Althouse: Wolf hunting.

July 26, 2012

Wolf hunting.

Wisconsin is having a harvest. We're looking to cull 201 wolves.

23 comments:

Colonel Angus said...: Is Sarah Palin coming?; 7/26/12, 9:29 AM
edutcher said...: I can see the Lefties hurling themselves in front of the wolves to save them.

Suuure.; 7/26/12, 9:31 AM
Aridog said...: Wisconsin should be so proud. Issuing permits and quotas for "sport" hunter who are very unlikely to eat any wolf they kill. SPIT!

I've no problem with livestock owners and property owners defending "boundary zones" where the wild meets ranches, farms, domestic parks, residential areas, and so forth. Those Owners should have the permits necessary to sustain the boundary. An 800 something population is not justification for open licensing.; 7/26/12, 9:56 AM
Sorun said...: I think "wolf trapping" would be a better description of the activity.; 7/26/12, 10:05 AM
Sorun said...: If anyone thinks the Marlboro Man will be hiking a ridge with a 30.06 slung across his back -- looking to put the crosshairs on a wild wolf -- they're mistaken.; 7/26/12, 10:09 AM
bandmeeting said...: Because an even 200 wouldn't have been enough.; 7/26/12, 10:13 AM
Mitch H. said...: Ugh, predator meat. Probably tastes gamey as hell.; 7/26/12, 10:34 AM
Geoff Matthews said...: Aridog,

If I wanted to eat wolf, I'd try my saddle.; 7/26/12, 11:04 AM
karrde said...: @Aridog,

this doesn't look like an open season.

It looks like a limited number of licenses given out by lottery.

The same system is used to issue licenses for Black Bear in Michigan, and for female deer in various regions of Michigan. Basically, there are more interested hunters than there will be licenses, so the game wardens use a lottery system to award licenses.

I'm not aware of anyone who would hunt wolves for meat; I do think that the pelts (skin plus fur) from those animals might be valuable items.; 7/26/12, 11:57 AM
Aridog said...: @karrde ... matters little to me if the wolf season is open or a limited permit event. The number or wolves in Wisconsin aren't enough to require either. Those farmers/ranchers/citizens who have predation issues should be able to deal with them, as they occur, whenever they occur ... there is no need for a "public season", lottery or otherwise, except political.

The myths about wolves and their various "vicious" depredations are beyond comical.; 7/26/12, 12:48 PM
Aridog said...: Geoff Matthews said...

If I wanted to eat wolf, I'd try my saddle.

If you are referring to meat tenderness versus your saddle...I donno. My Steuben hunt seat or my Price-McLaughlin western seat would be far tougher than most any game animal.

I've eaten dog while I was living in the orient, rather unremarkable as to taste, but definitely not tough as cured saddle leather. YMMV... :-); 7/26/12, 12:55 PM
Meade said...: "I've eaten dog while I was living in the orient..."

!!! Welcome to the Althouse blog, Mr. President!; 7/26/12, 1:01 PM
Carnifex said...: @Aridog

I usually agree with your posts dog but I gotta' go with the experts here. If fish and wildlife say they need to get rid of excess animals they are in MY experience right. My Dad, the Federal Game Warden, showed me plenty of instances where anti-hunting sentiment, lead to more hardship for the animals. I recall watching special hunts here, before they got the deer under control, where the animals were not worth eating because they had been starving for so long.

And they say they want 200 plus killed. I can guarentee that there won't be. The kill rate is always smaller than the permit rate. Not all hunts are successful.

And to top it off, no one should criticize farmers with their mouths full. If the farmers are saying the wolves are praying on their lifestock, I tend to believe them. It's their investment being ingested; 7/26/12, 1:13 PM
Rusty said...: Hot damn!
My parka was needing a new ruff.

Wolf and baby seal. Now THAT's some fine dinin'.; 7/26/12, 3:05 PM
Rusty said...: I shot a wolf in Boscobel, Just to watch it die.; 7/26/12, 3:07 PM
Aridog said...: Carnifex ...

... anti-hunting sentiment ... no one should criticize farmers with their mouths full. If the farmers are saying the wolves are praying on their lifestock, I tend to believe them. It's their investment being ingested

I apparently failed miserably in my writing ... no where am I anti-hunting and I don't
think I said otherwise. Further, I thought I was very clear on the rights of farmers/ranchers regarding predatory carnivores on or around their lands.

