I dont understand the hostility towards wolf reintroduction in Colorado

[ssimo]

You should see what wolves did here in the northern italian hillside. Last wednesday i was hunting roes, i took one eventually but the story about the first one i stalked that morning is a funny one. After a relatively long walk to get downwind, i crawled for more than 80 meters in the muddy and freezed grass to get to a shooting position, at 170 meters from the animal. I lean the rifle on the backpack and i take the safety off, great sight picture, finger on the trigger. She was done. Suddenly she looked left and started running like if she saw the devil. A fee seconds later a huge lone wolf went out from the woods close to me and started running after the roe.

Last saturday i killed a big fallow deer and i went back to the car to put down the rifle and the backpack before starting moving the beast to my car (in Italy when selective hunting we can only gut the animal but we can't cut it into pieces before taking it to the control center). As i walked back to the dead animal, there were some wolves trying to steal it to me. A warning shot and they ran away but they are too much now. On that same day, while hunting, i saw at least 4 (and probably a 5th one) deer bodies eaten by wolves.

I preferred when the number of wolves was reasonable.

 

[DESERT ED]

You should see what wolves did here in the northern italian hillside. Last wednesday i was hunting roes, i took one eventually but the story about the first one i stalked that morning is a funny one. After a relatively long walk to get downwind, i crawled for more than 80 meters in the muddy and freezed grass to get to a shooting position, at 170 meters from the animal. I lean the rifle on the backpack and i take the safety off, great sight picture, finger on the trigger. She was done. Suddenly she looked left and started running like if she saw the devil. A fee seconds later a huge lone wolf went out from the woods close to me and started running after the roe.

Last saturday i killed a big fallow deer and i went back to the car to put down the rifle and the backpack before starting moving the beast to my car (in Italy when selective hunting we can only gut the animal but we can't cut it into pieces before taking it to the control center). As i walked back to the dead animal, there were some wolves trying to steal it to me. A warning shot and they ran away but they are too much now. On that same day, while hunting, i saw at least 4 (and probably a 5th one) deer bodies eaten by wolves.

I preferred when the number of wolves was reasonable.

Whoa! I figured most predators were eradicated in Europe with the exception of the northern parts like Finland.
Learn something new everyday.

 

[KHNC]

You should see what wolves did here in the northern italian hillside. Last wednesday i was hunting roes, i took one eventually but the story about the first one i stalked that morning is a funny one. After a relatively long walk to get downwind, i crawled for more than 80 meters in the muddy and freezed grass to get to a shooting position, at 170 meters from the animal. I lean the rifle on the backpack and i take the safety off, great sight picture, finger on the trigger. She was done. Suddenly she looked left and started running like if she saw the devil. A fee seconds later a huge lone wolf went out from the woods close to me and started running after the roe.

Last saturday i killed a big fallow deer and i went back to the car to put down the rifle and the backpack before starting moving the beast to my car (in Italy when selective hunting we can only gut the animal but we can't cut it into pieces before taking it to the control center). As i walked back to the dead animal, there were some wolves trying to steal it to me. A warning shot and they ran away but they are too much now. On that same day, while hunting, i saw at least 4 (and probably a 5th one) deer bodies eaten by wolves.

I preferred when the number of wolves was reasonable.

Are you not allowed to kill wolves?

 

[KHNC]

The situation seems to me very similar to helping move an angry ex wife back in after all the time, money and effort expended to have finally gotten rid of her.

Damn, this hits home. No Fn way i would let her move back. Took almost a year to get her out and 4 more years to finally end the divorce proceedings!!!

 

[johnnycake]

Whoa! I figured most predators were eradicated in Europe with the exception of the northern parts like Finland.
Learn something new everyday.

Current estimates are that there are +20,000 grey wolves in Western Europe. There are also +200M people. All in an area roughly the size of the Mountain West and PNW (which has a population of ~25M). Despite having ~10x the wolves as the Western US, there are still huntable populations of big game in Western Europe. Are numbers of big game down in Western Europe since the 1960-70s when wolf numbers were ~1,000? Probably. But big game hunting there hasn't been eliminated, despite there being no hunting or trapping for wolves. Ssimo has even posted that he usually finds success on day hunts, with other hunters taking 5-6 days per kill.

