Washington we have a problem ( wolf attack )

Discussion in 'Fly Fishing Forum' started by Tom O'Riley, Oct 10, 2011.

  1. Kaiserman content

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    Well, like Sg has stated before, even these are slanted. Thus the title "Defenders of Wildlife". However, any percent Ryan, is more than what there was before. What ever it is...it's still a problem, no?

    But those numbers are not entirely correct. There's no mention of those that are not even documented, losses that bigger ranchers call, well...losses. PBS ran an entire episode on the affect wolves have had. I thought is was a good balance myself.
  2. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    I am aware of this…. and sea lions also have lived for thousands of years among us. When there are hundreds of sea lions eating sturgeon and salmon and causing a huge dent in the population, action needs to take place. Just like the wolf problem. What’s worse is these wolves were artificially reintroduced. Believe what you want, but the fact is they are a problem and the state of Idaho tried to keep believing the crappy cool aid the wolf lovers fed them. Now they realize they were wrong on all accounts, just like you and many others who are "pro-wolf".
  3. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    This talks about the size of wolves and how the rocky mountain gray wolf was smaller than the canadian species of gray wolf.


    Another article. Scroll down and see the pics and info it talks about the wolves leaving the cow elk, or doe, and eating the unborn fetus.

    A slide show showing documented wolf kills for sport and left behind by many different ppl.

    A great article as well.

    Just look up "surplus killing wolves" on google. You will get all the documented info you need as well.
  4. Salmo_g Active Member

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    I am in favor of accuracy and and oppose emotional grandstanding. I was in favor of the mid-90s wolf re-introduction as an ecosystem restoration measure. I'm not opposed to wolf management, including regulated hunting of them. I am opposed to hysteria.

    TallFlyGuy posted some links above. From the first one I hope to obtain some credible information about historic wolf size and this first I've heard that the introduced wolves are half again larger than their historic counter-parts.

    A quote from that link: "The wolves dropped into Yellowstone Park were not Rocky Mountain wolves, known in the scientific community as Canis Lupus Irremotus, a smaller animal that hunted in pairs and was the indigenous species in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. Rather, they were the Canadian Grey Wolf, a super sized predator hunting in super sized packs that evolved to chase caribou herds for hundreds of miles."

    This also was an opinion piece, and it lacks any credible reference supporting the allegation. The USFWS performed the re-introduction and has monitored it since. I haven't read anything by USFWS saying these are a different wolf species. My guess is that is because they aren't different, but alleging so is serving some anti-wolf argument. If people want to gain some support, they will serve their cause better by publishing facts rather than opinion IMO.

    Last I heard USFWS approved the Idaho wolf management plan. Environmental groups may be preventing its implementation by legal challenges, but even in court the truth will prevail at some point, and then maybe the wolf haters and lovers can go have a beer together.

  5. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    Hey SG, The two species names are here...

    There is Canis Lupus, and then there is Canis lupus irremotus. Two different species.

    There were not to many to be found for relocating, so they used the larger canadian gray wolf, but this is not what the pro wolf poeple want you to know. They want you to think they are the same, when in fact they are not. The sheer size of the wolves killed and found in the rockies should let people know they are not.
  6. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    This is the actual plan in paper work. Here on page 6 or the second paragraph of the preface they outline the two species and differentiate between the two.

    "The Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan outlines steps for the recovery of the gray wolf
    (Canis lupus) populations in portions of their former range in the Northern Rocky Mountains of the
    United States. Historical evidence documents the presence of gray wolves throughout the
    Northern Rocky Mountains of the contiguous United States. This subspecies (Canis lupus
    irremotus) was a predator on native ungulates under pristine conditions and later, as European
    Americans spread westward, on domestic livestock. Substantial declines in wolf numbers resulted
    from control efforts to reduce livestock and big game depredations. Currently, no viable
    populations of wolves occur in the Rocky Mountains south of Canada, however, at least one pack
    and several individual animals are known to be present."
  7. Richard Olmstead BigDog

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    Tallguy -

    Your quote from the original 1987 wolf reintroduction plan does not in any way "outline the two species and differentiate between the two." It identifies the species to be reintroduced as the gray wolf (scientific name is Canis lupus) and goes on to point out that the subspecies found in the northern Rockies is C. lupus irremotus.

