Bear attacks in northern Alaska (Barrow, Metlakatla: to eat, best, dinner) - (AK) - Page 12 - City-Data Forum

blueflames50 · 03-06-2009, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rance

Until she eats meat and gets some iron to her brain...she won't make much sense of anything. Plant killers are all alike.

beautiful statement Rance!!!

HighlandLady · 03-06-2009, 03:45 PM

Ah hells...Northword, Mark, Rance, Brian, and akck, consider yourselves repped until I can spread the love. Doug - you also.

I do tend to feel a sense of pity for the uninformed (or is it ill-informed?). Whilst enjoying a fine breakfast that included reindeer sausage grilled perfectly, I overheard the next table full of gents discussing the merits of aerial wolf-hunting and how it saved their horses from impending doom as the wolves had been harassing their stocks.

JavaPhil · 03-06-2009, 04:41 PM

What ticks me off is the assumption that aerial hunting is a decision made to eliminate the wolves rather than one leg of the predator control the state uses to maintain the population size in an area twice the size of Texas. I find the practice distasteful but necessary. I think wolves are magnificent animals but they have to kill local meat animals to maintain (and grow) their populations. As the packs grow and move, they have depleted the populations.

A land without roads, without the local infrastructure to suppport the trapping and ground hunting required means that we must control it by aerial control. No other reasonable way exists.

warptman · 03-06-2009, 04:50 PM

Mal, I can come pick you up with my Supercub and we can go shoot a few wolves!

JavaPhil · 03-06-2009, 04:52 PM

Works for me. I get to keep the ruffs to line my next parka.

Floyd_Davidson · 03-06-2009, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JavaPhil

What ticks me off is the assumption that aerial hunting is a decision made to eliminate the wolves rather than one leg of the predator control the state uses to maintain the population size in an area twice the size of Texas.

Your statement is valid, in part. The unfortunate part is that it has been very clear for literally decades that about half of those involved are indeed simply interested in shooting wolves for the sake of killing them (all if possible). Machine Gun Kellyhouse didn't get his knickname for nothing. Ralph Seekins and more than one other semi-significant politician are other examples.

That particular branch of the pro-wolf control side has done more harm to those who would like to have sensible management of Fish and Wildlife in Alaska than all of the eco-nuts combined.

Quote:

I find the practice distasteful but necessary. I think wolves are magnificent animals but they have to kill local meat animals to maintain (and grow) their populations. As the packs grow and move, they have depleted the populations.

Now, if we would only limit wolf control programs to locations where that is known to be true!

And I would also suggest that improving trophy and sport hunting is not a valid purpose for wolf control. The single valid reason is to increase subsistence take of meat animals.

Quote:

A land without roads, without the local infrastructure to suppport the trapping and ground hunting required means that we must control it by aerial control. No other reasonable way exists.

But not helicopters.

And regardless of that... do you realize that there is a large body of evidence available to provide guidance for how to design wolf control programs, and that most of it suggests that random arial hunting programs virtually never succeed at reducing wolf predation? It breaks up large packs, leaving many smaller packs, which tend to breed faster. In decades past it was a great way to provide a few jobs in bush locations, and worked very well because there was no possibility that those employed could work themselves out of a job! (I lived on the Kuskokwim River in the 1970s, and spend lots of time talking to the old guys that used to hunt wolves in the 50's and 60's, and personally knew most of the ones who were involved in the 1970's wolf control programs.)