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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCompetitive hunting of wolves, coyotes in Idaho sparks outcry
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78516649/Laura Zuckerman, Reuters
8:14 pm, December 11, 2013
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - The first statewide competition in decades to hunt wolves and coyotes in Idaho has sparked outrage among wildlife conservationists, who condemned it as "an organized killing contest."
The so-called coyote and wolf derby is slated for the weekend of December 28-29 in the mountain town of Salmon, Idaho, where ranchers and hunting guides contend wolves and coyotes threaten livestock and game animals prized by sportsmen.
The tournament offers cash and trophies to two-person teams for such hunting objectives as killing the largest wolf and the most female coyotes. Children as young as 10 will be welcomed to compete in a youth division.
Idaho opened wolves to licensed hunting more than two years ago after assuming regulation of its wolf population from the federal government.
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MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)make it real competitive.
Bazinga
(331 posts)I'm not sure about wolves, but coyotes are practically rodents. You can kill 75% of a coyote population and it will come back just as strong the next year. People have been shooting and trapping thousands upon thousands of coyotes for decades, and they continue to expand their range all over the continent. So it is important to understand that these contest organizers are not doing any damage to these populations.
Second, coyotes should never be underestimated as quarry. A coyote hunt isn't sitting in a tree stand waiting for a naive, furry little forest-dweller to walk into your sights. There is a reason there is a cartoon character named Wile E. Coyote, those animals are smart. They've got great eyes, great ears, and a better nose, and you have to fool all three. They get shot at and missed more than any animal out there, and at all times of the year, so they don't trust anything. The amount of skill necessary to successfully take a coyote lends itself to competition, so in that respect this contest is not surprising.
Outrage and outcry over someone else's circumstances and values seems a little over the top.
G_j
(40,367 posts)and it is my business, thank you very much!
I did say that I don't know a lot about wolves, and my post was mainly about coyotes. I'm just not sure that the Chicago Tribune should have a whole lot of say in the lives of ranchers in Idaho. Especially when their contest will have an effect on the population that is close to, if not equal to, zero.
G_j
(40,367 posts)I am very aware of the slaughter of our wolves, pushed by certain powerful ranching and hunting interests, and not supported by science.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/08/opinion/la-oe-gibson-the-war-on-wolves-20111208
The new war on wolves
As soon as federal protection ended, the slaughter began.
December 08, 2011|By J. William Gibson
<snip>
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead recently concluded an agreement with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to save 100 to 150 wolves in lands near Yellowstone National Park. But in the remaining 80% of the state, wolves can be killed year-round because they are considered vermin. Roughly 60% of Wyoming's 350 wolves will become targeted for elimination.
What is happening to wolves now, and what is planned for them, doesn't really qualify as hunting. It is an outright war.
In the mid-1990s, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 66 wolves in Yellowstone and central Idaho, most of the U.S. celebrated. The magnificent wolf, an icon of wilderness that humans had driven to extinction in the United States, would now reoccupy part of its old range. But in the region where the wolves were introduced, the move was much more controversial.
Part of the reason was the increase, particularly in Idaho and Montana, in paramilitary militia advocates, with their masculine ideal of man as warrior who should fight the hated federal government, by armed force if necessary. They were outraged by what they saw as federal interference in the region spurred
by environmentalists, and their ideas found a willing reception among ranchers, who view wolves as a threat to their livestock even though they ranch on federal land and hunters, who don't want the wolves reducing the big game population.
The factions have reinforced one another, and today a cultural mythology has emerged that demonizes the federal government, the environmental movement and the wolves themselves. Many false claims have been embraced as truth, including that the Fish and Wildlife Service stole $60 million from federal excise taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for bringing wolves back; that the introduced wolves carry horrible tapeworms that can be easily transmitted to dogs, and ultimately to humans; that the Canadian wolves that were brought in are an entirely different species from the gray wolves that once lived in the Rockies, and that these wolves will kill elk, deer, livestock even humans for sport.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/opinion/the-world-needs-wolves.html
Why the Beaver Should Thank the Wolf
By MARY ELLEN HANNIBAL
Published: September 28, 2012
THIS month, a group of environmental nonprofits said they would challenge the federal governments removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Wyoming. Since there are only about 328 wolves in a state with a historic blood thirst for the hides of these top predators, the nonprofits are probably right that lacking protection, Wyoming wolves are toast.
Many Americans, even as they view the extermination of a species as morally anathema, struggle to grasp the tangible effects of the loss of wolves. It turns out that, far from being freeloaders on the top of the food chain, wolves have a powerful effect on the well-being of the ecosystems around them from the survival of trees and riverbank vegetation to, perhaps surprisingly, the health of the populations of their prey.
An example of this can be found in Wyomings Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were virtually wiped out in the 1920s and reintroduced in the 90s. Since the wolves have come back, scientists have noted an unexpected improvement in many of the parks degraded stream areas.
Stands of aspen and other native vegetation, once decimated by overgrazing, are now growing up along the banks. This may have something to do with changing fire patterns, but it is also probably because elk and other browsing animals behave differently when wolves are around. Instead of eating greenery down to the soil, they take a bite or two, look up to check for threats, and keep moving. The greenery can grow tall enough to reproduce.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6310211.stm
Wild wolves 'good for ecosystems'
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And thanks!
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)TEXAS (PUI). In some counties here competitions for the most hog ears acquired (to collect) are noted with casual bemusement by the Highest Hog of the Imperial Council for Porcine Hegemony: "There is great advantage for some in being romanticized; with sus scrofa, we take pride in being loathed while still getting laid," opined Head's Boar of the Boggy Bottom Sounder while blowing out a mud-splattering surface burst. "You know what they say: 'eight piglets per litter of which nine are expected to survive.'"
Swine sources say animal rights activists have not been seen in the Boggy Bottom region since before the Internet.
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Cheers to wolves in all 50 states! Real hunters don't mind their competition.