Protesters in Duluth decry state’s wolf hunt
November 3, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
From her cabin on a dirt road 10 miles off the Gunflint Trail, it took Stephanie Johnson 3½ hours to get to Duluth to join a rally against Minnesota’s wolf hunt.
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How does an animal pass away in the woods? Quietly, with dignity in a convalescent home? Nope, they are taken by nature : disease, hunger, and predation.
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Very true soup town, but that is natures way. Many people have worked hard to bring back the wolf to its natural place once again, People accept that fact that problem wolfs need to be dealt with. But to believe that the DNR, that so hartedly tried to get rid of the wolf now has its best interests at heart is hard to swallow. Its more like catering to the special interests of the deer hunters association and the livestock association. As evident by how quickly the legislature passed a wolf hunting season. They had no interest in listening to the views of those who opposed a wolf hunting season because they did not have a organized political voice , were not organized and did not want them to become organized. I do not believe this opposition will go away but will become more organized as their membership grows and more vocal as to decisions made by the legislature and the DNR. And may I say its about time.
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To claim that the DNR has some deep-seated hate for wolves is pushing it a bit.
Times change, so do views on how to properly manage animals such as wolves. The DNR knows now that wolves are an important part of the ecosystem, and was instrumental in the rebound of the wolf population.
They may have been catering to special interests in pushing through the wolf hunt, but a more likely scenario is they liked the idea of the funds they would receive in license fees.
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The fees collected for hunting them wouldn’t even cover the costs of studying them. I doubt the licence fees had anything to do with it…
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They were brought back with the intention of managing the numbers. No big surprise here.
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This.
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Is.
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What is needed here, is a push by the “Howling for Wolves” crowd aimed at restoring the wolf into it`s natural and full range within the great state of Minnesota. That natural range includes the ENTIRE state. Including the whole twin cities and all it`s suburbs.
From
Bloomingtons river bottoms, Stillwater on the scenic St.Croix, Red Wing on the Mississippi, and lets not forget the vast natural hunting areas around Farmington west to the Dakta borders……..Wolf packs can be brought back and nurtured where they originally were to begin with. This would allow every community to protect the packs, and have the same hunting laws [or maybe no hunting or trapping] that the entire state puts on those in the norther 1/4 of Minnesota.
This would make for a better understanding between groups opposed, and those not. Because everyone would have same type situations they would be dealing with about and over wolves, their packs, and the wolves vastly improved numbers because of EVERYONES involvement in having wolves right within their own communities.
To protect the wolf, restoring them into their natural and full range in Minnesota, is THE only practical thing to do.
Anyone wanna bet that “Howling for Wolves” might have a hard time selling that to the rest of Minnesota? Of course…the wolf has to be protected only up here don`t cha ya know.
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Why is it so hard to understand that the DNR is doing a responsible job with the wolf population. 3000 animals is enough for the region. Many studies expect the population will double, possibly triple in 3-5 years if something is not done now. There are no predators, except man, for the wolf. With an average breeding year the population will continue to climb, even with a 400 animal hunting season.
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Please, provide the link to at least one study.
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There are none.
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Move up and east one block, protest there. Then you will have a real purpose.
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Hunting with “bait” is not hunting — it is just plain killing. When you lead steers to slaughter, you don’t call it hunting. And “bait” is nothing more than a method to “lead to slaughter”. At least call it what it is, and stop billing it as a great sport for the outdoorsman.
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Judas Goat = Bait
Some of you too young to know what a Judas Goat is?? Looked it up for you smarties.
“A Judas goat is a trained goat used at a slaughterhouse and in general animal herding.”
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Always felt the same way…and always agitated me that some call it a sport. Baiting a dumb bear with food then sitting high up in tree with high powered rifle for when he comes back to eat is not a sport, it’s a shooting gallery or a slaughter.
Sport implies some risk, sport implies some athletic ability, sport implies the bear or whatever has a sporting chance. Sport would be sitting on top of the food waiting for their bear to return then armed with only a bowie knife, attacking and trying to kill the bear. That would involve some sport.
“There are only three sports. Mountain Climbing, Bull fighting and auto racing, where the outcome is solely dependent upon an individuals athletic ability and where he is waging his very life on his athletic ability. Everything else is just a game” Ernest Hemmingway
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Racing isn’t really a sport. And drivers are dependant on pit crews and technology for success. Ernie was 2 out of 3.
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Glad this person wasnt born 200 years ago, otherwise natural selection would have got the best of them, I think. Should we fish with plain hooks, too?
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Bait doesn’t guarantee success. If you ever tried hunting you’d be in for a big surprise how challenging it is. There’s a reason it’s called hunting, not getting.
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There’s a reason they call it baiting and trapping too…and those ARE just “getting” and not “hunting”.
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Those like Stephanie Johnson, and some of those posting on this page, made a waisted trip. They should stay home, feed their local wolves, and protect them by inviting them inside their homes for the season, where they can warm themselves by the fireplace and be safe from harm.
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While I don’t agree with the hunt, these people are just nuts.
