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The Hunting News
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The first thing people need to understand about wolves is why hunters have grown to hate them so much, because that hatred did not come out of nowhere. It came from city people voting to put wolves on landscapes they never have to live on, then acting shocked when the people who actually deal with them want them dead. If a mouse gets into somebody’s house and starts eating their food, they do not call it majestic. They set a trap and kill it, and nobody questions that. But when a wolf starts killing livestock, hammering deer and elk, threatening dogs, and taking food and income away from rural families, suddenly the people dealing with it are told they are cruel if they want that predator gone. That is the disconnect. People who never have to hear wolves, see wolves, lose animals to wolves, or change the way they live because of wolves are the same ones demanding that the people who do just tolerate them forever. What hunters hate is not just the wolf. It is being told by outsiders that they are supposed to live with a problem those outsiders would never accept in their own home.
— Stephen Zieegler
Outdoor writer | Owner, DeLong Lures

Ohio is spending a fortune on a study on reintroducing elk in the state. I like elk, but think it's a bad idea. Deer do enough damage and kill a lot of drivers. Elk would be worse.

Keith

Every state around Ohio, has elk. Not sure about Indiana , but seems they're doing fine.
Southeastern Ohio has room for them.
The mole hills through southern and eastern Ohio seems to be good habitat for them.
Not a lot of grain fields in those areas, or many main highways.

I-77, US33, US35, US50, US23 and SR7 all run through South East, Ohio and I-70 cuts through the top of it. There's many windy, hilly local roads, with high speed limits and extremely limited visibility in places. I used to hunt down there a lot. I still go down there a few times a year.

If elk are introduced, Ohio won't let people hunt them for many years. Even though there are less crops in South East, Ohio, there are still many people who make a living off their land. They won't be allowed to easily kill any problem elk.

Keith

Seems Pennsylvania and Kentucky , Michigan have done it.
Doesn't West Virginia have a small herd started?
Sure there'll be problems, but we also have more predators than we had 50 years ago.

WI did it too

I like the mouse analogy, good one to remember.

Around here, we’ve had wolves here for a few thousand years, despite a generous trapping season with no limits and wolf hunting tags that are linked to a big game tag. Dispute that, wolves have a decently healthy population. I always say regarding wolves, if the land can support them, they’ll probably show up on their own. Not sure about other mammals though.

I don’t go bragging to the farmer who’s land we camp on about how many wolves I got last season. He’s got no livestock, only corn and grains and he wants wolves around. So we tell him how many beaver we pull out of the drains around his properties that used to flood fields and leave the wolf discussion out. Between the deer and bear, his crops got hammered by them and wolves will take both of these. The beef producers around and most deer hunters obviously want the wolf eradicated, but with poachers, a generous trapping season, ADC all summer and the odd hunter lucking out………they still are doing just fine.

Yes and now those states have CWD
Good luck with that.

My time line mite be a little wrong but in the early 60's the state started bring in White Tail deer then about 25 years or so later here come the turkeys. Around 35 years ago they brought in those darn otters. All of those took off and now there everywhere. Coyotes,,, One day tthere were none and it seems like the next they were everywhere. I still say the state brought them in but they say no. BS to that. In the mean time we lost out wild pheasants, our grouse, our big hardy quail, our red and gray fox and our muskrats. Bob cats are moving in now form a joining states and some fisher. They want to bring elk in,, just give us back what we once had. Rant over.

I don't want to be the stick in the mud here, but I actually enjoy deer and turkey hunting. I enjoy having the chance at an otter. To KeithC's point on the elk, we do have a lot of high speed, winding roads, but down here in Gallia County, there is so much space. We have as many dirt roads as paved. You can find areas where you could walk for 20-25 miles in certain spots and not see a house or road. Not arguing with you, Skippy 1, I think it would be nice to have our pheasants, grouse, quail, fox and muskrats back, but to be honest, we can't go back now, and I enjoy the taste of deer backstrap too much to pine away for upland birds.

Elk.
How much, what, and where do they eat?
I've seen the Pa elk laid up in yards waiting to be fed$.
Automobile crashes.
In old days if they made problems, we ate them.
Not so with majestic trophies.
I hope the Biologists weigh in on these topics.

Beav Knocker 20-25 miles?
I did not realize this. Thanks.

If you are implying that elk are the link that cause CWD outbreaks in those respective states, youd be wrong. If you know something the rest of us dont, please fill us in.

