Disgusting!!!!!

[Shrek]

There is a place with no apex predators other than humans. New Zealand , a hunters paradise. Yes , there are problems from time to time but the game hasn't all died of disease or overpopulation or any other reason and the hunting is fantastic from what I hear. Given the monetary means I would love to experience the wasteland of the predator free island. I'm sure it wouldn't interest those of you who enjoy the lions and wolves but to me it sounds like my kind of hunting.

 

[flatfoot]

It seems to me that the future of hunting can only be based on the principle of conservation. Ducks Unlimited and other groups have seen hunting opportunities grow and become more accepted when the basis of hunting is to preserve species. To argue that we should wipe out any species predators or otherwise is antithetical to this premise.

If your reasoning for hunting is simply to put food on the table; then hunting will indeed go the way of the dodo bird as efficiency concerns regarding the feeding of the human population will prevail. Put more simply; if the main concern is to save humankind, then with our ever expanding population the only way to feed everyone is to employ efficient techniques such as farming. Hunting is not efficient because it requires huge amounts of valuable land for the benefit of a few.

 

[Jager]

The op, yes disgusting. 1080 or any other poison, is no different to wounding an animal, it is downright cruel, it is out of sight out of mind though, but downright cruel.

On the digression, well, my thoughts and experiences follow...

Australia has no apex predators apart from hunters, dingoes, yeah, they are a wild canine, but nothing hugely efficient at killing ungulates, apart from new borns.

We have no seasons for our deer species apart from the little Hog Deer, and Sambar, Red, Chital, Rusa and Fallow are taken by hunters everyday of the year, we are not even coming close to getting their numbers in check, not even close. There is a season for hound hunting of Sambar in the high country and these crews knock over huge numbers of deer every year, and yet, as hunters, we are always discussing ways of lowering populations before governments do, read gunships.

Shrek, don't think for one minute NZ is all beer and skittles. New Zealand has huge over populations of wild game, there are gunships everywhere shooting anything and everything to get animal numbers under control. There is a live meat market that is very selective, in the fact that those operators will target the biggest animals (Read Stags, Bulls) to get the most bang for their buck, pun intended. Imagine stalking all day long up into the tops to nail a big bull Tahr or Red stag, and all off a sudden a gunship flies over head and cracks the very animal you have been climbing all day for, happens all the time. Why does this happen? The populations out of control here and in NZ, because there are no efficient wild predators, so governments take it into their hands.

Efficient predators generally target the sick, injured and young out of pure instinct, they will not risk injury to life and limb if they don't have too.

Know, wild pigs. Australia has the greatest feral porker population in the world and hunting them is a huge sport, 365 days of the year, day and night. We have a very large export market here for wild boar meat, are they under any kind of manageable numbers? No, and they never will be. Once a population of pigs is entrenched, you can try every method known to man, you will never eradicate them. Millions upon millions is spent each year trying to do so, from shooting, trapping, dogging, poisoning to scientists working on all sorts of new ideas, you won't get rid of them.

I find it very hard to believe Mountain Lions cannot open a pig up, hunting dogs do it quiet easily. Wild pigs in their native environments are a favourite of the larger cats in those areas. Same same with Warthogs, Lions love them.

Food for thought.

All right, I will bite on this issue.

The North American Model of wildlife management was built upon the idea that Humans are now the prime apex predator and with our ability to reason and think, we manage populations of all game based on carrying capacity. I say this knowing that the state level, and federal political machines often dictate game numbers and programs, but the intent is for all animals to survive in healthy populations.

These guys should have the book thrown at them if proven guilty. I can't stand it if I don't kill an animal on the first shot, and couldn't imagine doing this. Wrong, plain and simple.

However, just because an animal feeds on the same animals we prefer to hunt does not make it any less of an animal that we are obligated to manage in a healthy population. Poison was banned because it was killing a lot more than just wolves, it was killing Eagles and other birds of prey. Do we kill off all the birds we love to see in the wilderness areas in order to serve one species, namely ourselves?

