Again Buzz likes to provide only some of the facts...with spin. In comparing areas of Montana by habitat, and in Idaho for that matter, the large wilderness areas with essentially little hunting pressure - in other words hunters aren't making a dent in the elk, deer, wolves or lions, the time since wolves have been on the playing field is relatively short and the damage relatively large. Look at the elk population in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Frank Church Wilderness and on and on. Almost nothing left - most outfitters out of business or really low success rates compared to pre-wolf.
Take the west out of the picture and look at northern Minnesota with essentially just wolves and whitetails - no cats or grizz - there are black bears. Compare today's harvest statistics with pre-wolf. In NW Montana the wolves chewed through the shiras moose and elk first as the imported wolves were already used to killing moose in Canada. The lions predominately kill deer - mostly Whitetail. If you look at the overall population of deer vs elk vs moose and the reproduction rates of each, the deer have the largest population, then elk and lastly moose. The deer population can take more predation from lions and still have a good age structure and not take as long to rebound after bad winters.
In my experience with the wolves on the landscape, when we lose a large number of deer, elk and moose from bad winters, it takes considerably longer for the population to rebound and even longer for the age structure to recover to the animals in most demand by hunters - mature animals. After all, that's why most everyone is on this website to begin with.
Buzz likes to take a study - like his dogs kill more elk than wolves study - or the lion study from the Bitteroot and then apply it everywhere which is not really how things work - his BS not mine.
https://fwp.mt.gov/conservation/wildlife-management/mountain-lion
The above link has great detail on what MTFWP is doing now as I mentioned in an earlier post on tracking and managing lions in Montana. Another spin by Buzz is on lions draw tags vs general tags that they went to in parts of NW Montana. This was to both control the length of the season - what he stated was mostly correct on the season being over in a few short days with many gmu's over quota- and with draw tags they could then limit non-resident lion hunters to less tags just like having elk quotas in the breaks for the very same reason. Montana was being overrun with out of state lion hunters with dogs from other states like Oregon, California and such because they totally shut down lion hunting. It was the lion outfitters in Montana taking advantage of the previous system as with the reporting rules, they could potentially kill a few extra lions at $3-5k a hunt and report at the very end of the required time for reporting. Again a half truth by good ole Buzz.
Buzz has a pretty good track record of using half truths and picking on groups like MTFWP or Houndsmen or Couch Hunters that don't know anything, are lazy and can't hunt. I think most people on here see Buzz for exactly what he is and represents. I'm still waiting for him to reply on how much money he made off the wolf re-introduction. Another good tactic Buzz has is to not answer questions if it's a topic he doesn't want to address.
With respect to Buzz's number on how many ungulates lions or wolves or bears kill a year - he lumps them into one large number and makes it sound like lions are doing the majority of the damage to elk when that just isn't true in NW Montana and large parts of Idaho. I guess if you're in the woods and not finding dead things you're not leaving the road or trail. When I shot my caribou in Alaska and went back to the site a couple days later, you couldn't find a single trace of a dead animal. So if you're not finding dead things that's cause the wolves eat most of the evidence. Cat's don't eat as much and most likely wolves will come along and clean up the extra or chase the cat off the kill. When they're attributing whether wolves kill AG animals for monetary reimbursement that's a common report - not enough left to determine species of predator - pretty slick little method to not pay ranchers.
Just drive down the road in NW Montana and see what you see more of - Whitetails, Elk or Moose. Having picked up thousands of antlers, I can assure you there are many times more Whitetails than elk and then again with Moose. I might find 250-300 whitetail sheds in a season, less than 50 elk sheds and maybe a 5 or less moose paddles - that was before the wolves did their damage. Now those numbers are much less in the areas I ramble. So when Buzz cites his numbers without quantifying them - just more spin.
