Why were they shot by fish and game when they were the ones trying to reintroduce them? What?

They shot the mountain lions who were eating the sheep.

Oh, I thought the sheep were shot. I bet w few were hit on a misfire.

The second part of your statement is pretty idiotic. Picture aside, these aren't groups of animals running around in open fields, it's incredibly rugged and totally undeveloped mountains. They actually send marines here to train for Afghanistan.

It's not so idiotic when you consider Cheney "accidentally" shot his lawyer on a hunting trip. I'm sure someone hit a sheep by accident.

Cheney and the JUDGE were hunting quail together, ie walking next to eachother. The sheep and the mountain lions don't hang out until one or the other gets thirsty.

When did he become a judge? I saw on the news it was his lawyer friend.

I thought it was a circuit judge, my mistake if I was wrong. Either way that's pretty common, my partner at work has been peppered while bird hunting.

Ouch.

Sad sheep makes me sad.

;.;

It's one of humanity's problem, we take too much and aren't good at giving back.

Reintroduction means starting with a small population and letting it get some traction before backing off and letting things take their course. What part of this do you not understand?

If humans didn't come into the area & decimate everything all for the sake of development or sportsmen, they would not need to be reintroduced into the area. This all happens when Greed is rampant & Governments fail. If there were no protected areas like the National Parks, they would have been destroyed years ago by Greedy developers.

The "human encroachment" problem that drove out the rams hasn't been solved, and will likely get worse. What outcome is reintroducing the bighorms supposed to achieve?

It's kind of pointless to "re-introduce" animals into a habitat they were driven out of by human encroachment if they don't remove the humans and make room for the animals. Nor does it make sense for them to go in and manually kill off all the predators in the area in order to push something back into place that's not going to just fit there on it's own.

What part of that don't YOU understand?

What they're doing is like trying to "re-introduce" one of the animal types that died around Chernobyl when it exploded, without cleaning up the radiation.

Broomrifle's recoil reducing stock works quite well. Stability leaves something to be desired, though.

i didn't even notice that till you pointed it out. that's hilarious!

this is my .. broom stick.

C'mon shebitch, let's go!

On the bright side, the wild turkeys they reintroduced in the huachucas have multiplied like wildfire. Saw the Mexican grey wolves in The San Rafael valley as well.

The Feds are a lot more relaxed, they just re-introduce animals and see what happens, takes longer but it makes for a more balanced ecosystem. Of course these were animals that died out entirely because of hunting.

Course the hilarious thing is.. Ranchers have started complaining about wolves again where they were introduced back in a few places in the northwest because they kill their cattle...
But what do they expect? They put a big slow moving piece of meat in their territory, but they aren't the pests there.. The Ranchers and their cattle are.

You are correct, but dumb ranchers don't see it that way. All they see is FREE LAND for them to raise cattle on. It's the Ranchers that need to go, not the wolves.

Indeed, I see no reason for anyone who makes less than 50 thousand dollars a year to be able to put red meat on the table either.

"Indeed, I see no reason for any Family who makes less than 50 thousand dollars a year to be able to put red meat on the table either. "

Adjusted to match reality.

Those wolves aren't' native to areas like Montana, Ranchers own some land, they don't cattle on "open free land" unless its some sort of BLM or something, but even then they don't generally graze there. But on their own fence off property. Many of those ranching families have been there for hundreds of years and that's all they know. Generation of generation of ranchers. I think it's pretty ignorant to remove the family when the wolves were imported and introduced from Canada where they were never from in the first place. It's also extremely dishonest to cry fowl when the ranchers shoot wolves eating their cattle. Red meat, and Milk is what their house hold income is based on. With the economy the way it is, no one should be surprised if they protect their bread and butter.

I don't see how that fails to match reality, I earn pretty well in excess of that as an individual, so does my entire family. Either way, if the activists really want to save the wolves (I do, but then where I work IS blm grazing), then pay the ranchers for the cattle the wolves kill. Which, btw, they do.

