I worry they are going to say that Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are killing too many that venture out of the park. I keep hearing of this buffer zone crazy talk. No buffer zone in Idaho!

Doesn't someone have a cure resistant strain of Parvo to introduce to several of the populations.

Garry-

Wolves are beneficial to the ecosystem.They should be sustained at a minimum by fur managers to keep the entire ecosystem healthy long term.Eliminating a top predator like wolves will throw the entire system way out of balance.Same as removing Man(the top top predator)from the equation.

X2

The affects then are no different than the affects now. Better or worse I have no idea.

However I will this . killing them all outright agaallwill only lead a drastically worse decision in the future. I can only hope we can offer maintain meant of a status quo

There were no wolves in Yellowstone prior to the reintroduction. That balance of nature was long time gone. Thanks to the efforts of some of these do gooders the reintroduction took place, and look at the results. It's a wonder they haven't stocked sharks in the great lakes.

No wolves in Yellowstone because man removed them all. Yellowstone is a National Park, No hunting or trapping allowed.

Reintroducing wolves was a step in trying to restore the balance of nature. Yellowstone is approx 3500 sq miles, don't you think if possible that the balance of nature should be restored being that it is such a large area?

3500 square miles is about the size of 2 counties here. only a moron would think animals in Yellowstone wont leave. especially wolves. im with boco. needs to be some harvest.

Sorry, but the settlers killed off the wolves for darn good reasons.

Sorry, but I don't believe that ignorance is a "darned good reason". It may have been expedient but it sure wasn't a good reason. Things have changed a lot since people were trying to raise livestock on open range. It seems to me that a person needs to consider the negatives that eliminating wolves created. Sure it may have helped cattlemen and sheep growers but how much damage did those animals do to public land. What about the increased ungulate population competing with domestic animals for forage, browse etc ?

I could just as easily apply the 1850's thinking to people who are destroying public land with ATV's or grazing leases. Should we shoot & poison the folks on 4 wheelers ? Might be a 'darned good reason' but a pretty short sighted approach to the problem.

On the issue of hunting and trapping in Yellowstone, being a National Park does not mean there can not be hunting and trapping to better manage the population of wolves or other species. It is a Park Service decision to prohibit hunting and trapping that is made case by case for each National Park, not something that is prohibited by legislation. Hunting is allowed in some (but very few) National Parks.

https://www.doi.gov/blog/hunting-and-fishing-national-parks-and-fish-and-wildlife-refuges

White17 that's what the problem is. I read somewhere that the optimum population for lower 48 was 180mil not 325mil.. The problem is too much livestock on the land and no room for wolves. Need livestock to feed all the people so that's where we r lacking population control! Have to regulate the human pop.

And 3500 sq. miles is the size of 4-5 counties around here, what does that matter?

What matters is the area that a wolf pack needs to survive.

The mean area of a wolf packs in Yellowstone is approx 100sq miles, so lots of room in Yellowstone for several packs. In fact I think there around 6-8 packs last I read.



I expect them to migrate out to surrounding areas.

I have no issue with harvest of animals outside the park. Just as long as the goal is not to eradicate them.


I would think that trappers/hunters/fisherman would be concerned about the natural world.
Wolves are part of the natural world and have an important place in it.
To think otherwise is ignorant.

Seems to be alot of people here that don't care about the natural world in itself, only what they can take from it.
That is the very definition of selfish.
It saddens me.

This old man may be "ignorant" or "selfish", but the truth is that man upset the balance of nature a long time ago, some good, and a lot not good. It is what it is. I certainly am not normally in favor of eradicating a species, however the wolves were "reintroduced" by do gooders. The damage they caused was unbelievable. I've seen some of these people in the Lamar Valley hoping to see wolves bring down an elk or bison calf. I've seen reintroduction projects here in New York, such as otters , fisher, and lynx. The lynx project was conducted by "college" prof and grad student that should have known better. The project was a complete failure, thank God ! All of those lynx perished, for which I feel badly,however if the project had succeeded we would be up against the same situation as the trappers in Maine.
My point is that not all reintroductions are good, like the wolves in Yellowstone or the Lynx in the Adirondacks. Even the New York otter reintroduction has had a number of negatives created by those that do not know as much as they think they do. So this "ignorant" old trapper will continue to think the way he does. Perhaps we should reintroduce rattlesnakes to areas where they have been eliminated, just because we can.

Just to be clear........I wasn't referring to YOU as ignorant. I meant those farmers and ranchers 150 years ago who did not know any better. They were generally "ignorant" of the complex relationships among species and the ways they could possibly interact with their habitat.

Frankly, I think the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and the west in general is a good thing for the habitat they are in as well as other species that live with them. It's not as though there were no wolves prior to the 'reintroduction'.

USF&WS has always shown a small population of wolves in their census data in ID, MT, WY clear back to the beginning of the 20th century.

Of course we shouldn't be trying to start a population of anything in an area where the habitat won't support them or where they have not previously been..... IMO

So according to the MN DNR 2/3 of first year moose are killed by wolves, I’m surprised we have any left. Does this mean global warming and ticks are no longer the culprits to our decimated moose herd?

Osky

White they still "don't know better" I'd bet a days pay that if you asked a hundred cattle men from the states that had the reintroduction forced on them you wouldn't get ten that said yep they were here first and the natural balance needed to be restored. EVERY cattle man I have talked with wants every last one dead. They also usually say the government spent a lot of money eradicating them in the first place for good reason.
Personally I think they are really cool and have a place in the proper ecosystems with lethal management based on sound scientific methods for proper population density.

Keep in mind Jellystone Park is federal government. Common sense doesn't exist. The 5 million summer visitors to the park want to see wolves and common sense management won't happen there anymore than it will in Washington DC.

Quit it Benson- your starting to make to much sense!!!! Lol

So I guess my family that came and carved out a home in the late 1890's are ignorant because of what they did to the wolves, bears, lions, coyote's and such.