Yellowstone considers 'hazing' wolves to help them avoid hunters.

[Cattledog]

When she first saw the scope the hunter aiming her way, Spitfire likely wasn't concerned. The alpha female gray wolf, beloved throughout Yellowstone National Park, was used to throngs of tourists with telephoto lenses, binoculars and cameras monitoring her movements. Humans, proving little more than harmless window dressing against the park's wild scenery, had habituated the wolf to simply ignore them.

According to Yellowstone wildlife officials, this habituation likely led Spitfire to curiously explore new territory outside the park's invisible boundaries without fear. On Nov. 24, near Yellowstone's northeast entrance, she was shot and killed by a hunter as she approached a group of cabins.

"It was a legal harvest, and everything was legitimate about the way the wolf was taken," Abby Nelson, a wolf management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, told the Jackson Hole Daily. "The circumstances are obviously a little bit harder for people to stomach, because that pack had showed signs of habituation."

The carefree rapport that some Yellowstone wolves have built with humans is reportedly attractive to trophy hunters looking for an easy kill.

"Wolf hunters talk about seeing a pack of park wolves outside the boundary and being able to pick the one they want," Doug Smith, a wolf biologist for Yellowstone, told The New York Times. "They just stand there and have no fear."

In the wake of yet another famous Yellowstone wolf meeting a violent end on the fringes of the park, officials are actively rethinking how to manage wildlife habituation.

"Having a wolf not wary of a person, that's a product derived from the park," Smith told the Jackson Hole News & Guide. "Those were wolves that lived 99 percent of the time in the park. That's on us, so what do we do? To be honest I don't know, but now everything is on the table."

Smith says one idea currently being considered is a kind of "hazing" policy for wolves. Whereas today wolves are mostly left alone when it comes to their proximity to people, park officials instead might impose greater weariness by using cracker shells, paintball or beanbag guns and other non-injurious deterrents.

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/yellowstone-hazing-wolves-help-them-avoid-hunters?fbclid=IwAR2dnSsGPqfsdNRGsxetjuDBT-WVieqmlYgtziNm6qSRb3AEdAIg-JIGZvQ

[Liberty Belle]

1. So sad that it's come to this.

The obvious answer if we had a moral president would be to extend protection of wolves to outside the park boundaries.

[pazzyanne]

2. It is sad to think that wolves that we have fought so hard to preserve

are shot today. It should be illegal to shoot any wolf or animal wearing a radio collar in my opinion. I have been a conservation activist for preserving wolves and other wildlife in Minnesota since the mid-1960s. I am glad to report that we have had great success in slowing and even reversing the destruction of many species of wildlife in my state with a lot of hard work. Stories of wolf and other endangered wildlife killings hurt my very soul. Wolves, bald eagles, Mexican grey wolves, polar bears, are just a few of the animals on endangered and threatened species lists for the US. trump's border wall threatens the very existence of Mexican wolves and ocelots that live in states that border Mexico. The wall would make cross migration between the states and Mexico impossible impeding crossbreeding that keeps the populations strong. I have never felt hate for anyone like I do the members of the trump administration. They are setting back conservation efforts to the early 1900s.

[hlthe2b]

3. I am only being moderately facetious in wishing they could shoot back...

or that they had a heard of buffaloes to come to their aid and tromp those cowardly a'holes wanting nothing more than a "trophy".

I've always defended honorable hunters, but THIS is not honorable, nor hunting.