Random Picture Thread

Ya I made a bee line for the district office. They tend to know more and be a lot more communicative than that particular department. Who do a lot of damage control.

I'm very familiar with the anti wolf crowd up in Montana, and its a constant battle. The ranchers tend to shoot shovel and shut-up as they like to say. Everyones got there two cents. I was just incensed that a collard wolf could be shot, permit or no, from inside a residence, that was not actively harassing livestock. Yup they do issue some permits but there's the same rules about distance from roads and homes apply to everyone

 

URL of the pics says "2010"

Info that comes with the pics says

• 15-2-210 4:02 Camera COOLPIX L3

• 15-2-210 4:07 Camera COOLPIX L3

• 15-2-210 4:27 Camera COOLPIX L3

So it looks to be 2 years and 2 weeks ago.

Cheers,
Angel

 

This is a Nikon Coolpix L3



Cheers,
Angel

 

Ya I know a guy who's been studying the wolves, Ralf Maffin although I'm sure I spelled it wrong. I'm sure he doesn't remember me but I'll send him a note and ask him about it. I'm sure the info the "hunters" note in the caption is pure horse crap but assuming the bits about the collar and the proximity to the house make it an illegal kill. Its really up to the discretion of the fish and game people. I've seen them nail people for stupid stuff, and I've seen them let more serious stuff go. No telling.

As far as the collar is concerned I think someone could just say they didn't see it. But shooting off your porch, out of your car, or in proximity with a road is considered a big infraction, at least in CO it is. They are big on that in hunter safety.

The date really helps to Angel, so again thanks. If its really a two year old kill they'll probably just shelve the whole thing. Although, if its not already been investigated and given the crazy claims there making in that caption then you never know.

I just get tweaked over stupid **** like that. Just can't believe anyone would be such an *** as to shoot a collared animal.

 

well that was interesting

Ok The senators from Idaho and Montana successfully placed a rider onto that budget that was passed late last year, the one that had everyone biting there nails, that effectively removes the wolves from protection. Even the judge that ruled on it said its horribly written and sits in a limbo between judicial review and legislative authority. For now its open season on wolves in Idaho with no bag limit. Montana isn't much better with a 220 bag limit. Idaho also just approved the use of snares leg holds and every other kinda trap imaginable. Out of a population estimated at about 1k, see http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/public/docs/fgNews/2011june.pdf they report about 350 killed as of just a few days ago. See http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/public/hunt/?getPage=121 Its a blood bath. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The one good thing, and its not much, is that once they wipe out the wolf in Idaho the endangered species act can be initiated all over again and the ruling judge in the case just last year said that releases the species from the authority of the bill passed by congress. Since its superseded by existing federal law, Its not much, but if they succeed in wiping out the wolf it again it actually prevents them from just doing it again as new wolves move in from surrounding areas.

Its a wildly complex issue but as it turns out typical hunting laws may not apply to the wolf. Unbelievable. Damn I've been out of the loop to long.

what a tragedy

334 out of a population of roughly 1000 in less than a few months. Talk about a slaughter.

 

You've got to be kidding me. It's one thing to say wolf attacks on people are rare; it's something else entirely to claim they never get aggressive.

We occasionally have confirmed coyote attacks here in Southern California, and I see no reason to believe that a coyote will tackle humans but a wolf won't.

 

Rare indeed. Very. http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html

 

I'm not kidding at all Troy, I used to guide in Yellowstone and every year we were updated on things like bear attacks and the like. One thing that was very consistent was our answer to the questions about wolves. No wolf has ever been confirmed to have threatened a person, adult or child. Period. Doesn't mean it wont eventually happen or can't ever happen but in the entire time of the reintroduction program not a single confirmed case.

That said now I'd better go read Hoyts link

But and this is an important caveat, all of a sudden there's reports coming out of hostile territory of negative wolf human interactions. Sounds very suspicious to me.

 

I hate that they get shot from planes and helicopters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr183lk-wQk

 

Ok so we have 2 known attacks in the last hundred years or so. One in Alaska and one in BC, none associated with the Yellowstone wolves. I'm not buying anything out of the 1800s as being verifiable. People tend to exaggerate particularly in those times.

I stand corrected however, I'm still not going to blame the wolves for this senseless slaughter. I've been pretty close while they feed and vie for dominance at a kill and its pretty spooky. But at no time did any of our party ever be threatened or even noticed by the wolves. they get pretty engrossed in what they are doing and have learned to not pay much attention to the park visitors.

This whole thing makes me really want to get back to the park again sometime soon.

 

March 13, 2010: Wolves Kill Schoolteacher in Alaska.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3591371...-attack-unnerves-alaska-village/#.T1AaC_Xy84I

Wolves are big, they hang out in groups, and they have teeth they use for killing and eating other critters. I don't care how safe someone tells me they are, I'm going to stay clear of them. That's just common sense.