I used to hunt the Symmes Creek portion of Wayne National Forest and in a swampy portion between the hills, if I remember right, it was 28 miles to the next road. We mainly hunted it for wild boar. I killed a very large buck there with no antlers or even pedicels. I thought it was a huge does until I went to gut it and saw testicles.

There seems to be plenty of room for elk, except they wander much greater distances than whitetail deer do.

Keith

NO, don't get me wrong. I like deer hunting, turkey hunting. When we had the farm I made sure there was always corn in the deer feeders during the winter so the turkeys could feed. Our farm was right across the road from where the very first otters were turned loose. I had to be extra careful of how I made my sets so I wouldn't catch one. It cost me some fur but that's what I did. Some sets I wouldn't make at all. Took 4 years but I did catch one. Took some doing but I got him turned loose. As a side note,,, Catch poles don't work so pretty good trying to turn an otter loose.

Maybe with global warming and climate change it will melt the ice enough to get good DNA from a woolly mammoth and reproduce them. I'm sure everyone will want one in their back yard ! If its too warm in your area, you can always give them a haircut.

It has been determined that elk re-introduction in northern Arkansas also introduced CWD into the local whitetail population there.

Likey has occurred elsewhere before live animal testing came about.

VA introduced elk and good luck trying to get a tag, it’s done by lottery, I think there are 5 tags given each year. They were introduced in a county where they are building a new highway that connects Va to KY and WVA. Real smart they just hang out beside the road.

Part of the problem with reintroducing any wildlife is the game departments fabricate the numbers (usually lowball) of animals in an area or simply don't manage or missmanage the species they introduced with low limits of take.
An example would be here in North Central WA with turkeys, yes I like turkeys however, when one lives within a towns limits and has to contend with 50 birds in their yard, enough is enough. Get rid of the 1 bearded bird limit and let hunters take 3 birds Tom or hen. A few unhatched eggs is not going to decimate this population.

Indiana has no elk.

When they get done with elk what about buffalo. They used to live here as well as the rest of mid west. Sounds like a great idea. ( sarcasm)


The upland bird loss in population from what it was in the 40s and 50s is due to changing farming practices. Went from small family farms with small equipment and fields with grown up fence rolls in between. To large farms big equipment that requires big fields. They ripen out the fence lines and have fields so large it a rabbit needs to pack its lunch to get to the other side. Also protection on Hawks. Didn't help.

Well since the gov is in the ranching business they can just declare "open range" laws and if a driver hits one they will be responsible for their vehicle and animal. They are already responsible for their vehicle. Insurance is a good thing if they drop the "act of God" thing. Reckon insurance gets cheaper the more you use it ?

Looks like a good build a trap project. Think large quail call back type they can get in bit not out easily. Some bird seed and large enough to hold 25 or 30.

Relocate or remove with your preferred method. Maybe to the head of state's game commission yard.


Kind of similar with geese . Anyone have a lake that get so many geese you cant let the dog out and kisses cat go to the lake becuse of all the goose poo.
Run them off and thy are back the next day. Cousin used to have this issue and his water also came from the lake. The reason caused some issue with the water as well . Maybe stored it up and the silt was plugging filters but im not sure what the water issue was.

It appease people who don't hunt or farm ,It provides a cash cow in the form of permit applications, it provides a venue for restricting access to public lands It opens the door for federal and private wildlife monies It provides a food source for wolves and cougars

Misguided liberal ideology which is embraced by the many stupid people in the world

elk seem too take awhile to repopulate here in ontario we have two huntable areas but even than success rates are low and its taken like 30 years to get them where they are

Swamp,

Here's the obvious question with the elk CWD correlation.

Didn't the biologists quarantine the elk and test for CWD before introducing or isn't there a mechanism for testing live animals?

I still think that in the 1950's and 60's was when hunting clubs leased farms to hunt.
Quail and pheasant were a favorite hunt for everyone.
We could hunt both in a day on our farm and neighboring farms.
Got to where too many hunted across lines and soon the wild population couldn't provide enough birds to hunt.
So game clubs raised pheasants for release to hunt.
Pen raised birds needed medication to prevent the crowded birds from many diseases that fowl get when cooped up in small areas.
So those pheasants were medicated but still carried diseases into the wild population.
Soon you couldn't find a wild bird anywhere.
They blame the blizzard of 1978 for the demise of the wild birds.
I truly believe diseased birds released for hunting killed off the wild population.
Chickens are fed feed with medication in it.
I know of many Amish that tried to raise quail, that died within weeks.
Did a search, and found that chickens get a disease the medicated feed prevents for killing them.
They still carry the disease, and quail die from that disease.
Just what I've read and researched over the years.