    In fact, my read of this document leads me to believe that they recognize both the extirpated populations from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and the source populations in Canada for the reintroduction as the same subspecies.

    A paper published in 1992 on wolf genetics sampled 16 individuals from around North America, including one form Montana and one from Alberta. Those two were virtually identical genetically and much closer to each other than either was to any wolves from elsewhere in North America.

    I think the USFWS did its due diligence to identify the most genetically similar wolves to use for reintroduction purposes.

  8. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    Not sure what you are reading or how you are interpreting what you are reading. It is plainly evident that there is two subspecies. The usfs knew this and they tried to throw the two species into one with their wording here....

    "The Northern Rocky Mountain wolf (Canis lupus irremotus) is one of 32 subspecies of the gray wolf
    recognized by some taxonomists (Mech 1970). Twenty-four of these subspecies once inhabited
    North American, with the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf occurring throughout Idaho, the eastern
    third of Washington and Oregon, all but the northeastern third of Montana, the northern two-thirds of
    Wyoming, and the Black Hills of South Dakota (Hall and Kelson, 1959) (Figure 1). This subspecies
    was listed as endangered by the Secretary of the Interior in 1973 (38 Federal Register 14678, June
    4, 1973). However, based on the probability of enforcement problems and because the trend among
    taxonomists was to recognize fewer subspecies of wolves, the entire species was listed as
    endangered throughout the lower 48 States, except Minnesota, in 1978 (43 Federal Register 9612,
    March 9, 1978). Thus, in this plan, Northern Rocky Mountain wolf refers to gray wolves in the
    northern Rocky Mountains of the contiguous 48 States, rather than to a specific subspecies. During
    recent years, wolves have been reported and verified in central and northern Idaho and in western
    Montana. Wolves have been protected in Montana since 1975, and in Idaho since 1977. Wyoming
    currently (1987) classifies the wolf as a predator, although the protection afforded wolves under the
    Endangered Species Act supersedes State laws."

    They know and say there is a shortage of this species and try to use that as an excuse to take the larger species here...

    "Currently, no viable populations of wolves occur in the Rocky Mountains south of Canada, however, at least one pack
    and several individual animals are known to be present."

    Not sure how you can say they are the same. Taxonomists agree there is a seperate distinct subspecies.
  9. Richard Olmstead BigDog

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    Tallguy -

    Since the USFWS is responsible for identifying, monitoring, and recovering rare species in the US only, they were only concerned with defining the range of subspecies C. lupus irremotus in the US. By not specifying that it's range also includes southwestern Canada, they did not intend to mean that it did not also extend into that part of Canada. Note that they never specify that a different subspecies occurs there.

    Canis lupus ssp. irremotus is simply a subspecies of C. lupus. Canis lupus has a historical range that comprises virtually all of temperate northern hemisphere. Your interpretation that the USFWS is referring to two different species, or even subspecies, when they refer to C. lupus, on the one hand, as a general name for the entire species, and C. lupus ssp. irremotus, when they refer to the wolves found in the northern Rockies, is a misinterpretation of the situation they describe in the recovery plan.

    They pointed out, quite correctly, that at the time they drafted their plan (mid-1980's) there were no viable populations of this subspecies of the Gray wolf in the US (there were viable populations of a different subspecies in the eastern US in the Great Lakes region, and there were viable populations of Gray wolves in Alaska, but both of them are different subspecies).

    The circumscription of subspecies in the Gray wolf is very contentious, which is why I cited the study using genetic data (Wayne et al, 1992; Conservation Biology), which was available to them at the time, and which shows that the remnant wolves from Montana were almost genetically identical to ones sampled from Alberta. Having those data was more valuable than simply a classification into subspecies.

