A couple minute video, a little over the top or utter claptrap?

I'm not up to date on what's going on in Yellowstone, IIFC properties outside the park have not been too happy with the wolves. This video was sent by a friend, I'm sure he wants to believe but I also know his latest wife has been bending his mind pretty good.




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8nyIyPZy68&t=3s

The biggest argument I've seen against wolves in Yellowstone or anywhere is else is that they kill elk and ranchers and hunters want more elk to hunt. I've never see credible evidence that wolves have actually damaged any part of the ecosystems where they exist. Bringing elk numbers down is not necessarily a bad thing. The argument against them usually is the same old primal one that wolves kill elk and sheep, wolves bad, kill wolves.

my family ranch is about 90 miles from yellow stone. Once you have seen ripped cattle dogs that are usually on the back porch at night. You will understand there is 0 reason to have reintroduced this waste of air.

As for them taking after elk, sure they do, until they find slower cattle.

This video has been around for several years; the wolf as the Jesus Christ of the animal world.

Ecosystems are not only more complicated than you think,
They’re more complicated than you CAN think.
- Frank Edwin Egler (often attributed to former USFS Chief, Jack Ward Thomas)

I enjoyed seeing and hearing them in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. I think they should be limited to the GYE.

quote:

Originally posted by DSgrouse:
my family ranch is about 90 miles from yellow stone. Once you have seen ripped cattle dogs that are usually on the back porch at night. You will understand there is 0 reason to have reintroduced this waste of air.

As for them taking after elk, sure they do, until they find slower cattle.

Unless a person has lived there, it is hard for them to understand what it is to live with wolves around.

I'm pretty sure many defending the wolves would sing a different tune if they lived with a wolf pack in the area.

I think most dont realize how far a pack roams and how destructive and dangerous they are.

I believe it.

About 15 years or more ago I read an impressive article in the Smithsonian that documented verbatim what this video shows. Weather you believe in Creationism, or Darwinism matters not. Ecosystems are finely balanced. Removing an apex predator from that system changes everything below it in the food chain.

When you read accounts from Lewis and Clark as well as other early explorers they always describe how abundant game animals were, how lush and perfect the forests were. I understand the ranchers plight, but man definitely hoses things up and is nowhere near as good a steward of the land as nature is.

My father was a conservationist for a northeastern State for 25+ years, and worked on various reintroduction plans. The video you linked was produced sometime around 2015, meaning that 20 years of change had taken place.

Aside from a number of inaccuracies in it (beaver were never extinct), wolves changed the behavior of rivers (explain that please), and reduction in erosion (which is typically measured in multiple decades - 40, 50, 60+ years), wolves have also played a number on yearling bison, and have escaped the valley to wreak havoc on farmers livestock. It says they reduced the coyote population - yeah congrats, you replaced once predator with another that has a significantly wider range. They released 14 in the park, and they estimate there are about 100 in the park in any given season, but an estimated 600+ live outside the park in 2020. https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolves.htm

Think Jurassic Park with a T-rex. 20 years of data is still pretty short, but if the beavers keep damming up the streams and creeks, it will ultimately lead to loss of forest and a quick population die off when they overwhelm the system - then you have to play god all over again.

My father always used to say nature creates it's own equilibrium, and as long as we don't infer on it, it will level its self out.

Wolves have just as much right to exist as any other creature.

I think that Yellowstone wolves is like abortion or 2A rights. There are always going to be at least two different ideas as to what is right, and no amount of "facts" is going to change the minds of the other side.
Rod

We have a strong wolf presence at our home and even stronger up at our lake home. Less than a mile from our lake place the DNR has been trying to trap them for relocation because they are killing a farmers cattle. They don't always kill to eat. The neighbor said he found two wolf pups shot in the head on the side of the road about two weeks ago. People up here will usually shoot them on site.

I watched a pack of five of them a couple years ago get on the lake ice. They headed out to a island. Once they got close three of them went on the island while the other two split up on either side waiting for the three to flush any deer out onto the ice. They are smart and efficient hunters. I have also seen wolves on the side of the road killed by traffic. To me this means the population has gotten to large for the area. Too many are not being accepted into the pack and have to be nomadic looking for new territory. All the years I have lived up here I have never seen road kill wolves until the last five years or so.

