Montana Wolf Poaching - and so it begins...

[roknHS]

There are plenty of wolves in my favorite hunting spot.

I could care less how they are classified. It will probably not make a significant difference one way or the other in terms of overall populations. I didn't want them here in the first place, but they are and the reality is, they aren't going to "destroy" hunting.

I'm sure plenty of farmers and ranchers feel the same way about deer and elk as you do about wolves. Would it be okay for them to shoot out of season all the time?

I am a rancher Jason.
And that is precisely why I don't feel the same way about wolves as I do my deer and elk. I don't want to lose even one of my game animals to wolf predation. I willingly share my land and my crops with my game animals. I don't know of any farmer or rancher in my area that wishes wolves would kill the game animals that frequent their fields.
I think you presume to know a lot more than you do.
Here's hoping your back yard is full of all the apex predators we can send your way. You will be welcome to them.

 

[Jason Snyder]

I am a rancher Jason.
And that is precisely why I don't feel the same way about wolves as I do my deer and elk. I don't want to lose even one of my game animals to wolf predation. I willingly share my land and my crops with my game animals. I don't know of any farmer or rancher in my area that wishes wolves would kill the game animals that frequent their fields.
I think you presume to know a lot more than you do.
Here's hoping your back yard is full of all the apex predators we can send your way. You will be welcome to them.

I don't presume to know a lot more than I do, and I have no idea where you get that.

I'm glad that you share your land with deer and elk. Not all do. I know some ranchers that are fabulous stewards, and I know some that don't care one bit besides the bottom dollar. Look at what Bill Hoppe did to a bighorn sheep herd in his vendetta. Perfectly legal, but certainly not right. I could list a number of examples of ranchers shooting out of season in the name of protecting their property, but it would be pointless.

As I said, I have no need for wolves. There are plenty of apex predators where I live and where I hunt, really not sure why you didn't or chose not to comprehend that the first time I said it.

Edit: As far as classification, I doubt there is any biological reason for NOT listing wolves as a predator and allowing year round hunting. While wolves are not as adaptable as coyotes, I certainly don't think there would be any risk of extinction. Justifications for big game animal status IMO are purely socialogical and emotional.

 

[Jackelope]

Maybe you need a few more predators is your state? When you go elk/deer hunting and see more predators than game animals it might change your perspective. Wolves are not game animals, they should not be looked at that way. Unfortunately there are hunters out there that believe we still need to save the wolves. These people have not seen the decline in numbers first hand in states surrounding the park.

Believe me, he's got enough predators in his home state.

 

[Chris Sloan]

Oh the bleeding hearts make me wanna baaaaaarf!! " Not in my backyard" mentality at its finest!! Easy to shame wolf killers when your bull moose tag quota isnt cut by 80%, 25 tags prev available, now 5! Or your local elk herd ( nw yellowstone-Madison range )is down from 20,000 to just 3,000. Hope all the wolves move to your hunting area. In SW Montana, if you aint a tree huggin granola head, its Shoot Shovel and Shut Up. Ill show you the mountains were the snow once had moose elk and deer tracks, and now all you see are predator tracks.

 

[Jeff Martin]

What I find odd is the math:

$1,000 fine for killing a wolf.
$2,000 reward for the leading to an arrest for shooting one illegally.

By my math, the state of Montana will may $1,000 for every poached wolf

 

[Chris Sloan]

Lmao!!! Blast one, make your buddy turn you in...pay your fine and split $1,000? Repeat. Sounds like a Bounty to me!!!! Im sure thats what the uppers-in-charge had in mind...its just that green groups get pissy when you call it a bounty. Too bad the female didnt come from the Ruby Valley...
.

 

[Chris Sloan]

Speaking of Big Sky country, id punch a wolf lover in the guts if someone would deliver a case of Cold Smoke beers from Missoula to Kansas City on their way through

 

[Andrew12gauge]

I've said it before and I will say it again the bloodlust for wolves and disregard for laws regarding them will be our undoing. Like the kid who shot a guys malamute up in north idaho a couple weeks back thinking it was a wolf. We will never change the opinions of the wolf lovers, but somewhere in the middle lies a group who are very much neutral on this issue and every time an article about a poached wolf, or trigger happy hunter comes across the news wire a few more opinions will be soured toward hunting and hunters in general. We as hunters are already fighting an uphill battle to keep our rights the last thing we need is half of our group foaming at the mouth and spouting off with this shoot, shovel, shut up, kill em all mentality. The wolves are here and poaching them is not the answer we need to band together to mold some of the neutral minds to our side so we can at least continue with the management programs that are going on and hopefully have more tools given to us for management in the future

 

[Chris Sloan]

Fedreal govt makes giant mess, leaves no other option than for people to fix it themselves. The situation got to this point because people had faith that the wolves would be managed in balance with the ecosystem. I understand why people are taking matters into their own

 

[DWarcher]

Fedreal govt makes giant mess, leaves no other option than for people to fix it themselves. I understand why people are taking matters into their own

So you agree with what happened in Baltimore two months ago?

 

[realunlucky]

So you agree with what happened in Baltimore two months ago?

