lawsuit, injunctions and so forth shakes out is that if anyone shoots a Wolf within the next 30 days the environmental groups will certainly file suit and try to shut the hunting down again.

I am sure most ranchers understand what the situation is. I doubt that most have such malevolent feelings toward Wolves that they are going to run out and shoot one just because they can. Its a pretty simple equation actually, Wolf eats mans livestock, man shoots Wolf. Nothing complicated there. This is not the guy to worry about.

Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, Bubba is out driving a four wheel drive that looks like a “monster” truck, swilling beer, looking for some target practice, up pops a Wolf, question is, will Bubba shoot the Wolf? I think the environmentalists are betting on it.

No sniper bullets, PT boat stories or draft deferrals just a real hero and crusader for his fellow countrymen. Most of us remember Dith Pran from the 1984 movie, “The Killing Fields”.  Serving as guide, assistant journalist, and photographer for the western press he was instrumental in bringing to light the Cambodian genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
Dith Pran survived the genocide and moved to America to become a photographer at the NY Times and spokesman for the Cambodian people. He died today at his home in New Jersey.

Read more…

For the first time in over a hundred years the Blackfoot and upper Clark Fork Rivers are running free. Hopefully it will set the stage for other dam projects in the west that have passed their usefulness and need to come down.

Videos of the breach can be seen HERE. The story in the Missoulian is HERE.

Of course the big question on everyone’s mind now is what effect the huge sediment flush will have on the river ecosystem below?

The whole Wolf reintroduction thing is a curious experiment. I’m still trying to figure out why? I mean, why reintroduce something after you eradicated it once already? Is it Guilt,  perversion, money? Personally I have no problem with having a few Wolves around as long as I don’t have to compete with them for something to eat. I don’t raise stock so thats not an issue, if I did I would obviously be looking out for my stock.

The thing that I have problems with is the bureaucracy and more importantly the money that could be going to use somewhere else. Wolves are beautiful animals, they invoke images of the wild, the consummate roaming predator and barometer for the quality of the landscape they inhabit but…

Look at some of the figures put together by Wolf researcher L. David Mech for the Wolf program in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. This doesn’t even include the cost of reintroduction, this is just maintenance. It’s safe to assume that the cost of putting them back in the greater Northern Rockies ecosystem will cost at least the same. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted that wolf recovery will cost at least $12 million, but that figure may be low, and it certainly does not reflect the costs of full wolf recovery in the West. Nevertheless, this still comes to $40,000 per wolf and is an enormous expense for a species that is not biologically endangered.” (Source) And finally from the same source- “Montana biologist Dr. Charles Jonkel (1987) has raised an interesting question regarding wolves. He has wondered if the money and political capital being spent to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho might not be better spent on preserving wolves and wolf habitat in other parts of North America. How much time and money will be spent to put 100 or so wolves in Yellowstone? Dr. Jonkel has suggested that those same efforts, if redirected, could perhaps save thousands of wolves in other areas—places where wolves presently exist, but where development threatens their continued survival.”

Or, spend it on conservation easements, clean up a few rivers, build some new schools, fix infrastructure, find alternative energy sources, the list goes on and on. The Wolves in Canada, Alaska, hell the upper peninsula in Michigan are doing fine.  In case no one has noticed, the large herds of wild animals, namely Bison, and the prairie wilderness they inhabited in the lower 48 states have been gone for over a hundred years. Today, wild animals and the wilderness exist as little islands in the lower 48. What’s left over is a hodge podge of humanized landscape. What the hell is a healthy Wolf pack supposed to do, stay outside the fence and eat gophers?

Now, I’m wishing I’d become a Wolf biologist, or a government trapper because I could have a decent paying job with benefits and run around chasing wolves for the rest of my life. Or, a lawyer, which side I’m on doesn’t really matter, either way I could make an obscene amount of money and buy a nice ranch (Wolf free of course) in Jackson or Bozeman and hang out with Ted Turner or Dick Cheney (watch that muzzle, Dick).

If I was a rancher I think I would just start raising Wolves because apparently they are worth more than cows. The governments subsidizing the reintroduction, maybe once the “market” is flooded with Wolves they will pay me not to raise them?