So what are we missing about Wolves decimating Wyoming Elk herds when Wyoming Fish & Game state: “Elk hunting in Wyoming is as good now and over the past five years [it’s as good] as it has ever been”...................“Hunters often talk about the good ol’ days when it comes to their favorite fall ritual, but for elk hunters the good ol’ days are now”..............Bottom line is that these past few years have been banner years for elk hunters statewide, where for the second year in a row the elk harvest surpassed 25,000 animals...............So why are we allowing the state to blow away wolves at every turn??????????????????

http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/elk-hunt-strong-around-jackson-hole/article_5a81e92c-b65e-5004-be21-42da12f66240.html#.UzOfwGsCvO0.email

Elk hunt strong around Jackson Hole

More than 2,000 animals killed in two herds nearest valley, reports show.

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BRADLY J. BONER / NEWS&GUIDE FILe

Hunters had good success bagging elk around Jackson Hole last year, including that part of the herd that winters on the National Elk Refuge. Here they flock in 2012 to a feed line on the refuge.

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POSTED: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2014 4:30 AM

By Mike Koshmrl | 2 comments

Sportsmen had great success killing elk around Jackson Hole last fall, data recently released by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department shows.

Harvest reports released this week show that hunters killed 1,437 animals from the Jackson Elk Herd, up more than 30 percent from the year before. The kill total was 726 animals in the separate Fall Creek Elk Herd, a number that is down about 15 percent from the 2012-2013 hunting season.

“Last year, we had particular snowfall that was just right to push animals down in drainages where they’re more visible,” Game and Fish Wildlife Management Coordinator Doug Brimeyer said Tuesday of the hunt.

The elks’ visibility boosted the harvest in places like the Gros Ventre, Brimeyer said.

“A harvest like last year in some of these forest areas isn’t sustainable,” he said.

The Fall Creek and Jackson herds are the two major elk herds that summer and winter near the valley. The harvest in the much-smaller Targhee Elk Herd, which roams the west slope of the Teton Range, was just 29.

It was also a banner year for elk hunters statewide, where for the second year in a row the elk harvest surpassed 25,000 animals. In the 2012-2013 hunt the harvest was 26,365 elk — an Equality State record.

“Hunters often talk about the good ol’ days when it comes to their favorite fall ritual, but for elk hunters the good ol’ days are now,” a Game and Fish statement said.

“[E]lk hunting in Wyoming is as good now and over the past five years [it’s as good] as it has ever been,” the state’s statement said. “During that time period hunter success was consistently greater than 40 percent. Elk hunters experienced 45 percent success in 2013 and enjoyed more than 461,000 recreation days afield.”

The success rate for hunters pursuing animals in the Jackson Herd was an even 50 percent, with the average person spending 13.6 days in the field. In total more than 19,500 “hunter days” were amassed by sportsmen after elk from the Jackson Herd.

Success rates for hunters after the Fall Creek Herd were comparatively lower, coming in at 34.2 percent. Sportsmen pursuing the valley’s more southern elk herd spent an average of 21 days in the field and totaled nearly 12,600 “hunter days” before the last of the seasons rolled to a close on private lands Jan. 31.

Measured by sheer numbers, area 84 was the most successful for hunters among the dozen elk areas Game and Fish manages near Jackson Hole. More than 500 elk were killed in the unit, which stretches south of the Cache Creek drainage.

That kill total figures to decline significantly this coming hunting season. Game and Fish has proposed to cut area 84’s limited “cow-calf” licenses by three quarters — from 400 to 100. Some 275 cow or calf elk were killed in area 84 this last hunt season, harvest reports show.

The proposed quota change in elk area 84 is by far the largest change in any unit used by either the Jackson or Fall Creek herds.

At a Game and Fish “season setting” meeting Tuesday, biologist Aly Courtemanch overviewed a smaller change in the regulations in elk area 78 — on private land between Grand Teton National Park and Wilson. A proposal of the department decreases rifle tags by 50 and provides 50 more licenses to muzzle-loading firearm hunters.

