johnnyray
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Post by johnnyray on Aug 18, 2015 17:48:31 GMT -8
"Wolf sighting in the Black Hills? Conservation debate begins anew" bit.ly/1E4bqd6
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2015 19:35:55 GMT -8
Thanks for the link, JohnnyRay. The YouTube video is below. The local news media is not reporting this yet, as far as I can find. The fact is that in the last few years wolves have been documented in the Black Hills on multiple occasions, and there are many more undocumented claims of sightings. What is unusual here is the video. Those wolves that have been killed here in recent years have been documented from both Minnesota and the Greater Yellowstone Area. Wolves are federally protected as endangered species in both the South Dakota and Wyoming sides of the Black Hills. But unfortunately, that does not offer much protection from being run over on the Interstate or being shot by some coyote hunter claiming he had no idea that the animal over twice the size of any coyote he had ever seen was in fact not a coyote. ![](http://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/rolleye/rolleye0014.gif) All the controversy over wolves in the Northern Rockies we have indulged over mountain lions here. It's all supposed to be bad news for deer and elk herds, bad news for livestock, bad news for toy poodles and little children and on and on. Meanwhile the mountain lions mostly mind their own business while a few loud-mouth detractors announce the Large-Predator Apocalypse and imminent destruction. Meanwhile, the dispersing wolves that wander our way are typically young males, as are the mountain lions that wander away from here to as far away as New England. The magic won't happen without females. Then maybe we can hope for little wolflings and wolflets in the Black Hills. More power to them!
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johnnyray
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Post by johnnyray on Aug 18, 2015 20:05:42 GMT -8
You hear it in parts of the hunting community as well as game managers, it's as if public lands and species are managed as game farms rather than a complete ecosystem or as complete as can be. It's not "as if" it is in fact the case, that some are only interested in trophy hunting. It bodes well for genetic diversity if wolves from both western and eastern regions are potentially crossing paths, if I read your comment correctly.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2015 20:18:57 GMT -8
It bodes well for genetic diversity if wolves from both western and eastern regions are potentially crossing paths, if I read your comment correctly. Absolutely correct — if and when they form a breeding pair. So again, it's the female long-distance dispersers that we need here. But as you say, genetics from Minnesota breeding with genetics from Greater Yellowstone could aid genetic diversity substantially.
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Post by Outdoor Union on Aug 19, 2015 19:08:23 GMT -8
"There is no black and white when it comes to wolf management, there needs to be compromise in order for all needs to be addressed." That is the best comment in the entire article.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Aug 19, 2015 19:37:05 GMT -8
"There is no black and white when it comes to wolf management, there needs to be compromise in order for all needs to be addressed." That is the best comment in the entire article. That statement implicitly assumes that wolves need to be managed, which for most management advocates means slaughtered to within an inch of extinction. Calling that "management" gives a false impression of thoughtful consideration, especially when "compromise" typically means that opponents deign to allow a handful to escape the holocaust. The fact that such an apparently small population could invoke calls for management is a clear indication of the incredibly low tolerance some people have for the existence of predators.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2015 19:41:49 GMT -8
"There is no black and white when it comes to wolf management, there needs to be compromise in order for all needs to be addressed." That is the best comment in the entire article. So far that "compromise" has been heavily weighted against the species. There is no other animal in the Northern Rockies that has been more heavily "managed" than wolves — from the very beginning of reintroduction. On the state level much of that so-called "management" has been outright MIS-management.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2015 19:42:27 GMT -8
The Center for Biological Diversity today provided this press release about the video above. The press release criticizes the US Fish and Wildlife Service for not doing more to educate citizens on the difference between coyotes and wolves. And it mentions at least four wolves killed in the Black Hills area in the last few years. Genetically tested, a couple were from Greater Yellowstone and a couple from the Upper Midwest. Other wolves were killed in this area after 1981 and previous to Northern Rockies reintroduction in 1995. And many more credible sightings have been reported. Some legislators in South Dakota have recently proposed designating wolves as shoot-on-sight "varmints" in South Dakota. And a representative of South Dakota Game and Fish has indicated any wolves found in that state would be removed to either Greater Yellowstone or the Upper Midwest. Both state proposals are currently illegal under federal law. But such a state that is barely tolerant of mountain lions has much in common with my own state, Wyoming, which is barely tolerant of wolves. Below are a few other links to reported wolf sightings in the Black Hills area — some of which were later documented — after the wolves were illegally killed: One wolf killed near Custer in 2012. Another wolf killed slightly east of the Black Hills in 2012 Three wolves reported near Spearfish in late 2013. A wolf reported by logger in early 2014.
