Caribou Recovery -Major Wolf Cull
Caribou
Via Eastman's Blog
https://blog.eastmans.com/caribou-recovery-major-wolf-cull/
Thanks for sharing . Forrest
There has been a fairly aggressive wolf cull happening for three years on three herds in the mid north. Big surprise!! Those herds have not only halted their decline, they are growing at eleven percent per year. Nothing different except wolf culls. Same habitat and human access and encroachment. But yes the wolf lovers just haul out the old “ well, it’s much more complex than that and culling won’t help” line.
Our southern herds are now genetically extinct after being “studied” for years. Studied while the wolves ate them all. EVERY finger points to the wolves. When you capture, transplant and collar a dozen caribou (multiple times) and find that within a couple off months they turn into wolf shit, what should be your conclusions?!? Apparently the answer is we have to find something other than wolves to blame it on. And those herds have not been hunted for over thirty years.
This crap makes me so mad!!
It all boils down to getting votes from the misinformed, the idiots and the morons sitting in coffee shops sharing pics and blogs about their “Spirit Animal”.
AARRGGHH!!!
I laugh every time I hear about the moose decline in northern MN. Cidiots keep coming up with different theories on the causes. The theory/defense is it is far too complex to blame it on a single cause BS etc. (IE Grant monies to "study" the issue) Global warming, climate change is the one that seems to rise to the top from so called experts. (IE Something abstract that is difficult to validate, and if it is occurring, cidiots are naïve to think that money can change mother nature) Yet I never hear an explanation as to why moose are thriving in NW and central ND and declining in northern MN if climate is an issue. The summers are much warmer in ND vs MN. There are more trees in one square mile in northern MN than there is in all of north central ND. Yet the "cause" is warming causing loss of crucial habitat because beavers aren't as plentiful or some BS. ND moose are living in cattails sloughs, abandoned farmsteads and spindly shelter belts. They use fence posts for shade cover. Clue. Northern MN has sh!t loads of wolves and ND doesn't have any. I think I need to develop a grant application for $250K to validate or disprove my observation! (Let's make it $500K because it needs to be a multi-year study) I will prove the lack of trees in ND for $500K!
You mean that its actually NOT "climate change" that is suppressing calf survival?
Who knew? Who would have even guessed?
Plenty of peer-reviewed research in AK that clearly shows predation being responsible for more than 80-90% of calf mortality. Additional research showing that when you DO wolf control, you need to cull 60% or more of the population over several years to allow the herd to start recovering.
The really good news is that once balance is restored, the ungulate populations will support both human harvest and higher numbers of predators. It's really not that complicated (except for the politics and explaining it so that even idiots will comprehend...!)
Pete
Pete,
I think you were referring to killing 60% or more of the wolves for several years to allow the game populations to recover. Absolutely!
The religion of human caused climate change goes hand in hand with wolf introductions, feral horse preservation over native species, increased preservation with designation of National Parks and Monuments and stopping all predator hunting to “restore the natural balance” and stop human hunting... except for native Americans...
What a joke.
Z Barebow,
You are spot on! (As are most of the other comments on this thread)
Mark
I just don`t understand why they can`t just sterilize the wolves to keep the herds in control.
LMAO!
"I just don`t understand why they can`t just sterilize the wolves to keep the herds in control."
Shoot their nuts off and let them walk away.
I don't know anything about caribou or wolves except what I read, but the parallel exists where I live with coyotes and deer. Every year I see twin fawns on my cameras in spring, but very seldom see any twins in fall. Lots of does don't have any fawns come fall. I do see way too damn many coyotes though and I see the misinformation regurgitated from TPWD as well as QDMA about coyotes not being the reason for whitetail deer numbers declining in some areas. I call BS !
The whole thing is nuts. Yes, it’s complicated and, no it’s never Just One Thing. The people who think it’s all about wolves are just as deluded as the people who think it’s all about climate..., but it’s sure a lot easier and more immediately effective to cull off the predators, which will only continue to profit from whatever amount of stress is imposed by the weather.
Kinda makes me wonder if there will be a call for supplemental feeding of the predators when their numbers begin to crash because they have exceeded the carrying capacity of their range...
Call it Operation Alpo-drop...
GF,
You may have been joking about dropping food for predators, but at one point, ADFG tried something they called "diversionary feeding" on some Alaska wolves and bears. They got roadkill and train-kill moose carcasses and actually helicoptered them into calving areas to try and provide food for bears/wolves who were then supposed to give up killing calves and eat the nasty, cold, rotten dead moose!
Amazingly, while it wasted a lot of money, it did not keep predators from killing calves. Who would have guessed?!!!
Pete
Pete-
The Isle Royale wolves that were transplanted there this winter ~ they provided moose carcasses for the transplanted wolves to acclimate them to the Island.
It's a liberal way of saying "We killed some moose so the wolves didn't have to do it themselves"