The whole wolves vs ranchers debate in the US is largely bunk, the populations are re-establishing and the few incidental kills won't stop that. The traditional range of wolves in the Americas is at least southern Mexico to Canada, btw.

clarify, you work for BLM, make more than 50K annually. but believe people who make less than 50K a year, should not be able to put red meat on the table?

I know the traditional range, but im talking about certain areas where foreign wolf populations (different characteristics, more aggressive larger) wolves were transplanted (by man).


What the policy? Cow gets killed, touch luck right?

Rancher shoots wolves on their property stalking cows, cry fowl?


and the ranchers need to go? where. Sell their land and move? To the City?

I don't work for BLM, I work where there is a lot of blm land which is used for grazing. The $50 grand a year statement was facetious. The wolves they re-introduced where I work are Mexican Greys like the ones which lived here historically. As for the policy, you have access to google, there are a number of charitable organizations which pay for lost livestock.

I'm guessing you live in the south west, up north in the Rockies, its a different reality.

Up there, there are no "organizations" readily accessible.
Policy on shooting wolves attacking livestock is kosher.

I mean't to say "what are the proposed" policy. make it illegal? etc

As I said, the charities which compensate ranchers for livestock taken by wolves are searchable online and are not area limited so far as I know. So if a Colorado rancher loses a cow, he can submit a claim rather than shooting a wolf. That said, wolves rarely take cattle, they subsist primarily on smaller animals. However, wild dog packs are a huge problem and are often mistaken for wolf predation.

Too clarify, you work for BLM, make more than 50K annually. but believe people who make less than 50K a year, should not be able to put red meat on the table?

Slightly off topic, but I think it's about time to see red meat as a luxury, considering the resources (like land, methane-producing cows, etc) it takes to raise it. That will happen naturally over time as the contributing costs rise and rise.

Doubtful, but that's a fantastic defeatist attitude! Go with it!

but I think it's about time to see red meat as a luxury,

Why? Land isnt gonna be shrinking any time soon, neither will the availability of cows unless imposed taxes.

"I think it's pretty ignorant to remove the family when the wolves were imported and introduced from Canada where they were never from in the first place."

Speaking of ignorance...

Imported and introduced? Gray wolves were hunted down in that area until they became an endangered species and nearly wiped out. They were reintroduced into the wild in 1995, but I assure you, wolves used to roam most of the states covered by the rocky mountains even before the Brits came to the "New World" and founded the USA.

As for the ranchers, its not their fault, but neither are the wolves. There are repellents and alternative methods to keep wolves out of cattle. Ranchers have grown accustomed to live without predators in the area since they were nearly wiped out. When they reintroduced them, suddenly they didn't know what to do, so they started killing wolves the minute they removed them from the endangered species list. After their removal from the list, theyve gone from +/-2000 strong in the wild, to +/-700, and they keep killing them. That was 2 and a half years ago...

[b]They were reintroduced into the wild in 1995, but I assure you, wolves used to roam most of the states covered by the rocky mountains even before the Brits came to the "New World" and founded the USA. [/b]

Are you implying all North American wolves are "Gray Wolves?"


+/-700,

[i]Citation needed.[/i

Do you live in the rockies btw?

To your first question, no. I mention the rockies, and given that the argument sparked from you saying wolves never used to reside in Montana, im referring to the Northern Rockies, where by a vast majority, wolves that live there are gray wolves. I wont reply talking about the whole population when we're talking about a specific group.

Here you can see what their population was as of December 2012. http://www.fws.gov/midwest/wolf/abo...../WolfPopUS.htm In 2013, the death toll has more than doubled, since in Idaho, the hunting season for wolves went up to 9 months, and in Wyoming they are shot on sight. (Outside of the Yellowstone area.) Once they release the census, ill be able to give a more accurate estimate. I pulled that number out from all the documented reports that fill my email inbox from sources like Defenders of Wildlife and International Wolf, among others. One example that strikes out is that in oct. 181 wolves were killed. Here's a screenshot. http://i.imgur.com/n2hiaUS.jpg

No, I dont live in the rockies, as much as I'd love to, but Ive been following the news about the reintroduction for too many years that I can remember. The last email from this account dates back to '08, and I remember signing up on their mail from my other hotmail email which I dont use anymore.