“This is to address some of the concerns in this area of long range weapons being used,” Courtemanch said. “We’d like to keep hunting pressure on these southern migrants.”

Nearly 140 elk were killed last year in area 78, harvest reports show, non of which were taken by muzzle loaders.

On the National Elk Refuge 174 elk were killed and in Grand Teton park 306 wapiti were reported downed by hunters, according to the Game and Fish report.

Both of those Game and Fish harvests totals — which are estimates — differ significantly from the hunt reports conducted by the park and refuge, however.

Refuge officials told the News&Guide in December that 133 elk were killed, and park officials reported a harvest of 202 elk.

Harvests for elk, deer and antelope in Wyoming are generated by voluntary hunter surveys, Game and Fish spokesman Al Langston said.

“It’s an estimate, but it’s the closest thing we have,” Langston said.

Langston expressed a high degree of certainty in the department’s harvest reports.

Registration after killing of less numerous game species such as moose, bighorn sheep or mountain goats is mandatory, making those harvest reports more absolute.

Game and Fish’s harvest reports show that elk hunting was much more difficult in the northern portions of Jackson Hole than it was to the south. The lack of success aligns with counts in recent years by department biologists.

In elk hunt areas 70, 71, 73 and 79 — the four northernmost area elk units — hunters killed an estimated 234 elk. That’s only about 16 percent of the total Jackson Elk Herd harvest.

“We’re seeing a switch where we are losing elk that are doing this long distance migration,” Courtemanch said at the Tuesday meeting. “We’d like to keep hunting pressure on these southern migrants.”

—Ben Graham contributed to this story.

We have reported previously that some Lawmakers in Illinois would like to write PROTECTIONS into state game laws that would protect Pumas, Wolves and black bears should they one day rewild the state........Of course the knee-jerk response from the Illinois Farm Bureau is to allow landowners to kill any of these carnivores if they perceive them to be a threat,,,,,,,,,,,,,,even if they have not acted threateningly in any way..........There are days, when weary from the days toil, that these type human responses make you want to throw up your hands and say---- "Are we as a species so fearful, so stupid and so ignorant, that we block out all science and learned information when it comes to co-exisitng with natures design"?????? You hear all these so-called religious people outraged at the NOAH movie being released this weekend because they feel Noah is depicted as flawed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but they completely ignore the fact that so-called flawed Noah welcomed all the carnivores onto his Ark................We as a community should be as good a steward as Noah was

http://northernpublicradio.org/post/will-cougars-black-bears-and-gray-wolves-be-protected-illinois#.UzNbU1z2Ofo.email

Will Cougars, Black Bears And Gray Wolves Be Protected In Illinois?

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By PETER GRAY

Originally published on Tue March 25, 2014 11:19 pm

Credit Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources (IDNR)

Nov. 21 photo of male mountain lion, euthanized by IDNR

The Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources wants to add black bears, gray wolves and cougars to the state's list of protected species. But there is disagreement on how much protection should be given when there is a safety concern.

On November 20, 2013, a family near Morrison, Ill. asked state conservation police officers to kill a cougar found hiding under a building on their land.

In response, Sen. Linda Holmes (D-Aurora) sponsored legislation designed to protect predators native to North America.  Holmes said she heard an outcry from animal lovers in her area who embrace the rarity of a roaming big cat:

"For many years we didn't have them here in Illinois," Holmes said. "Now we're starting to find that some populations of these animals are coming into Illinois, and they are just being shot, without any recourse whatsoever."

Even if legislation succeeds in getting three more species of North American predators listed as "protected", they could still be legally killed in the future.

The Illinois Farm Bureau, defending landowners and their livestock, has successfully lobbied for two major changes: 

a) It shall not be illegal for an owner or tenant of land, or their agent, to immediately take on his or her property a Gray Wolf, Canis lupus; Amercian black bear, Ursus americanus;  or Cougar, Puma concolor if, at any time, the Gray wolf, American black bear, or cougar is stalking, causing a threat, or is expected to reasonably cause an imminent threat of physical harm or death to a human, livestock, domestic animals or structures on the owner’s or tenant’s land.

b) The Department shall establish, through administrative rule, the circumstances in which a Gray Wolf, American black bear, or cougar that is causing a threat to an owner or tenant of land or his property, that is not an immediate threat as included in subsection a) above, may be declared a nuisance and may grant a nuisance permit to the owner or tenant of land, or their designated agent, for the taking of such animal.