I don't know the answer. In nature what preyed on wolves to keep their population from growing to the point they decimated certain species?

They can certainly be just opportunistic killers which is sad.

On March 23, 2016, a pack of wolves descended on a herd of elk near Bondurant and slaughtered 19 elk, including 17 calves and two pregnant cows.

The wolves ripped the fetuses out of the cows’ bellies and ate them. Evidence suggests the fetuses were ripped out while the cow elk were still alive, as it appears the cows got up and walked a few feet before collapsing from loss of blood and succumbing to merciful death. The unborn calves were the only thing the wolves ate. What a tragic wanton waste of beautiful elk.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls this 19-elk slaughter a “surplus killing.” That implies the wolves accidentally killed too many. Nonsense. It was a thrill kill. Just having fun. This mass slaughter is not an isolated instance. It is not rare. This killing gained notoriety because of the sheer numbers of elk killed.

https://www.jhnewsandguide.com...79-c0658c8679c9.html

They were eradicated for a reason.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimmo952:Unless a person has lived there, it is hard for them to understand what it is to live with wolves around.

I'm pretty sure many defending the wolves would sing a different tune if they lived with a wolf pack in the area.

I think most dont realize how far a pack roams and how destructive and dangerous they are.

This is in Z06’s signature here on Sigforum, And is quite fitting. Substitute wolf for rattlesnake. You get the picture.

Old Arizona saying: "A rattlesnake in the living room ends all discussion about animal rights."

quote:

Originally posted by coloradohunter44:
They were eradicated for a reason.

This. Right. Here.

Previous to the wolf reintroduction there were THOUSANDS of elk that were hunted annually as they left the Park in the Winter. The herds were sight to see.

Several years after the wolves arrived the herds were a thing of the past. They prey heavily on the elk calves. No new members to the herd as the old die off or more get predated upon, you lose population.

Short of Greenies and the USFWS , few to NO one wanted them reintroduced here in Montana. They were shoved down our throats and we were forced to take them. The USFWS folks lied and lied. Exactly what the hunters and Ranchers stated would occur , has occurred.

My Cousin lives in a very rural area of North West Montana. previous to the wolves populating that area it was full of elk, deer and moose. Hundreds of hunters visited each year. Now one does occasionally see game as its RUNNING through. But you will see wolf tracks more than deer or elk tracks.

Same area, your dogs are not safe on your front porch. The wolves will kill any other competing canid from fox or coyote to border collie/cow dog.

As stated...theres a reason we got rid of them once before.

I moved to northern Idaho about 10 years ago. The locals around here absolutely hate the wolf. They have caused way more damage than they have cured.

I arrived here before they could be hunted or trapped. I knew something was "amiss" when the local county sheriff was raising money by selling raffle tickets. The prize was a 243 rifle as well as a shovel and handmade rack to hold both the rifle and the shovel. On the bottom of the rack it only said " SSS". When I asked , I was told that was the common response about wolves and it stood for " Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up. I bought some tickets !!

I've heard of the SSS thing in Wyoming as well.

If the Wolves respected Park Boundaries that would be one thing. Obviously that is not happening.

Could you imagine sending your children out to.the school bus with a Wolf pack in the area?

As others have said, Wolves do not always kill to eat. I get they impression they are sometimes just practicing or removing competitors from the environment.

I believe I read something a few years back about both of the previous pack leaders of the heralded Druid pack being killed by frustrated and fed-up Farmers in Montana. (the most recent being a female pack leader)

On a mountain ridge in NW MT, prints in the light snow indicated I was being trailed by a wolf. The print size in the snow was enough to give ya the willy's. Growing up in that area, you never saw wolves or grizzlies. The eco terrorists in the .gov care more about their wild animal fantasies than the reality. The wolves planted in YSP are from Canada and not the smaller subset found in MT years ago.

I've been tracked by mountain lions while hunting. Now we hunt wolves instead of big game because there are more than some ecosystems can handle. This is reality.

Thanks, guys, kinda what I thought not being familiar with the area. Talk of flowers, berries, birds and the course of rivers all laid on a bed of lilting music was a tell.

Reading the You Tube vid comments for enlightenment was not so useful. A couple dissenters but mostly stuff like "Man sux" and "I cried" did not lend credibility to the tale being told.