Predators blamed for decline in N Yellowstone elk numbers

[spectr17]

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/20...0-predators.txt

 

[Speckmisser]

I haven't completely decided on my position re: reintroducing wolves, as I've heard a lot of good and a lot of bad...

But it seems funny to me that part of the reason for reintroduction was to reduce and manage the elk herds through natural predation, and now that the reduction is happening there's this big outcry. What's the story here?

I read this article and many others, and it sounds like the wolves are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. They're cutting down the populations in the park, which is necessary, and pushing many animals out of the park where they can re-establish the scattered herds... which, it seems, would create new or better opportunities for hunters.

 

[Litch]

They are reducing the herds in the Park and then following them out of the Park. We saw Wolves outside of the Park. There are resident herds living outside every area of Yellowstone and there are documented cases. A radio collared Wolf was hit by a car North of Denver, another was captured near Salt Lake City. I read these accounts in a pro-wolf book, so it was not jaded by the anti-wolf crowd.
If they stayed in the Park or close to it, it might have been a good idea. But these animals are very territorial and as their populations increase, they spread out looking for their own territory.
We saw or heard Wolves virtually every day of our hunt near Jackson, there is even a resident herd on the Elk Refuge that have a captive audience all Winter.

 

[BDB]

I know the area I hunted in Idaho was being hit pretty hard by a pack of 13 wolves over the last two years. Can't we just rig them up like a dogs with an invisiable fence and put the boundary wires completely around Yellowstone

. Everyone wins. Lowers the elk numbers in the park and runs some of them into huntable areas.

 

[Kentuck]

There were wolves in the area we hunted south of Idaho City, ID. Talked to another hunter and his group saw them eating a deer earlier that week. Game Warden told us about seeing a pack near where we were hunting that previous summer.