  10. Kaiserman content

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    You must be confusing me with some others on the "emotional grandstanding", and "hysteria". My point has always been about management, because they are causing problems. You and I agree on that.

    However, what gets my goat (same as you) is emotional responses, or ill-informed statements . With your second statement, you are admitting that gave input without research. That's the kind of stuff that isn't needed. If people are willing to accept how things simply are over here, it would end much of this debate.

    Saying that they aren't causing problems or that it's not that significant, is like telling an eastern resident that winters we have over here aren't that bad, cause it doesn't snow that much on the west side. Or that, because I catch plenty of wild steelhead over here, you guys on the west side really don't have a lack of wild fish problem.

    If you live in an area where these animals are not causing a problem, who are you to tell them they are not? Statements like that would be ridiculous.

    This isn't about "The wolf lovers VS the wolf haters". I could really care less, as I have mentioned before. We just need to manage them correctly. Personally, I think they are pretty cool, but not when they are left un-checked. Why is this so hard to grasp?
  11. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    Why point it out and make the distinction if there is not one needed? My interpretation is clear and correct. You on the other hand are dancing around the two subspecies trying to make it one, and also contradicting yourself (red). Biologists and taxonomists defined and set apart two species of the gray wolf, with different ranges. Again, two. You say they are the same species, then you say they are two different species. IF there are no viable populations, then you go get what is available… The Canadian gray wolf, (Canis lupus occidentallis). This is what they did.
    They had to lobby a little and amend the ESA so they could in fact go get the other subspecies.

    “However in 1982 the Endangered Species Act was amended to include a new section, 10(j) which states:

    EXPERIMENTAL POPULATIONS.—(1) For purposes of this subsection, the term ''experimental population`` means any population (including any offspring arising solely therefrom) authorized by the Secretary for release under paragraph (2), but only when, and at such times as, the population is wholly separate geographically from nonexperimental populations of the same species.


    YOu also mention that the data from the 1992 study was available for the USFS.. WRONG. The plan was written in the 1980s, the study overwrote what had been accepted. (coincidence?)

    Again, for their convenience, they throw all the species into one and now just call it the gray wolf. This of course after their tricky wording as noted above.
    All of this really doesn’t matter, because the proof is out there. The USFS realized they screwed up real bad and now is taking the repercussions for playing Mother Nature. Idaho’s governor (who is pro wolf) has issued a state of emergency seeing the downfall of wildlife and cattle. There are also worries of wolves killing people as they have in canada. The young lady school teacher that was killed by wolves in Alaska recently and the young college student Kenton Joel Carnegie who was killed by wolves in Canada in 2005. They don't want blood on their hands. There have been no reported human kills in the lower USA, because there hasn't been this wolf down here. Their wording and introduction of a non-indigenous subspecies is going to go down, already is, as one of many huge screw ups in the USFS’s history.
  12. bennysbuddy the sultan of swing

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    I find this thread quite interesting,But unless the native people make an objection to re introducing the wolfs. I truly believe the wolfs no matter what kind they are will be here for good. not saying thats bad!
  13. Richard Olmstead BigDog

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    Tallguy -

    You are right to catch my error about the availability of the genetic data; thanks. I think I transposed the dates in my mind when I wrote that.

    However, I think you don't understand the meaning of subspecies as it relates to species. Subspecies is a taxonomic rank nested within species. Subspecies are not species themselves. One species may have multiple subspecies. In this case the species for gray wolf, Canis lupus, has multiple subspecies within it, one of which is C. lupus irremotus. Nothing I said above is inconsistent. The recovery plan you cite doesn't mention any other subspecies of wolf, including C. lupus subspecies occidentalis. It may be that they preferred to avoid getting into that discussion, given the uncertainty among taxonomists about wolf classification, or maybe it was a conspiracy on their part to not mention that a different subspecies would be used for the reintroduction. I don't know, but it seems like the genetic data that have become available since then support their choice for the source of reintroductions.