In other words, the proposed legislation now states that if one of these predators is "stalking" or "expected to reasonably cause an imminent threat" while on private land, owners are justified in pulling the trigger. If they aren't up to the task, they may ask the state kill a "nuisance" animal for them.

U. of Calif Davis Professor Matthew Cronin has published a peer reviewed paper suggesting that polar bears and brown bears diverged as different species 1.2 million years ago and black bears diverged from the polar/brown bear lineage 2.3 million years ago.............Based on these findings, the polar bear was an independent species for about 1 million years...........It therefore survived previous cold and warm periods where sea ice was non-existent----------------The Professor theorizes that if Polar Bears previously survived without ice flows to hunt seals on, that perhaps they will survive into the future even if our polar caps completely melt out.......What variables if any, is Cronin not taking into account with this outlook?

Link: http://snras.blogspot.com/2014/03/bear-species-genetic-relationships.html

Bear species' genetic relationships determined

Matthew Cronin, professor of animal genetics with the UAF School

 of Natural Resources and Extension and colleagues at the University

 of California Davis and Delta G Co. published a paper on bear

 genetics in the Journal of Heredity online in January. The paper,

 which will be printed in the next few months, describes the research

 involving genome sequence comparisons of the three bear species.

brown bear

Cronin also published papers on the relationships of the bears

 with different genetic analyses in 2012 with a collaborator at the 

U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Journal of Heredity, and in

 2013 with co-workers at Texas Tech University in the Canadian

 Journal of Zoology.

The 2014 paper replicates other research on bear genomes but 

includes analysis of genetic variation in more than 300 bears from

 Alaska and genetic elements not assessed previously in bears. 

These are known as ultra-conserved elements, and show the polar

 and brown bears to be more closely related than either is to black

 bears.

The data was used in a “molecular clock” that uses the numbers

 of differences (mutations) in DNA sequences to estimate when

 the sequences, and hence the species, diverged. The data suggest

 that polar bears and brown bears diverged as different species 

1.2 million years ago, and black bears diverged from the

 polar/brown bear lineage 2.3 million years ago.  These estimates 

are within the ranges in other studies.

Utilizing labs at the University of California Davis, Cronin and

 technology experts pored over huge datasets. He also analyzed

 tissue samples from Montana and from Alaska’s Admiralty,

 Baranof and Chichagof islands, obtained from state and

 federal wildlife agencies. In recent years DNA science has 

improved so much that Cronin is able to study billions of 

nucleotides of DNA rather than the thousands he used to

 be limited to. “It’s very advanced because of the applications

 in medicine and agriculture,” Cronin said.

“The ramifications are that if the polar bear was an independent 

species for about 1 million years it survived previous cold and 

warm periods,” Cronin said. “This means the polar bear has 

been an independent lineage a long time through glacial and

 interglacial and warm periods.”

The last glacial period was at maximum extent about 22,000

 years ago, and was preceded by a warm interglacial period

 about 130,000 years ago. Other warm and cold periods

 preceded that. Cronin thinks that if polar bears survived

 previous warm periods in which there was little or no arctic 

summer sea ice, this should be used in  models predicting

 the species’ response to current climate change.

“It seems logical that if polar bears survived previous warm, 

ice-free periods, they could survive another. This is of course 

speculation, but so is predicting they will not survive, as the

 proponents of the endangered species act listing of polar 

bears have done.”

Cronin has been studying animal genetics for 25 years. 

He recently researched wood bison and plains bison. 

Comparing wolves in Southeast Alaska to species across

 the country is his next area of research.

