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Today, 04:04 AM #6
FrankenMauser
Senior Member
Join Date: August 25, 2008
Location: Mormonville
Posts: 4,407
Washington state includes some of the wolves' historic habitat. Calling them an invasive species is incorrect.
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Nothing wrong with promoting the health and welfare of nature, but what irks me is that they are not telling the true story of the "wolf disaster" here in Idaho and why hunting has to be done to keep them from decimating the other large game animals. Oh well, you can't promote your version of events by telling the truth!!
The proper term would be "human disaster". The only reason the big game animals are having such a hard time, is because humans have taken over all of their prime habitat and pushed them into the mountains. Elk and Deer are plains game, not mountain dwellers. They barely scrape by with that kind of existence. So, adding such a fantastic pack-hunting predator to the mix upsets the already unnatural and precarious "balance". Your blame is ill-placed.
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-Long Winded Voice of Reason..... or something...
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Dear Frankenmauser, interestingly, Idaho is nearly 1/3 plains and according to your theory, that is where the elk should be flourishing the most. However, the plains counties in Idaho are the ones that have the worst elk depredation from wolves with severely restricted elk hunting due solely to the wolf populations in those areas. In the past, they were the areas with the greatest elk populations prior to the wolf "reintroduction program."
In addition, elk have thrived in the mountain regions of Idaho, so not sure where you are getting your speculations about elk and where they do and don't thrive.
We don't need to look only at the wolf experiment in the US, most of the literature and research on the effects of wolves has come from Finland, Russia and Sweden where native human populations suffered high levels of hydatid disease that was only controlled by a wolf eradication program in the 1970's.
I first learned about hydatid disease in medical school. In Alaska, most cases occurred from dogs as the native host for this parasite. Today, hydatid disease is endemic in the wolf population with over 2/3rds of wolves tested in Idaho infected with this same disease that causes human misery as well.
http://westinstenv.org/wildpeop/2010...ase-tapeworms/
Please take some time to learn of all of the issues involved in these invasive wolf subspecies that belongs on the tundra, not in the Rockies. Your statement simply reflect the prevailing propaganda I mentioned in the above TV show. If we are going to discuss the wolf as US population, lets deal in facts, not fiction.