 

[ssimo]

Whoa! I figured most predators were eradicated in Europe with the exception of the northern parts like Finland.
Learn something new everyday.

We have wolves (lupo appenninico, the italian subspecies), a LOT of them, and brown bears. Even some lynxes are coming back, I have seen one once

 

[ssimo]

Current estimates are that there are +20,000 grey wolves in Western Europe. There are also +200M people. All in an area roughly the size of the Mountain West and PNW (which has a population of ~25M). Despite having ~10x the wolves as the Western US, there are still huntable populations of big game in Western Europe. Are numbers of big game down in Western Europe since the 1960-70s when wolf numbers were ~1,000? Probably. But big game hunting there hasn't been eliminated, despite there being no hunting or trapping for wolves. Ssimo has even posted that he usually finds success on day hunts, with other hunters taking 5-6 days per kill.

Some other hunters don't do very well, most of them actually. They are lazy and often shoot from the car. Some of us have good success, mainly who stalks deer in the wilderness. We can take more than 30 animals per year between roes, fallow deer, boars, chamois etc

 

[ssimo]

Are you not allowed to kill wolves?

For now no. Soon a law should allow us!

 

[justin davis]

I didn’t read the 400 posts so forgive me
If this Has been Stated. But the issue I have with this whole thing. Is CPW was against it. They did not want the wolves. They got a gag order from the Governor to keep their mouth shut and not give their opinions.

The reunites then decided by the public (who doesn’t know squat.)

If the biologist and game Wardens came out and said he we need Wolves. Wolves are
Gonna make the moose and elk herds so
Much better etc etc.

I could get on board. But when the agenda is pushed by the Governor and
His anti hunting husband Im
Against it.

Very similar to the public voting to ban spring bear bait hunts. Now Colorado has an over population of black bears and hundreds are
Killed by CPW and wasted because the general public thought it was a good idea and have no clue.

 

[johnnycake]

Some other hunters don't do very well, most of them actually. They are lazy and often shoot from the car. Some of us have good success, mainly who stalks deer in the wilderness. We can take more than 30 animals per year between roes, fallow deer, boars, chamois etc

That's awesome! That's a level of hunting opportunity most US hunters just don't have available to them. And you manage to still have it despite a large and growing wolf population!

 

[ssimo]

That's awesome! That's a level of hunting opportunity most US hunters just don't have available to them. And you manage to still have it despite a large and growing wolf population!

I am talking about public land.. people without the need to work regularly and people with a lot of money pay for hunting reserves and they can get many more animals, hundreds. Going to the reserve for me is not real hunting though, i don't like it

 

[johnnycake]

Some guys who don't need to work ot hunt

I am talking about public land.. people without the need to work regularly and people with a lot of money pay for hunting reserves and they can get many more animals, hundreds. Going to the reserve for me is not real hunting though, i don't like it

That's fantastic!

 

[35WhelenAI]

If I missed this, my apologies. Colorado's population growth has been through the roof in the last 20 years. Mountain communities build more and more and cut off access to areas for elk, elk don't effing like people. This is not like mule deer that adapt very well, to more urban settings. Ergo, elk numbers dwindle and range shrinks. Makes them sitting ducks for wolves as the population trend continues.

With that, where the wolves were released, there's a good chance some of those wolves will end up in Rocky Mountain national park, probably right now as I'm writing this. If I was a wolf, that's where I'd go. No hunting and plentiful game. Wait til a family tourist car is driving through the park. Watching a wolf chase down and kill a calf elk or calf moose in front of their children. You'll see it on YouTube, I promise.

 

[100percent]

Damn!

 

[CoMulies]

I didn’t read the 400 posts so forgive me
If this Has been Stated. But the issue I have with this whole thing. Is CPW was against it. They did not want the wolves. They got a gag order from the Governor to keep their mouth shut and not give their opinions.

The reunites then decided by the public (who doesn’t know squat.)

If the biologist and game Wardens came out and said he we need Wolves. Wolves are
Gonna make the moose and elk herds so
Much better etc etc.