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Post by Outdoor Union on Aug 19, 2015 20:01:31 GMT -8
That statement implicitly assumes that wolves need to be managed, That thought is the exact reason I believe the black and white issue is so important. We have been down the road of killing off wolves to within an inch of extinction and we have gone through protecting them and letting their numbers grow, in a short amount of time. I hope South Dakota can learn from the rest of the country and hopefully maintain a healthy wolf population without the pissing match that other states have experienced with wolf populations. I do not see compromise when it comes to the topic of wolves. I see sides. It will be an on going issue for years to come. Each separate side will continue to find judges across the country to side with them and it will be a revolving door every couple years as to which side wins. Hopefully at some point common sense will prevail and the energy and resources spent will be put into something that actually makes sense.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2015 20:20:27 GMT -8
I hope South Dakota can learn from the rest of the country and hopefully maintain a healthy wolf population without the pissing match that other states have experienced with wolf populations. As I indicated above, South Dakota Game and Fish has no intention of allowing any wolf population to exist in that state at all. It has taken the position that any wolves caught in South Dakota will be returned to either the Upper Midwest or elsewhere in the Northern Rockies — outside of South Dakota. How's that for learning? As I said above, that declared policy is currently illegal under federal law. If you read the links I provided above, pay special attention to what was said by Mike McKintigh, regional supervisor with South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks: See link.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Aug 19, 2015 20:35:19 GMT -8
I do not see compromise when it comes to the topic of wolves. I see sides. When "sighting" invokes "management", compromise has been brushed aside and a side has been taken. It implies that populations small enough to be described by the word "sighting" invoke the need for action. The bar for management is not set at some significant population level, it is set at perhaps as low as one individual. I oppose putting that much of hair-trigger on any perceived problem.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Aug 19, 2015 20:49:16 GMT -8
We have been down the road of killing off wolves to within an inch of extinction and we have gone through protecting them and letting their numbers grow, in a short amount of time. I hope South Dakota can learn from the rest of the country and hopefully maintain a healthy wolf population without the pissing match that other states have experienced with wolf populations. Actually, the only approach that has been followed for any length of time is near-extinction. The departure from that policy was so brief and the population increase so small that we populations barely exceeded near-extinction. The advocates of slaughter have nearly always prevailed, yet you call for compromise. In other words, an inch and half from extinction is considered having gone too far, and we need to back off from that. That is not compromise. It is a thinly-veiled demand for capitulation, differing only from total capitulation by not demanding total extinction.
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Post by 1camper on Aug 20, 2015 3:52:54 GMT -8
Wolves and coyotes are God's dogs.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2015 10:27:37 GMT -8
. . . Hopefully at some point common sense will prevail and the energy and resources spent will be put into something that actually makes sense. That would, at the very least, be allowing wolves to be viable components in federal-wilderness ecosystems — free of any state attempts to game farm those wilderness areas at the expense of wolves. Wilderness ecosystems do not exist just to bloat big-business, state-wildlife-agency, account books.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2015 13:54:37 GMT -8
![](http://i898.photobucket.com/albums/ac189/TravisNWood/Forums/WolfHeadline_zps8jb557bw.jpg) The largest regional newspaper made this story top-frontpage news this morning. Here is the Rapid City Journal article. It does provide a few more details. The man who took the video will not disclose the exact location even to South Dakota Game, Fish, & Parks (SDGFP). So while SDGFP considers the claim credible, it can not yet confirm it. But the agency will send someone out into the general area with a wolf-howl recording in an attempt to get a response from the wolf. An excerpt from the article: The video has gotten the attention of some large conservation groups. They are concerned that the wolf will be mistaken for a coyote and shot. It's a valid concern, but in my experience, being mistaken for a coyote is not a necessary prerequisite to being shot in this area of the country.
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