Honestly, the wolves were the losers in the predator war. I doubt they wanted to be moved here, but we get all tict off when they behave like wolves but didn't put up a fight in the 90's when they were introduced. If we accept the fact that they are here now and do our part to manage their populations through hunting we will be in a much better state in the long run. But I have a hard time blaming them for all of the decreases in elk populations when there are surplus cow tags in regions that have previously had carrying capacities of 19K drawn down to 4k. Those populations were cut by Montana's state legislature to reduce elk interaction with cattle, could we be fighting the wrong fight?

Very well written Scott.

 

[justin davis]

Wishing to remove all predators is ridiculous. Predators are important to the ecosystem. I enjoy hunting predators and think hunting them and managing numbers is important. But to remove all or as many as possible is crazy talk!

This happened early on in Arizona I believe as we tried to eliminate lions, and coyotes, and bears. In hopes of providing more game animals to hunt. The end result was a larger deer herd which then in turn got diseases, had less forage from all the deer competition and eventually started to die off. The result was opposite of what the hunters had hoped. They soon figured out predators were actually a vital part of the ecosystem.

 

[Lukem]

We "managed" most everything nearly to extinction in the 19th century, why couldn't we do it again? We did a lot of it with a lead ball and patch. IMO the question is not whether or not we could do it, but whether to do it is right? Who are we that we think we're so important to take that from our children?

From the reference in my post last night, not a super long read:

Thinking Like a Mountain
By Aldo Leopold

A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world. Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet. Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land. It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night, or who scan their tracks by day. Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events: the midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces. Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them.

My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.

We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

You realize they are not the only migratory gamebird that inhabit the breeding grounds? We could not exterminate then without harming other species. Which inturn defeats the entire purpose does it not?

Perhaps I'm not making my point clear. Basically saying that just because a unlimited hunting season has opened up on a particular species does not mean that we as humans have done everything we can to either manage or even eradicate a species. It's really barely even the start.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am not advocating complete management or eradication of anything, merely stating that we have not tried to do so yet.

 

[tipsntails7]

Perhaps I'm not making my point clear. Basically saying that just because a unlimited hunting season has opened up on a particular species does not mean that we as humans have done everything we can to either manage or even eradicate a species. It's really barely even the start.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am not advocating complete management or eradication of anything, merely stating that we have not tried to do so yet.

Understood now

 

[tipsntails7]

Lions will not target pigs, that's like a lion targeting a wolf. You can kill a pig and unless you open it up buzzards or yotes wont touch it becuase the hides to thick ...Immense pressure like helo hunts? Trapping, night vision and thermal gear and year round harvest? Yes I do all the above. Including my neighbors. We now manage hogs like government trappers did the wolf. Difference being the offspring pool size. I actually have cats on my property probably a good six months out of the year. They come and go, but never the less they are around.

Managing my carrying capacity and deer will always be different then elk and mulies. White tails don't migrate, and have small home ranges.

All I'm saying is if there's an over population issue you simply manage with tag numbers, wether it being OTC tags, landowner tags, etc. Snows and hogs have a tremendous amount of off spring compared to deer and elk.

Snow issue has always been a delicate one, since their breeding grounds are co-inhabited by others species.

Ok ill do the best I can to explain this since you don't get it. Again MORE TAGS would NOT solve the problem. I know guys who punch 2 deer tags every year for as long as I've known them, and I know a lot more guys with a stack of unpunched elk tags. Issueing more tags means jack. You still have to go out and hunt them, you can't drive down to a bean field and sit in a stand for elk to come into your farmland. Doesn't work like that,You can hike miles and not See a wiff of elk. It takes ALOT o effort to harvest an elk. Like I state previously, you can hand out as many elk tags as you want people still have to fill them, they also have to have the time and money and resolve in which to do so.

 

[Broz]

First let me say in no uncertain terms the described take and torture of those cats was wrong. And wrong in many ways. Period.