Not sure where your trying to go with this? Civil unrest founded this country. It is one way a minority group gets the majority groups attention. Do you think in either of these scenarios a letter to the congressman changes the status quo? what's the answer when your voice goes unheard? Two last things 1 in a sss the final s is the foundation of its success. 2 if you not actively working within the system for change or actively working to change how the current system works you are part of the problem

 

[Jon Boy]

Montana and Idaho now have liberal seasons and liberal bag limits for wolves. We have all the tools and seasons we need to manage the pesky things called wolves. Only an idiot would screw that up by poaching them. Get out and hunt for them. Every body bitches about wolves but nobody hunts them. Didn't see a single person out wolf hunting this winter. I also was denied access by ranchers that had wolves on their land because they wanted to shoot them themselves, the same ranchers that told me how much of a problem the wolves are..

 

[DWarcher]

It is one way a minority group gets the majority groups attention.

1. in a sss the final s is the foundation of its success.

You're contradicting yourself here, aren't you?

2 if you not actively working within the system for change or actively working to change how the current system works you are part of the problem

Hate to break it to you but SSS is not actively working within the system.

 

[DWarcher]

Montana and Idaho now have liberal seasons and liberal bag limits for wolves. We have all the tools and seasons we need to manage the pesky things called wolves. Only an idiot would screw that up by poaching them. Get out and hunt for them. Every body bitches about wolves but nobody hunts them. Didn't see a single person out wolf hunting this winter. I also was denied access by ranchers that had wolves on their land because they wanted to shoot them themselves, the same ranchers that told me how much of a problem the wolves are..

^This.

I honestly think that the majority of the SSS crowd are professional keyboard jockeys anyway...but that's just my opinion.

 

[Mike7]

So you agree with what happened in Baltimore two months ago?

That provocative question is a bit of a stretch. Is killing wolves the same as attacking other people and forcibly destroying other people's personal property & livelihood?...basically stealing a part of their lives from them that they will never get back. Both acts are illegal, and that is about where the similarities end.

Besides being illegal, I am concerned that people could kill too many wolves statewide through poisoning particularly, leading to reinstitution of federal protections and loss of state fish & wildlife management? Now if it was just a localized "near eradication" of wolves around the area I hunt in...well that would be okay.

 

[mtluckydan]

Speaking of keyboard jockeys - I think if you really look at the areas that have been impacted by wolves and speak to hunters and ranchers specifically in those areas, the love hate relationship with wolves would be better illustrated. With a state as large as Montana, just the posts in this forum are drastically different with respect to wolves. Elk herds in eastern Montana in the breaks haven't been impacted at all by wolves. I am guessing the herds in the Belts and Little Belts haven't had a noticeable decline from wolves. The herds around Yellowstone, in Southwest Montana, Northwest Montana and places like the Bob Marshal have been impacted, in some cases, severely. I spend a great deal of time in the woods and you rarely see wolves in a situation where you could shoot them. Mostly, you see them crossing roads and you see what is left of what they kill. I guess if you visit Montana on a short hunt or don't know what the hunting was like before wolves, you would think Montana hunting hasn't been impacted because most non-residents that come here live in places with sucky hunting. I can say that prior to the rise of the wolf population, I would see 3-5 whitetail bucks a day in NW Montana and about 50+ bucks during my vacation in the rut. The last five to seven years that number has dropped to 10-15. I used to pick up 250 to 350 sheds a season. The last few years that has dropped to less than 50. I could always count on going out and finding elk in the areas I hunt. Now that is not true including areas in south west montana that were superb hunting areas. I spent the entire summer scouting for moose in NW Montana when I drew a moose tag. I never saw a live moose the entire time. I did find two fresh kills of cow moose during the summer that the wolves had taken down. I saw two wolves still working on one of the kills. I wouldn't be surprised if the moose hunting in Montana is shut down in the next ten years because of the population decline. With respect to winning over non-hunters - we can't even get avid hunters to agree. That will never happen. Who cares what the anti-hunters think. I wouldn't spend one second worrying about what they think or want. It comes down to doing what is right for the animals that were painstakingly returned from the brink of being wiped out. Part of that strategy was killing wolves and it worked. One other person mentioned the decline in tags as a result of the depredation. It goes beyond elk and deer. I know of several local small herds of big horn sheep that have been wiped out by wolf packs including one herd on the Flathead Indian Reservation and one on the south side of Glacier National Park. As I said in an earlier post, we haven't found any wolves that starved to death yet.

 

[SDC]

Not sure where your trying to go with this? Civil unrest founded this country. It is one way a minority group gets the majority groups attention. Do you think in either of these scenarios a letter to the congressman changes the status quo? what's the answer when your voice goes unheard? Two last things 1 in a sss the final s is the foundation of its success. 2 if you not actively working within the system for change or actively working to change how the current system works you are part of the problem

How many of y'all have ever lived in Baltimore? My guess: damned few.

Ain't even apples-to-oranges comparions; more like apples-to-hand grenades.

 

[brewer427]

Get out and hunt for them. Every body bitches about wolves but nobody hunts them. Didn't see a single person out wolf hunting this winter.

The only problem with this is that the majority of hunters will not spend time and money to go after them with such low odds. I completely agree this would help if there would be the same amount of hunters in the woods as there is during general rifle and archery seasons, but that will never happen. Even if a bounty was put on them I don't think you would have enough people hunting them to make a difference.

 

[SDC]

The only problem with this is that the majority of hunters will not spend time and money to go after them with such low odds. I completely agree this would help if there would be the same amount of hunters in the woods as there is during general rifle and archery seasons, but that will never happen. Even if a bounty was put on them I don't think you would have enough people hunting them to make a difference.

Kind of like voting; if you don't, then don't bitch.

 

[realunlucky]

I'm on my phone in Nevada so difficult to clarify. I was trying to make three separate points.