Could be some of that as well. I wasn't born tell 80 so have no personal experience from back them. But I do remember Geithner into more quail when rabbits hunting when there were more 10 to 50 acre fields and fenc lines in the 90 that are now clean clear fields of hundreds of acres. So I have seen the habit loss direct effect. So only spoke to that. Like a lot of things there are usually a combination of things that caus the problem not just one.

Honestly i had never thought of what you brought up and it also makes since as a contributing factor. So thank for taking the time to type it out. Definitely something that deserves more looking into.

Has to be more to the loss in bird populations than that, PF. Nothing but big farms here and has been that way for a long time, but where there is habitat there are birds. I don't know what the difference is but there is something.

Why reintroduce certain animals?

Because we forgot why we eliminated them in the first place.

Call it coincidence but in Ky and Tenn each of the counties that elk was introduced was where CWD first was detected. Zero no cases this area until elk where released. Would it have gotten here ? Maybe. As for testing and quarantine early releases weren’t as strict. Biologist were too excited about seeing an elk trotting across a field with a orange collar on them

Here in Pa, we had fishers reintroduced 20+ years ago. I catch them every year now. Otters were pretty much non existent here also, I’ve tagged one for the last four seasons. There was a PGC initiative here two years ago to consider bringing martens here. The small game and turkey hunters killed that. I would have liked to see them here…. I wouldn’t live long enough to trap them, but maybe a grandson might.

As far as CWD goes, where it came from is still a puzzle to me.
I know the first case in Ohio was from a deer farm raising huge rack bucks.
They had a deer shipped in from ( can't swear by it for sure anymore )Pennsylvania.
Holmes county 10 or so years ago.
The state killed the whole herd .
We still have it.
Any way it sure wasn't brought here by elk.

Reintroduction of elk in PA had nothing to do with CWD showing up here. Our elk were reintroduced over 100 years ago. Our first cases of CWD were well over 100 miles from the elk herd.

The first hunt for PA elk was around 20 years ago. The first few years the elk just moved into the no hunt zone around the town of Bennezette. They slowly reduced the size of the no hunt zone to now it's basically just the town. The elk have pushed out into the more wild areas of the state. We are seeing elk where they haven't been seen in 100+ years.


The first fisher were introduced into my are of the state. I forgot all about them, and didn't really know much about them. I caught my first one the second year after reintroduction. To say I wasn't prepared to release those fur balls full of nastiness and teeth would be an understatement. I'm glad it wasn't on video. I squealed like a little girl and may have pee'd a little when it latched on to my boot. I was telling the local warden about it. HE laughed so hard and told me if I caught another to call him and he would come help me. He tranq'ed the next one to get some measurements and samples from it. To watch a 6'3" man jump and yell when the little bugger growled and twitched as he was taking samples was hysterical.

No......not all of them.....to my knowledge.

Many whitetails brought in and released in high fence operations were CWD positive....everyone knows the connection there, but don't think for a minute that all re-introduced elk released into the wilds have been 100% CWD-free.

Im not ashamed to admit my 2nd outter was in a coon set in the ditch behind the house set for coon that had been killing my chicken. When I went to let it go,.( out of trapping seasion and protected in the stste at the time) I had a heck of a time. I had a 4' x3' 3/4" piec of ply wood. To separate the teath from the foot. That head came under that board and turnd the border into saw dust like nothing. I was very nervous. I got snout presur off the trap and she gott her foot free and took off. Was a nursing female.

Otter have a long neck and short legs and very fast and feisty. We won't Eleven get into my first bobcat I had to let go.

I cant imagine how fun releasing a fisher or badger would be.


Maybe im just a wimp.

Elk were reintroduced back into western North Carolina. Bad idea IMHO. Where the elk go the tourist are sure to follow. The head biologist told me there will never be an elk season in NC. He disagreed with the release, but stated the state pays him to manage them so he will. Now, the Cherokee Indians have a lottery draw for Indians and hunt them as of recently. But that is not the state. Dairy farmers have gotten permits to shoot them when they damage crops, fences, etc. But they have to bury them. Also, they are really not that wild.