If by ripe you mean stankin up the area, yes.

Man, you are really good at the political cartoon angle. My eye-rolling reflexes kick in instantly, even when I agree with you. Newspapers have given me a Pavlovian response to that sort of thing.

I agree 100%. Sometimes the stupidity of Government goes beyond all reason.

I don't think bighorn are lion's first choice of prey, so the fact they're targeting them must mean there's little to none of their normal prey around (deer, mostly.) Or, human pressure has driven the lions away from the lowlands where the deer are, and up into the mountains where the only available prey are the bighorns. Yet another problem we created. Come to think of it, pretty much every conflict between people and wildlife is due to conditions we created. Hmm...

Ahhh... Tax dollars at work... God, I'd laugh if this wasn't so sad.

Yeah, heard about this on NPR the other day... I couldn't help but wonder to myself whyyyy we exactly needed more bighorn sheep over in the Catalinas... They obviously left for a good reason and as a result of reintroducing them Game and Fish have taken out a few mountain lions in the area. Just being pick-and-choosy about what animals we like, huh?

Thank you, Karno. You continually give me faith in our intellectual future.

One word: cloning.

Oh well, sometimes reintroducing extinct species works. Or kind of does. Beavers went extinct in Germany more than a hundred years ago. However, the beavers they reintroduced did what the extinct ones didn't do: They are hemerophile. They deforest parks, drop trees on historic buildings, clog drains and dig leg-breaking pits into the shores of bathing ponds. And they are everywhere.
Sooner or later, they'll allow hunting them again. Which is a good thing, since the meat is high quality, better than nutria.

Reintroducing them is actually a good idea (good for the environment.) However, these things are not easily done.

That said, your sources may have not had the latest info.

Attempts to conserve them began back with Roosevelt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert.....tus_and_trends

They have been allowing limited hunting since the 1960's (where h. sapiens basically takes over the function of cougars) http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/game_bighorn.shtml

The area they're trying to reintroduce them in (not the whole state) is Santa Catalinas -- they were extirpated (the technical term for them vanishing) in the 1990's -- so, less than 30 years ago:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/southern-a.....the-catalinas/

I'd heard the "cougars 'et them" story years ago, so I suspect the tale is at least a decade old.

We humans are quite stupid sometimes... If a certain species disappears from a certain place, before we even try to reintroduce it we should find out WHY it disappeared in the first place!!

I was on a train heading south by the Hudson River yesterday when I saw a bald eagle gliding along above the river, his wings spread wide - a very beautiful moment.
.
Not sure what this has to do with this picture and the comments, but as long as we're talking about wildlife I thought I'd share it with you.

So when human encroachment causes a species to almost go extinct, that's bad? (or is it good?)
But when humans try to fix that issue... that's bad too? Or is it just bad because the government is doing it and not a private organization?
I get the feeling no matter what choice people make, there'll be people claiming it to be the wrong choice. Whelp, if tumbler teaches our children anything, I guess it will teach them that.

Sort of like the NSA spying on us critters..

The world is constantly changing. If animals can't change or adapt with it they will simply die out.. That's how evolution works. If the environment changes you cange with it or move to one that does suit your needs. I can't understand why there's alot more people who think the world is not allowed to change. As if everything including animals need to be kept the same state and in the same environment.. As if trying to stop time and screwing more things up with good intentions, never thinking of possible bad outcomes.. This sounds almost like that earth friendly wind powerplant that killed more birds than anything else in its region.

good point, same goes for the wolfs in the world as well, they just returned to Denmark in Europe after 200 or 500 years, and all ready ppl are killing them illegally