No insult to your father, a "Fed" like I was and probably military as well, who has or had considerable wilderness experience, as I do, but I really doubt he would have agreed that 200 or so animals were a significant surplus per se and justification for a sport hunting season...rather than a managed hunt or trapping operation by professionals.

There are systematic, scientifically based, methods, for surplus removal...especially of such a small sample...that doesn't mess up gene pools of relatively small over all populations to start with. However, almost every time a government wildlife agent agency proposes such systematic processes, the "sport hunting" crowd raise holy hell...and politics trumps wildlife. Every time.

Let me cite a scientific rational discrete reduction of a population of wild animals that is under way now, as we speak. The wild horse gather, without helicopters at the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Refuge in Montana and northernmost Wyoming.

Even though it is horses, without the mythical viciousness hype, there is a strong public objection to it ...e.g., from horse meat purveyors.

In my experience, no matter how hard game wardens might try to conduct rational actions to aid a species, politics trumps it all with way too few exceptions.

I'm just one guy with an opinion honed over decades of experience, .... I long ago gave up on the "Environmental Organizations" who are ignorant of everything but fund raising. I'm also a member of the NRA since about 1950 or so (age of 8 in Junior NRA)and don't much like their position on this subject either.; 7/26/12, 3:34 PM
Aridog said...: I shot a wolf in Boscobel, Just to watch it die.

Impressive. You no doubt trained with a super double secret ninja team as well, oh wait...

What you are really saying is tantamount the the rational Holmes in Colorado and Hassan in Texas used ... shootin' just to watch living things die.; 7/26/12, 3:50 PM
garage mahal said...: Wisconsin is the only state that is going to allow the use of dogs for hunting wolves. Can't wait to hear all the stories from all the goobers whose bird dogs are getting mauled and killed by wolves.

They're also going to allow hunting at night, with bait - and with an overly long season - for pregnant females.

There wasn't a lick of science involved with the drafting of this legislation.; 7/26/12, 4:28 PM
garage mahal said...: reference and grisly details here.; 7/26/12, 4:32 PM
AllenS said...: Most of the anti-wolf sentiment come from deer hunters, usually men from the cities that go hunting and don't get a deer. The reason? Too many wolves.; 7/26/12, 4:37 PM
Jube said...: Darn, I was hoping this was going to be another wacky Obama fundraising letter.; 7/26/12, 8:25 PM
Aridog said...: @garage mahal...

They're also going to allow hunting at night, with bait ...[snip] ... There wasn't a lick of science involved with the drafting of this legislation.

Yep, other than "hunting" and "bait" used together is oxymoronic ...and when they've disrupted the gene pool enough (very easy to do with random 4:1 population/hunt ratio) they will find that by killing mature adults they will foster immature adults that do not know pack protocols. Kill off enough pregnant females and they'll disrupt the social fabric of wolf packs.

Yep, it's gonna be great ... a couple years from now we'll be hearing about "aggressive" wolves (aberrant behavior for wolves) and "serial killing wolves" (which is "dog" behavior, not wolf) by immature packs that have not learned the relationship between prey and survival, and not to waste it.

The reason? Because the familial pack as once known no longer exists. It can happen by random natural occurrence, such as the loss of the Druid Pack in Yellowstone due to manage. OR ... humans can arrange it in the name of "control" and "sport" and "husbandry of ungulates" for human consumption only. The surviving wolves will not be the shy and suspicious wolves of the past ... they will be (and have been in some places) the wild canine version of Lord of the Flies.; 7/27/12, 6:54 AM
karrde said...: @Aridog,

Do you think it would be better for Game Wardens to selectively cull the packs, or hire a hunting-company for the task?

It's harder to do than letting out tags for wolves. Requires lots of attention from the game wardens.

But might be a better management tool.

I notice that the article doesn't say where the hunts will be allowed...perhaps they are region-limited in an attempt to severely depress wolf populations in certain counties.

And I notice it doesn't say anything about special training/classes/experience required for the wolf hunt. That, by itself, would tell me much more about what the wardens are trying to do.

The question of how best to control wolves is an interesting challenge. I am not so sure that farmers would be as careful as wardens-plus-professional-wolf-cullers, in terms of not destroying wolf-packs and leaving lots of poorly-trained young wolves around.; 7/27/12, 10:01 AM