Our friend and PREDATOR DEFENSE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BROOKS FAHY ON THE RADIO EXPLAINING WHY THE KILLING OF PUMAS AND OTHER CARNIVORES ONLY LEADS TO MORE CONFLICTS WITH PEOPLE AND LIVESTOCK..............CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO HEAR BROOKS COMMENTARY

http://klcc.org/post/predator-advocate-says-killing-cougars-unnecessary-harmfull

--
Brooks Fahy
Executive Director
PREDATOR DEFENSE
PO Box 5446
Eugene, OR 97405
541-937-4261 Office
541-520-6003 Cell
brooks@predatordefense.org
www.predatordefense.org

Predator Advocate Says Killing Cougars Is Unnecessary, Harmfull

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By RACHAEL MCDONALD

0:06

6:23

This month, a female cougar believed to be preying on livestock near Hendricks Parkwas trapped and killed by Oregon Fish & Wildlife. A second, juvenile male cougar was trapped and killed a few days later. A third young cat was captured by trail camera. Brooks Fahy is Director of Predator Defense, a national wildlife advocacy organization based out of Eugene.  He spoke with KLCC's Rachael McDonald.

A sign posted at Hendrick's Park in Eugene warns of the cougar recently seen in the area.

Credit Rachael McDonald

ODFW says the 3rd cougar seen in Hendrick's Park has not been photographed again. Friday, the agency took away a trap that had been set for it.

In New Hampshire and across New England and the Mid Atlantic, Coyote pups conceived during the late-February breeding season will be born in April................ The pups are now growing and developing in utero from the protein and fat of winter deer kills(amongst a variety of mammals)............... The average person mourns the deer and maligns the coyotes.............. That is the case until the "awww" moment when pups appear............ Why coo at a photo of cute coyote pups in a den without acknowledging they are born of venison?............When we as a people acknowledge that the mother and father coyote that kill the deer to feed their pups have as much right to live free as the human mother and father that pay the butcher to kill the cow to feed their kids -----then and only then will the human animal be able to look in the mirror and see an evolved homo sapien

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE NEW HAMPSHIRE WOODS: DEER CARCASS FEEDS COYOTES AND THEIR FETAL PUPS

Link to the story: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140301/NEWHAMPSHIRE03/140309951

 

We first discovered the deer carcass simply by listening. 

A raucous chorus of crows and a few smaller blue jays seemed suspicious. The scavenging "meat birds" flocked to pasture's-edge trees, circling on tilted wings to the natural funnel at the bottom of a steep, south-facing hemlock ravine located a mere hundred yards from the house.

The noisy scavengers, we knew, were harbingers of a meat source in snowy woods otherwise devoid of food. 

CSI South Sutton

As expected, we found a freshly killed white-tailed deer - disemboweled, with entrails and spine pulled free of dangling legs, its neck and head still intact. A short walk uphill led to a half-dozen feeding platforms packed in the snow, each flecked with blood and bits of meat, hide and hair. Nearby, the discarded rumen sack contained the deer's last meal. A cud of partially digested tree bark and sapling buds looked as foreign as grass clippings spilled on the snow.

The coyote pack fed first on the liver, heart and other vital organs while leaving the gall bladder. It cleaned the deer's spine and ribs of meat, leaving the neck and legs for later, just as we might eat a lobster: choice tail and claws first. The hide was peeled back from the carcass. The back haunches had been pulled free of the hips, dragged uphill and carried off into the forest.

Trees at the perimeter of the coyotes' nocturnal dining room were marked with bright yellow urine - territorial claim and clear warning to interlopers. By day, crows and jays left wing prints while scattering bits of nutritious frozen venison. The coyotes were not happy to share their kill. The race had begun to dismember and move the deer carcass uphill into the jumble of ledges and boulders overlooking the Lane River valley.

Annual travel patterns

The steep ledges and talus boulders overlooking the forest of oak and hemlock are ruled by a pack of coyotes that howl - often startlingly nearby and always unexpectedly - from beyond the cultivated fringes of our small tree farm.

Deer highways are re-established every winter where a brook exits the woods and crosses beneath the dirt road, emerging into a wide alder swale and meadow at the edge of a larger wetland. 