    Taxonomists don't consider subspecies to be as significant a category as species and usually there will be gradations between taxa at the subspecies rank. This seems certainly to be true with wolves, where some recent taxonomists prefer to recognize only 5 subspecies in North America, whereas previous classifications recognized many more. Genetic data have been largely responsible for reducing the number of recognized subspecies. The recovery plan doesn't mention C. lupus ssp. occidentalis. I don't know the distinction that wolf taxonomists have used to distinguish subspecies, but the genetic data seem to suggest that the wolves from southern Canada (Alberta/BC) are the closest match to those in the northern Rockies in the US, which isn't suprising, given the close geographic proximity and the ability of wolves to roam widely.

  14. Itchy Dog Some call me Kirk Werner

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    I'm late to this party and most of the popcorn is probably gone (sigh).

    I recall seeing a WA state game dept biologist being interviewed on the local news this past summer. They had just confirmed the existence of a wolf pack in the Teanaway. He went on to say that the state doesn't feel that the pack would pose any problems for people or domestic stock because there is plenty of habitat for the wolves, including elk and deer. He also mentioned that there was no reason to believe the wolves would move into Western WA anytime soon. In the same sentence he pointed out that wolves can travel upwards of (something like) 60 miles in a day. My hunch, uneducated as it is, is that once the pack grows and gets wind of the North Bend elk herd, they'll hop over the Cascade crest into the North Fork drainage. Fishing the out there will take on a whole new flavor then. I'm not saying there'll be any reason for panic, but when you're way out there standing in the river waving your 3 weight, knowing that a pack roams the area, won't you feel just a little bit more alive? Just a little? Sure, we should already keep our wits about us because there are bears and cougars around, not to mention the crazy two-legged predator, but for me personally the potential presence of an entire pack of large carnivores makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck a bit more than the potential presence of a single animal, whether or not that's rational.

    The Fish and Wildlife Commission is due to adopt a wolf conservation and management plan in December. It'll be interesting to see what the plan calls for. Obviously which side of the state one lives on can factor into one's perspective on the matter. Ranchers running stock where there are established packs will certainly favor hunting as a part of that management plan, whereas certain others will oppose it.

    Anyway, it'll be interesting to watch this whole 'wolves in Washington' thing progress, and we should pay attention to states where wolves are already an issue.
  15. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    Let me help you understand that subspecies are important and have their own range and significance, as it appears you are having a little trouble understanding this… kinda like the USFS. Let us compare it to something you are familiar with… Trout, Oncorhynchus.

    Then you have the many different and important subspecies, like wolves with their own distinct name and range etc.

    o Cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarki
     Coastal cutthroat trout, O. c. clarki
     Crescenti trout, O. c. crescenti
     Alvord cutthroat trout O. c. alvordensis (extinct)
     Bonneville cutthroat trout O. c. utah
     Humboldt cutthroat trout O. c. spp.
     Lahontan cutthroat trout O. c. henshawi
     Whitehorse Basin cutthroat trout, O. c. spp.
     Paiute cutthroat trout O. c. seleniris
     Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout, O. c. behnkei
     Westslope cutthroat trout O. c. lewisi
     Yellowfin cutthroat trout O. c. macdonaldi (extinct)
     Yellowstone cutthroat trout O. c. bouvieri
     Colorado River cutthroat trout O. c. pleuriticus
     Greenback cutthroat trout O. c. stomias
     Rio Grande cutthroat trout O. c. virginalis
    o Rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss
     Kamchatkan rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss mykiss
     Columbia River redband trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss gairdnerii
     Coastal rainbow trout/Steelhead trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus
     Beardslee trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus var. beardsleei
     Great Basin redband trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss newberrii
     Golden trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita
     Kern River rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita var. gilberti
     Sacramento golden trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita var. stonei
     Little Kern golden trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita var. whitei
     Kamloops rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss kamloops
     Eagle Lake trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss aquilarum
     McCloud River redband, Oncorhynchus mykiss stonei
     Sheepheaven Creek redband, Oncorhynchus mykiss spp.
    o Mexican Golden Trout, Oncorhynchus chrysogaster (Includes as many as eight other species or sub-spec