But from a guy that lives right in wolf, cat and bear country, and doesn't have to travel far to find a griz. Make no mistake. It is men that are making the decisions on how these predators are "managed" The country is not what it was in the 1800's or even early 1900's. There are too many people for what some think is "the correct way" to do things. Trust me when I tell you the reason we "needed" wolves, is all about money. If you like wolves you simply have not been around them enough. People that live in the woods, foothills, or in close proximity to these predators get a first hand look at what they are really like. A 150 pound cat was in my yard a while back, walked within 2 feet of two different doors. Glad my pup was inside. I am fine with that, cats were here first. But I have seen what they do to the deer population, elk, even spike bulls and how many are really here. About any day you want to see a cat, or wolf kill I can find one. Guys if you want to hunt, these predators need thinned. Trust me when I say I have seen the deer and elk numbers dropping in a big way. These predators need thinned and thinned fast. This is not the 1800's , there was a reason our forefathers killed every predator they saw, and they spent more time in the hills than we do. They had to, it was their life. The predator numbers today are big, the area for them to populate is small. When they kill off all the game, live stock will be next and we are seeing that now. After that, a walk in the hills may not be so fun. Sleeping in the mountains in a tent, mmmmm maybe not. Leaving children in the yard or the family pets will be considered risky. have you noticed the increase in attacks on humans. If not you will. Make no mistake, checks and balances are controlled by money. That will not work. I won't even get started into a discussion about wolves. But have no problem stating, we don't even need one.

Oh, that cat that was in my yard. We killed it that morning. He was old and starting to fail. He was here in the foothills looking for easier prey. He had to if he wanted to survive. But he made a poor life decision when he came to my door. I put my family and dog first. You might wonder why anyone would want to live where I do. Yes, it is a choice. We feel it is safer than in the cities. Maybe if more predators were shot there it would not be that way. Its a choice, more predators? Then, less people.

Just my opinion.

Jeff

PS: I kill every stinking rattle snake I see too. About a dozen a year. Maybe I am just a bad person? But one thing for sure. My opinions are draw from first hand experience. Not what I was told, read, or was put in some multi million dollar study conducted by citylivers.

 

[Shrek]

Tipsntails7 , if longer seasons and more tags don't work then how did Colorado just reduce its herd in the flattops ? I'm sure it wasn't all those cow tags that brought the herd to management goals because according to you all the tags in the world will not make a difference.
As to the Leopold rant , he lived in a time of no game management. Yes we were exterminating the predators but we had not yet started to truly manage the resulting herds. We now have the knowledge and tools to do the job just fine without lions , wolves , and grizzlies. The people are all enamored with apex predators are almost universally those who live in cities and just visit the wilderness. There are exceptions but most everyone I meet who actually lives around these animals wants them gone.

 

[Andy Dana]

I am glad "Thinking like a mountain" was posted....it is somthin you can meditate on for years. Where I live the wolves never were eradicated and we have a good cougar population as well the deer hunting usually is great....for whatever reason wolves have become more dominant the last half dozen or so years and bioligists are scrambling to explain why for they sure appear to be a lot harder on our herds then in past years.....it looks like a thinning, and with wolves the thinning has to be drastic, probably is in order or the dogs eat themselves out of house and home and nature does it ......I don't think government has the political will or support for a cull so we are going to see nature in this very unnatural world self correct. I don't know how it will play out cannot even imagine but I doubt it will be as bad or as good a deal as both sides imagine......

 

[Shrek]

Jager , cats do eat pigs but most of texas has well managed deer herds at very high levels so cats eat their preferred food deer mostly. We don't officially have cats in and around the okefenokee swamp so someone I know didn't officially kill two cats that were killing his pigs in the pen behind his house. Cats will definitely eat pigs when they get hungry.

 

[Shrek]

Jager , a question for you. If the game populations are so out of wack in Australia and New Zealand then why not import the predators like wolves and lions ? I'm sure some place like Texas would hook them up with some cougars and Canada would come off a few wolves to get them started. It would bring eeverything back into balance and it would be great and everyone would filled with joy . Right ?

 

[tipsntails7]

Tipsntails7 , if longer seasons and more tags don't work then how did Colorado just reduce its herd in the flattops ? I'm sure it wasn't all those cow tags that brought the herd to management goals because according to you all the tags in the world will not make a difference.
As to the Leopold rant , he lived in a time of no game management. Yes we were exterminating the predators but we had not yet started to truly manage the resulting herds. We now have the knowledge and tools to do the job just fine without lions , wolves , and grizzlies. The people are all enamored with apex predators are almost universally those who live in cities and just visit the wilderness. There are exceptions but most everyone I meet who actually lives around these animals wants them gone.