Stone walls and a former fenced sheep pen constrict wildlife travel nightly. The open barway in a stone wall at the edge of the road had made a perfect spot for a coyote ambush. Coyotes are cunning in using natural ambush sites for driving deer into cornered positions for a group kill. It's happened very nearby before - perhaps for decades.

We hear coyotes howling more frequently over the course of winter as deer weaken in the deep snow and as the late-February coyote breeding season arrives. The tracks and signs in the snow become easier to read with more intimate knowledge of our local topography.

The deer move laterally across the hill randomly but tend to ascend and descend in the wooded corridors between adjacent fields and houses. Coyotes drive deer uphill into ambush positions where steep terrain slows the prey and hinders escape from pursuing hunters as other coyotes wait at the base of the ledges or bottlenecks where trails converge.

Caught on camera

My neighbor Garrett Evans shared stunning wildlife images he captured using remote game cameras. I had asked him to attempt to capture a portrait of the successful coyotes. 

The deer carcass was going fast by the time Garrett strapped two infrared cameras with cable locks to trees at the ambush site. One focused on the carcass, the other on the wider angle of approach. The likely path coyotes would follow would have them moving the meat uphill, away from the road.

Feeding visits abruptly stopped for several very cold nights, curtailed by human scent after we initially visited the carcass. Then the coyote visits accelerated while we avoided the area entirely after a heavy snowfall.

Cyclical food chain

Cute coyote pups conceived during the late-February breeding season will be born in April. The pups are now growing and developing in utero from the protein and fat of winter deer kills. We mourn the deer and malign coyotes. Until the "awww" moment when pups appear. Why coo at a photo of cute coyote pups in a den without acknowledging they are born of venison?

DEER TRAIL

Naturally skilled predators, they one day will pursue the fawns born to surviving does in June. The recurrent annual drama of coyotes hunting deer is writ large in our forests, the New Hampshire version of hyenas hunting gazelles.

Our human predecessors might have gladly taken a share of the meat we found - alerted by crows to the largess. Perhaps native trappers would have set snares to obtain coyote pelts when the predators returned to claim the balance of a deer kill. We're insulated from the realities of "survival of the fittest." Our status as alpha-predator is blurred by the convenience of the supermarket butcher shop. Meat gives life to many and brings death to others. This is business as usual in the winter woods. Coyote-deer dramas illustrate an ancient and elegant local food chain.

Despite following tracks and finding kill sites and scat, I've never caught even a fleeting glimpse of a coyote while I was on foot. They're ghosts inhabiting our shared landscape. I know they follow my scent and perhaps have even watched me on snowshoes on winter nights walking in the pool of blue halogen light from a headlamp. Often I squint into the dark woods and coil in anticipation of their wild, celebratory howling on winter nights.

"Forest Journal" appears every other week in the New Hampshire Sunday News. Naturalist Dave Anderson is director of Education and Volunteer Services for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. Email him at danderson@forestsociety.org or through the Forest Society Web site, forestsociety.org.

---

Speak for Wolves: Yellowstone 2014 is about taking an important step towards stopping the wolf slaughter that is currently taking place across the United States........This meeting of concerned Americans from around the Country is taking place on June 28-39 in Gardiner, Montana..............Their focus will be on restructuring state game Agencies so that they do not favor hunting and agricultural consituencies,,,,,,,,,,,,,Removing grazing from public lands,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Abolishing Wildlife Services,,,,,,,,,,Banning trapping on public lands,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and stopping the hunting of carnivores except in the case of extreme public safety..........................

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Helen McGinnis ;HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net
Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 11:15 AM
Subject: Speak for Wolves: Yellowstone June 28-29 2014 -- Unite & demand wildlife management reform
To: Rick Meril Rick.Meril@gmail.com

There are three videos at the site.

http://www.speakforwolves.org/

Speak for Wolves: Yellowstone 2014

An opportunity for the American people to unite and demand wildlife management reform and restore our national heritage

On June 28-29 2014, Americans of all-walks-of-life will meet in Arch Park in Gardiner, Montana to tell our elected leaders that we need to reform wildlife management, at both, the state and federal level. Approximately 3000 grey wolves have been killed in the northern Rockies and Great Lakes region since they were delisted from the Endangered Species Act.