I could get on board. But when the agenda is pushed by the Governor and
His anti hunting husband Im
Against it.

Very similar to the public voting to ban spring bear bait hunts. Now Colorado has an over population of black bears and hundreds are
Killed by CPW and wasted because the general public thought it was a good idea and have no clue.

You nailed it here. CPW had years to reintroduce wolves if they so chose, but declined to do so. If the wildlife biologists had said wolves would be beneficial, fine, I can live with that. Instead, we got some ballot box bullshit that passed by the skin of its teeth (50.9% in favor), largely voted for by city dwellers who won’t suffer the consequences.

Something that’s struck me as funny is the anti hunting crowd keeps saying that ungulate populations are overblown and wolves will cull the weak, reduce disease, strengthen the herd etc etc. yet at the same time, will not greatly diminish game numbers… in my eyes, you’re essentially then admitting that additional wildlife management I.e hunters are necessary to manage wildlife populations effectively.

 

[ModernOutlaw]

Plain and simple reintroducing an apex predator and not implementing any management practices off the rip is a terrible idea. Elk numbers are already down and an unmanaged wolf population is only going to put the nail in the coffin.

 

[Ross]

Hostility to wolves, yes indeed they do this24/7 365. IF managed then ok, but that is not how it works with them and they simply kill and hunt what is in their path. The entire wolf agenda has been a joke and the only good one is a dead one. They will create dead zones given enough time.

 

[35WhelenAI]

Plain and simple reintroducing an apex predator and not implementing any management practices off the rip is a terrible idea. Elk numbers are already down and an unmanaged wolf population is only going to put the nail in the coffin.

The watershed areas they have already been reported in extend up into the Routt County and north of Steamboat Springs. That is the area that had the tremendous winter kill two years ago, elk are decimated based on my hunt there last fall. Not that they have been seen that far north, but the watersheds they have been seen in extend to those areas.

 

[Tmcgarrigle]

The short of it is because we have seen this play out the same way in every western state. It is either voted in by people who are out of touch with the real impacts or it is forced down the states throats. Then the wolf populations recover and meet and/or exceed recovery objectives, we start to have more conflicts with livestock, there is a huntable population and the environmental groups step in and file lawsuits to try and stop it all even though populations were recovered. Now you have a battle that takes taxpayer dollars and even more time meanwhile populations are just growing more and some ungulate populations suffer as a result of it. And it was hard enough to hunt them in red western states nevermind Colorado where their governor, his husband, and the people of Boulder and Denver have their heads so far up their asses, they can't see which way the sun sets. I guarantee moose, deer, and elk populations in Colorado will suffer as a result of this.

There wouldn't be so much opposition to it if we could actually get some fair management of them but we see right through the BS in Colorado and it won't happen.

 

[bayoublaster7527]

The short of it is because we have seen this play out the same way in every western state. It is either voted in by people who are out of touch with the real impacts or it is forced down the states throats. Then the wolf populations recover and meet and or exceed recovery objectives, we start to have more conflicts with livestock, there is a huntable population and the environmental groups step in and file lawsuits to try and stop it all even though populations were recovered. Now you have a battle that takes taxpayer dollars and even more time meanwhile populations are just growing more and some ungulate populations suffer as a result of it. And it was hard enough to hunt them in red western states nevermind Colorado where their governor, his husband, and the people of Boulder and Denver have their heads so far up their asses, they can't see which way the sun sets. I guarantee moose populations in Colorado will suffer and so will deer and elk.

There wouldn't be so much opposition to it if we could actually get some fair management of them but we see right through the BS in Colorado and it won't happen.

This x1000. I think most folks aren’t necessarily anti-wolf they are just extremely concerned with the lack of management. Much of this is caused by anti-hunting, “conservation” groups who will launch never ending lawsuits to prevent state wildlife agencies from ever properly managing wolves. They don’t care if the wolves eat every single deer, elk and moose, as long as no one kills a wolf. We are seeing this already in Colorado as CPW is hesitant to lethally remove or allow ranchers to lethally remove depredating wolves either because of pressure from the Governor’s office and/or fear of endless litigation from “conservation” organizations.