Remember the nutcase who hung out with bears and claimed they were safer than people? He not only got himself eaten, but his girlfriend too....

 

yup thats one of the two I noted earlier

I'll include this info next time I'm taking out a group into the park, if ever. I'd like to get back into it but its a hard nut to crack. Every one on the planet wants the guiding jobs into the park.

Deal is though that there's just two documented fatalities, OK so I stand corrected but still. thats a lot of years and a lot of wolves and a lot of very close interaction. I've literally been five feet from a wild wolf before and it and all its buddies completely ignored us. We were taught a safety lecture to feed everyone on the way into the park and it specifically said that there was not a single case of a wolf acting aggressively towards a human in the park since its inception as the first national park

I remember it word for word.

I wasn't aware of the two recent cased one in BC and the other outside Anchorage but still I'm more on the side of the wolves than the people who got into it with them. For all we know they walked up and tried to pet them. Which in the park does happen. There was even a case of someone who tried to pet a grizzly bear, Hell the most common injury in the park is for some fool to walk to close to one of the buffalo and end up getting steam rolled

 

I have no doubt that as a general rule you're right; if you leave the average wolf alone he'll leave you alone.

One day back when I was a meter reader, I let myself in through the gate on the left side of a house, heading to the meter on the right side. As I closed the gate, a female German shepherd standing in the back yard stood looking at me, and I said, 'hello, gorgeous.' As I walked on back I could see more of the yard and said to myself, 'hmm... good-looking wolf-cross pup, too.'

That set a little alarm bell off between my ears, but I kept walking. And sure enough, as I passed the corner of the house into the back yard I went 'OK, there's dad. And damn he's big.....'

One thing I've learned about walking through dogs is to keep it smooth and steady: no speeding up, slowing down, sudden turns or jerky actions, because any change can trigger them. So I maintained course and speed past the wolf, trying not to stare him in the eyes. He was so still he'd have looked like a statue, if a breeze hadn't ruffled the hair on the back of his neck a little; the only move he made was to turn his head after I passed him so he could keep watching me.

I went on around the corner, read the meter and started back, and he hadn't moved an inch. So I walked on by him, and again the only move he made was to turn his head so he could keep watching me. And of course, mom and junior were taking their cue from dad, so they stood there watching me too.

Surprisingly, I didn't have to change my underwear when I got back to my truck. But I did change my shirt -- because as soon as I closed the gate and loosened up, a burst of perspiration soaked the one I was wearing.

 

Boston, Not sure when you guided in the Yellowstone, but there was a big, nasty tempered silverback in the Cody-Yellowstone corridor. I worked that area the year after Yellowstone burned. The Boss came out to see why we were taking so long and we told him him we had to have a full time lookout when we were working because the buffalo were moving though into the high country. Later that day the old silverback was chasing a smaller bull and stopped just long enough to rip the wing mirror off the boss'es truck. The boss was trying to take pictures and thought the cattle bars would stop the buffalo. Nope. Buffalo jump right over cattle bars. The boss dove into his truck through the window and the silverback hooked the mirror with the bosses feet still hanging out the window. The boss'es camera broke the far side window out of his truck.

So I gave the all clear and walked over to the boss and asked him if he was going to believe me the next time I told him that the working conditions were a bit challenging.
Same buffalo had totalled a Forest Service vehicle the year before.

I've had four very intersting close encounters with buffalos. Woke up one morning in Theodore Roosevelt NP to find my gf and I were cornered on the edge of a mesa by a whole herd. We had made camp on a mesa overlooking a watering hole hoping to photograph something else. A couple of bulls stood guard over us about ten feet from the tent and we waited most of the day. You really don't get used to being hemmed in like that. It was a looooong wait.

 

Dogs spook me, particularly pitbulls, but wildlife I'm completely comfortable with.

I've had run ins with just about everything including a pissed off pine martin. Damn those things are fearless. Once when I was fishing a group of elk gradually surrounded me, it was the rutting season and being the genius I am I didn't notice until a rather large but still young bull came walking down the stream at me. He didn't look to happy but I had him pegged now. I lowered my rod and took off my hat and backed away while looking him right in the nose. Your better off looking at him, just don't focus on his eyes. Messed up his concentration and he wandered off. I went back and retrieved my rod. Uneventful, just the way I prefer it.

A while back I posted pics of a boar Grizzly that followed me back from the river one day. Now that was somewhat nerve wracking but again. Follow the rules and your most likely going to be fine. That one was somewhat my own stupid fault, I was in heavy bear country alone, fishing, not the brightest combination. But I was taking a lot of "don't startle them" precautions which hugely reduces the chances of a negative encounter. I could tell the bear was just curious, but he was about as damn curious as I've ever seen a bear be. Probably my closest encounter with a griz although I did just about trip over a huge black bear one day as well.

Oh well, if you hang out in the park long enough, you pretty much experience everything.