Speak for Wolves: Yellowstone 2014 is about taking an important step towards stopping the wolf slaughter that is currently taking place across the United States. We must take bold measures, however, and address the root-cause(s) of the wolf slaughter, the killing of other predators, as well as bison, wild horses and other members of the animal kingdom. The status quo for wildlife management in America is broken and it must be fixed.

 

This 2-day celebration of predators and our national heritage will feature prominent speakers, live music, education booths, children's activities, food/drink vendors, local wildlife photography, screening of wildlife documentaries and more.

This festival-type event is family-friendly, educational, inspirational and non-confrontational. Alcohol will not be served. Predator-friendly beef, chicken, pork, vegetarian and vegan options will be available for purchase. There is no admission fee. Arch Park is a public venue adjacent to the northwest entrance of Yellowstone National Park (Mammoth Hot Springs).

The 5 Keys to Reforming Wildlife Management in America are as follows:

1. Restructuring the way state Fish &; Game departments operate:
Western governors currently appoint agency commissioners, which essentially, tell the state Fish & Game Departments what to do. This is cronyism at its worst. State Fish & Game Departments are mostly funded by the sale of hunting/trapping/fishing licenses. These agencies are bound into serving the interest of "sportsmen" because it's the hand that feeds them. Modern funding mechanisms, application of the best-available science and genuine public involvement in decision making are sorely lacking in these institutions and it must be addressed. Another option would be to empower the federal government to manage all wildlife on federal public lands.

2. Removing grazing from all federal public lands:
The "control" of native wildlife to benefit the livestock industry is ground zero for the badly-broken wildlife management status quo. For more than a century, the livestock industry has single-handedly transformed the once-wild west into a tamed pasture of cows and sheep, resulting in the reduction of native wildlife populations that compete with habitat and forage. It is also well documented the damage that grazing causes when livestock infests federal public wildlands. Livestock are non-native and largely responsible for soil compaction, a decrease in water retention and aquifer recharge, erosion, destruction of wetlands and riparian areas, flooding and a net-loss of biodiversity. Grazing enables invasive plant species to proliferate, which greatly affects the West's historic fire regime.

3. Abolishing Wildlife Services:
Hidden within the US Department of Agriculture, is a rogue agency that is essentially, the wildlife killing-arm of the federal government. This federal tax-payer-supported agency works with the livestock industry to kill native wildlife like wolves, coyotes, black bears, cougars and many other non-predator species. Over the past century, Wildlife Services is responsible for the death of tens-of millions of native wildlife. Methods of killing include trapping, poisoning and aerial gunning. At the very least, the predator-control segment of Wildlife Services must be terminated.

Federal employee from Idaho proud to trap,

torture and kill wolves

Aerial gunning in Idaho recently killed 23 wolves

4. Banning trapping/snaring on all federal public lands:
We must evolve as a society and move away from this barbaric, unethical, cruel and torturous method(s) of killing native wildlife. Leg-hold traps, conibear traps and other devices are indiscriminate killers. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of dogs caught/killed by traps on public lands in states like Idaho. It's only a matter of time before a child or adult steps into one of these bone-crushing devices. Some states currently require individuals to check their traps once every 72-hours, while other states do not require trappers to check them, at all.

5. No killing of predators, except for extreme circumstances:
The best available science suggests that predators, including wolves, are a self-regulating species. In other words, predators don't overpopulate, nor do they kill for "fun". Instead, their populations naturally fluctuate, as do prey or ungulate populations. We need to better understand and embrace the trophic cascade effect predators have within ecosystems. Non-lethal measures should be implemented in rare instances where there are actual human/predator conflicts. For example, an aggressive and/or habituated bear may need to be killed after non-lethal measures have failed.

Come to Arch Park in Gardiner, Montana June 28-29, 2014. The event is family friendly and will feature prominent speakers, live music, video production crews, education and outreach booths, food and drink vendors and the screening of wildlife documentaries. This is going to be the event of the year in the northern Rockies. Together we can make history and restore our wild national heritage!