The people you meet are most likely financially driven to this view point, correct me if I'm wrong, what if cattle men started shooting elk because they were clearing grazing land that they wanted for cows, then would that be ok? I have no problem with people wanting to protect their property, but stop getting pissed because predators are what they are. We hunt and animal rights activists don't want us to and go through great lengths to try to keep us from hunting, it's what we do, we are predators. And yet you have the same opinion about predators as they do, the hope that one day all will be gone. And from my experience more tags doesn't mean more animals on the ground, certain areas like the one you described this may be an effective strategy. Oregon had a massive black bear problem in the 90's in the MT. hood area, more tags were given, the bear population kept growing, finally they opened it up to baiting. California is going to have the same problem.

 

[tipsntails7]

Shrek if you can't see the beauty of apex predators then no matter what I say your opinion will not change. I live in a place where lions and bears are a regular occurrence and would never want them to vanish, I also lived in Hawaii where there are none, you may hate them for whatever your reasons are, but from experience you would miss them, I know I did.

 

[LostInSpace278]

Why not play the 5 Why's game? Before we get started. I add the disclaimer: I am not taking sides, just offering a few thoughts outside of what has been debated.


Q1)Why is it Colorado can not sustain higher levels of animals?
Q2)Why can we not regulate the population with a tag season and more/longer seasons? (This applies to any state as well
Now play the 5 why's

A1) Not enough open/grass lands...Why do we not have enough open/grassland? Too many trees, to many houses..You can keep going if you wish.

Any one see where this is going?

A2) I will not go through the 5 why's, I will leave that up to the reader.

I will only offer my opinion. I may be the minority here, but forest fires and floods are not bad for the land or the creatures that inhabit the land. It is bad for people and houses. The natives set fires all of the time. Sometimes it was to chase game out, sometimes it was to clear land. Why did they set fires to clear the land? They understood the relationship between the wildlife they hunted and land.

For the second question...most people in the U.S. do not eat venison. They buy meat at the stores, they do not want to hunt their own food. This is the largest factor as to why more tags and longer seasons do not work. You have the same amount of people hunting more animals and with longer seasons, but it is not enough to make as large of impact.

From what I see, apples are being compared to oranges. We can not talk about what happened in the past, with out talking about the changes in human nature/habits since or how this has impacted game populations.

 

[Jager]

Jager , cats do eat pigs but most of texas has well managed deer herds at very high levels so cats eat their preferred food deer mostly. We don't officially have cats in and around the okefenokee swamp so someone I know didn't officially kill two cats that were killing his pigs in the pen behind his house. Cats will definitely eat pigs when they get hungry.

Interesting Shrek, are the cats taking penned deer? I suspect lions would find it much easier hunting pork than venison in the wild.

on the import issue, I suspect a man of you experience already knows the answer to that one.

 

[Shrek]

Jager , contrary to popular belief most of Texas isn't in high fence and a cougar would have little trouble scaling the areas that are fenced. I think the lions are supremely adapted to killing deer and I think the lions pass on the pork because it's not halal and therefore haraam . A lion needs to kill swiftly to ensure it's safety. I think pigs are a little harder target and pose a higher risk. Shields and tusks make killing harder and the chance for injury higher would be my guess. Millions of years of evolution has honed the lions ability to snap the thin and vulnerable neck of deer while the pigs thick neck probably doesn't break as easily and the struggle could leave the lion hurt. Just my guess.
I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why dealing with some over population issues with human management is more desirable than bringing in apex predators.

 

[Jason Snyder]

To completely eliminate any and all apex predators (and predators in general since you don't like bobcats either) would be to completely abandon one of the principles of the North American model of wildlife management/conservation. There is no scientific basis to support it, and it would completely alter the ecosystems.

I am not trying to change your mind, but if someone is on the fence on this one they may want to consider that.

 

[brushape]

give him a break hes from florida