NonSportsman Dominate Montana FWP Wolf Meeting

[Bob Wright]

Here's my comment. Hope it helps.
"Commenting from Arizona
I guess my main concern with wolf projects are "mission creep" whereas wolf populations drive conservation decisions above hunting all other game.
If hunting opportunities become less or poorer quality (less game) the conservation funding coming into Montana will suffer.
Recreation in Montana needs to be maintained as well. Hunters bring that. Wildlife activists who pressure agencies to reduce hunting opportunities will not contribute wildlife money for conservation like hunters do.
It's Montana's choice how it will balance wildlife in this century. The wildlife balance of 500 years ago will never work again.
Regards
Bob Wright
Litchfield Park, AZ. "

 

[MtPockets]

Here's my comment. Hope it helps.
"Commenting from Arizona
I guess my main concern with wolf projects are "mission creep" whereas wolf populations drive conservation decisions above hunting all other game.
If hunting opportunities become less or poorer quality (less game) the conservation funding coming into Montana will suffer.
Recreation in Montana needs to be maintained as well. Hunters bring that. Wildlife activists who pressure agencies to reduce hunting opportunities will not contribute wildlife money for conservation like hunters do.
It's Montana's choice how it will balance wildlife in this century. The wildlife balance of 500 years ago will never work again.
Regards
Bob Wright
Litchfield Park, AZ. "

Thank you, Bob. That's perfect.
I appreciate that you took the time to do that.

 

[Bob Wright]

Thank you, Bob. That's perfect.
I appreciate that you took the time to do that.

Glad to help.

 

[Ol' Red]

Nice that we can argue amongst ourselves, now let's turn it on those that are against what we do. I took the survey and added my comments. It may not help one bit, but I refuse to go down without punching in the nuts.

 

[amu_shooter]

I'm good with punching a wolf lover in the nuts or wherever it hurts

 

[Rick Richard]

Nice that we can argue amongst ourselves, now let's turn it on those that are against what we do. I took the survey and added my comments. It may not help one bit, but I refuse to go down without punching in the nuts.

More hits in the most vulnerable places will get attention. Lol.

 

[memtb]

He's probably already ignored you. Pretty sure he's ignored half this forum, myself probably included (I know I've had the gall to disagree with him about something at least one time ). I forget who said it but it seemed about right, the man is going to end up with carpal tunnel or a rotator cuff overuse injury or something from how much he pats himself on the back.

Which is too bad because I actually HAVE learned a lot from him over the years and have no qualms admitting that openly.

Hey Calvin, MtPockets has a lot of patience…..he even tolerates me! To get on his bad side ……takes a very special person! "Person"……see how nice I was there! memtb

 

[MtPockets]

The thing is, our current Governor and Legislature are pro-sportsman and so is their wolf plan. That's why so many non-sportsman showed up. They have been told that the wolf numbers are falling and that we are going to wipe them out again.

Anyone who has ever hunted them will tell you there is no possible way that they will be hunted and trapped to extinction, but you can't tell them that- it goes against their narrative.

Thank you to all of you who had a positive contribution to this thread and to the FWP comment session.

 

[Troutslayer2]

The biologists are trained to toe the line about how all of the wolves stem from those reintroduced in Yellowstone. Some of us who were actually observing wolves before that time obviously disagree. By their logic we could eliminate all but a handful of wolves and in 20 more years be right back where we are right now with all this fantastic "genetic diversity". It makes no sense.

It is a shame that legislators are making the decisions on elk management that should be in the hands of biologists, while wolf management decisions are in the hands of the courts. Working for FWP must suck.

 

[flyguy1]

Thanks to OP, done.

 

[shaughn]

Living in the frozen north, with cattle and horse operation , and a healthy population of wolves , you have nothing in comparison to those numbers.

We have mitigation measures in place for our operations. We have healthy wildlife populations deer,elk,mule deer of which they have even opened a season for residents recently. Moose are in recovery from disease and ticks and aledged over hunting by indigenous persons under treaty rights ( that is up for debate by all parties).

Some operations have issues, we haven't, but we do the things we need to do to secure the animal's from being easy targets. It takes work and it costs some extra money and time, but that's my livelihood and if it's not wolves it's abandoned dogs that have packed up or coyotes. We don't free range our cattle in the winter, we keep them closer to the main house and Page wired that field to reduce the chance of predation.

We are allowed to trap, harvest wolves during big game season, get permits and there are resources available.

So, I sit and watch...without a bowl of popcorn......and kind of shake my head at how others scream howl gnash their teeth and cry for the demise of the wolf and yet areas that have had wolves for decade get there game animal every year, raise there cattle, sheep, horse etc...


Attend the meetings, make your opinions known, it does work, go to courts when really stupid things are being contemplated, but ....wolves are here to stay...because the only way to to truly wipe out any species is poison and that way always has a truly horrific level of collateral damage.

 

[MtPockets]

I agree on a lot of your points, but also wonder if you folks deal with the rabid wolf huggers like we do? I'm not saying you don't, I really am curious?
Down here, we've been lied to so much ever since they first talked about "reintroducing" the wolves that when their lips are moving, we know they are lying.
I don't doubt what you say about the harmony that you have there, and maybe there are places here with that same effect, but many areas that used to have thriving populations now have nothing but wolf tracks.
In Montana, we actually have it good. We can actually (legally) shoot them. In the Upper Midwest, those poor bass turds cant even do that because some Liberal judge decided that if they weren't restored in all of their previous areas, they couldn't be hunted anywhere.
It LITERALLY took an act of Congress to get them delisted out West.

 

[shaughn]

I wouldn't say harmony..We have our share of huggers too.

A biologist friend has out of curiosity looked from afar at some of the situations in the US and his opinion, was that game numbers by management were actually artificially inflated to the betterment of State coffers, that was his opinion and without a deep dive into government archives and data points, it is just speculation.

So, did the wolf bring the numbers back down to a sustainable or natural level or destroy a thriving population...

To stay on top of the wolf situation here, it is work, just another thing to think about.

 

[sp6x6]

I missed all this because I was out trying to get meat for the freezer.MT the state varies very much as does Canada.Prarie to thick steep mountains.In the eras of wilderness and thick steep roadless terrain historically had much game.Now I can hike 16 m in one day as I did this year and not cut a elk track and very few mule deer.The spot use to have at least 15 bulls. The wolf can't be managed in these areas due to the terrain, cant catch them or see them unless standing in the roads.Trapping is only ay to control.Going to practically no elk in NWMT is not a balance.There is large winter range you could go see elk ,100's on weekend, now you can rarely see a dozen.Conversely eastern MT without the wolf and more open and ag has large numbers of elk.Guides on this side are no more and many local friends have actually given up hunting.