[Alaska444]

Things will be just fine once we have their population under control. 150 won't be too soon.

As far as bias, someone that has lived their entire life ranching should be respected. He has no reason for bias, just giving his experience as a rancher since he was a kid on his father's ranch that he later took over. The native Idaho wolf was about half the size of the Mackenzie Valley wolf and in its greatly reduced numbers, did not pose a threat to his live stock. In addition, because they were shot on sight for so many years, they avoided man.

Not so with this huge animal animal that the Feds have placed in Idaho.

As far as the graphs and other things, most of those come from the F&G data sources as well as the wolf re-introduction committees. If you look at the map of the breeding packs as well as the graphs of the population increases, you can see that Idaho has been hit the hardest of the three states: WY, MT, ID. This information came from the F&G folks and is also seconded by the wolf reintroduction folks. Idaho spent a couple of million last year looking at the elk and wolf numbers. Is that information biased as well?

If folks are going to call information biased, I guess we couldn't even describe the differences between a great dane and a chiwawa without someone making that same statement of bias. To show bias, you have to prove it. Simply stating that a source is biased is not enough. If I described my high school neighbors great dane Merle who used to look eye ball to eye ball with me because he was so huge, is that a biased statement? No that is an observation that he was so big I looked directly into his eyes. (I am 5'7" tall). That is an objective observation of how big that Merle was in relation to me. You should have seen the beast when he stood on his hind legs!!

So why would a man that has actually spent quite a few summers camping, hunting and fishing in the Mackenzie valley in Canada where he saw wolves, bear, mountain lion and likewise spent the rest of his life literally out in the woods ranching, farming and logging. He likewise came across the native Idaho wolf on several occasions and had opportunity to observe this creature and its habits in Idaho. In fact, he was seeing it more frequently prior to the wolf reintroduction.

That my friend is an experienced observation. It is not a biased view as DNS states. He has no axe to grind, he no longer ranches or logs. In times past, we used seek out these sort of folks as guides because they knew the land and the animals in the land. But now, because DNS states that this man is biased and he has never met him, never spoken with him and knows nothing of his experiences. That has another name, defamation of character. The burden of proof is on DNS to show the bias.

So, if folks are going to accuse him of bias, that is an allegation that must be proven. On the other hand, if his opinions and experiences are consistent with other observers, then his information is important and relevant.