    So when the west slope cutthroat is going down, you don’t bring in Golden Cutts or Rainbows or anything else to replace them. Sure you can, but then you are messing up nature etc.
  16. jessejames Flyslinger

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    I just finished a great read about Wolves by Carter Niemeyer who was there "leading" the wolf reintroduction and was involved in trapping and capturing the canadien wolves to put into Montana. I would recommend it to everyone as a must read if you are interested in this topic at all.
    Book title is WOLFER author Carter Niemeyer.
    Amazing story of how polorizing wolves are...
  17. Flyborg Active Member

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    Facts are funny things, especially in the age of laissez faire. Nowadays the truth is just a dollar away.

    Unless you've verified the truth with your own senses, you are, essentially, taking someone elses word as truth. We call that "faith". Something the learned used to hold in disdain, now an unfortunate reality of copy/paste scholastics paid for by whichever lobby wants the truth meme'd across the web-cosmos. Illustrated here in plenty by people who have never seen a wolf in the wild, will likely never see a wolf, and really have no "dog" in this fight (pardon the poor pun). Thus is born hyperbole. With only a tiny leash in the consequences and truth of the situation, we hold a sort of "intellectual speculation", that does to knowledge exactly what speculating does to commodities. Nothing like inflating the truth simply for a little mental masturbation.

    It's that reason I find motive's far more compelling than "facts". Which is why in this case, it's easy to see valid points in both sides of the argument, once you dispense of the exaggeration resulting from the tard olympics.
  18. TomB Active Member

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    TFG- Using your example below, let me point out that for salmonids, steelhead in our area and steelhead in kamchatka were classified not just as separate subspecies, but as separate genuses...and steelhead here were considered the same genus as atlantic salmon and brown trout (separate from pacific salmon). That was until genetic information came out that showed all of the above to be hogwash. Based on genetics, they steelhead here and in kamchatka were classified as the same species and placed in the same genus with pacific salmon. This kind of reclassification has been frequent in many groups of organisms. If the wolves in Alberta were most closely related to the remnant wolves in the northern US rockies, then they were obviously the best fit for reintroduction. Fixating on subspecies names given before genetic information was available is both non-scientific, and frankly, not even relevant. I'm sure if you need more help understanding this science, a call to the USFWS office might link you with some of the experts. Just as I don't ask an engineer for medical advice, i don't ask a doctor for advice on how to build a bridge...perhaps with a little looking, you can find a more qualified source of information on wolves than a bunch of websites maintained by hunters and ranchers with no training in biology and no peer-review of their content....that is unless you have already decided on your answers to this issue and you are just looking for sources that bolster your viewpoint. Now that would be truly scientific.

  19. Ryan Higgins Active Member

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    True, but only after the original species, or sub-species in this case, is extinct. You do not introduce a non-native sub species of similar genetics into a struggling ecosystem. This is exactly what is going on with the whole "Native vs. Hatchery" argument. You do not take a species that is genetically different and introduce it into a struggling population as the non native strain can take over the ecosystem, pushing the native strain into extinction.

    After the recent law suits and legal cases regarding this wolf introduction, do you not think the heads of this introduction at the USFWS and the WDFW may be a little biased in their answers? I mean, they're job is on the line with this introduction, just as ranchers livelihoods are being threatened by uncontrolled introduction.
  20. TallFlyGuy Adipossessed!

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    This is what caused the whole problem. they thought it was a "good fit" and would be the "same". Now they reailize the screwed up, and they are in big trouble.