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Twenty years ago I heard the same complaints from the anti deer hunting in the city limits crowd. Then there were car crashes, gardens eaten, trees destroyed, many to this same crowd of anti’s that turned around and realized there needs to be a balance of nature between civilization and the wild. 4 or 5 thousand wolves in MN have been determined too many for the civilized world, 3 thousand may just be enough. I remember the goal was originally 1500.
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Oh my word…
I agree with Bob.
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Wolves are not a threat to man, just to pets and livestock. There’s only one documented case of wolves killing a human in lower 48 and that was over 130 years ago. I’ve lived where regularly had wolves in yard and regularly could look out window and see them in the yard, almost everynight I stepped outside, the moment I did, they started howling. figured they were telling me, we know you’re out…go back in..LMAO. On other hand refused to have a dog there because of them. Dumb hunters bring their bear hunting dogs to wolf rendevous points all the time and let them loose then complain when they get killed by the wolves. That’s just the wolves doing what they do and humans being stupid. I hate to see the wolf hunt and see them killed and always felt kindred spirits long before moved to where they lived, as know many do.
That was all so understand when say I’m not oppossed to the wolf hunt and that it’s clearly not from some pro-hunter let’s kill things perspective. The wolves have rebounded, over 3,000 is a lot and they will continue to prosper. There is because of their great recovery a equal backlash and anger growing against them from hunters, and those that lost calfs and dogs. As the wolf population has expanded so has the groundswell of hunters and farmers anger and bias against them.
What some, including the protesters aren’t taking into account is that maybe the DNR for once isn’t that stupid. That this hunt is maybe more to cull the growing anger and sentiment against the wolves then it is to cull the wolves? There already has been a grassroots anti-wolf sentiment going in Northwoods that’s been touted as just shoot them, bury them and don’t tell the DNR. We’ve seen several get busted for this practice in news and sure far more is happening then we or the DNR know about, afterall it’s bury them and mumms the word. So just floating a different perspective to think about…
This hunt provides a relief valve for those biased against the wolves as well as removes a lot of the anti-wolf crowds arguments that the DNR needs to do something and 3,000 in Minnesota is a lot when figure a wolf has about a 50 square mile range.
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Seriously you have a point fasty, liberals are more of a threat to mankind than a wolf.
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Bob~ the topic is wolves, it’s not a political partisan party topic of discussion. By going there, you expose yourself as incapable of staying on point and that you are so consumed by your prejudice and bigotry towards another political party that it’s consumed you and made you blind and clueless to the reality of your environment and how childish appear by doing so. It also solidifies that your only point is not that you stand for something but that your whole purpose is to stand against something. So thanks for sharing that insight Bob…but the topic is wolf hunt………oh, and the often presumptive assumptions by some that can label and catergorize groups of people based on some obscure topic like wolves only shows how monolithic one’s thinking is.
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The shoot shovel and shut up is not a new thing. It has been happening all along. I’ve seen the carcasses and found the bullet holes and slugs in them. The hunt will only make them want more. Show me one person who killed a wolf who says afterward “That’s enough, we don’t need to kill any more”. Good luck. They will only want more, and thanks to whiners like Mark Johnson of the MN Deer Hunters Ass., the DNR will give them more.
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Kayak~ Can’t argue your point and know some always did it and will continue to. I also know that there’s money involved in the deer hunt season and wolves take out a lot of deer and those prospering from deer hunting for that reason want more wolves taken also. With all the publicity of how well the wolf has rebounded, with the increase in depredation, don’t you think the animosity towards the wolves which has always been there has also increased though? My point was the mere publicity of how well the wolf has recovered for some is all the rational need that are justified in shooting them.
The initial goal in bringing back the wolf was 1,500 and they’ve doubled that now and they will continue to increase as they are on top of food chain. I see it as also issue of some form of balance and it is a tightrope walk. I have mixed feelings on this because of that balance I guess because can see both perspectives, not necessarily the deer hunters but the need to protect the wolves as well as need to not let them get out of control. The more they populate the more the packs will be in competition with each and the more the packs will move or expand territories. As mentioned, they were regularly on property, they didn’t bother me, I didn’t feel threatened in any way by them and was totally aware I chose to live in their environment. If on other hand though I was in more populated area and had small children in yard and dogs, I would conversely and rightfully so I think, be very concerned about their growing presence.
Like said, kinda mixed bag on this because don’t think it’s a clear cut, kill or not kill the wolves. I don’t actually support or understand the wolf hunt in Wisconsin as example, they have 500, and to me is totally different scenario. The math of 500 wolves with 50 mile range and 3,000 is obviously like night and day.
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Congratuations to Minnesota DNR for realizing excess wolf population needs to be harvested. Although I get no thrill with killing animals I am appreciative of the hunters that do. Too many environmental waco’s that do not understand wild life management. I truly feel bad that do not have adequate education to understand this basic concept!
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Give me a break, johnb. Wildlife management for who, the deer hunters association. In my whole life I have seen only nine wolves and that was while driving in areas where people dont live. The truth of the matter this is to appease the deer hunters who have blamed wolves every time there membership has not been taking deer. If you want to learn David Mech of the Fish and Wildlife service is the most renowned authority on timber wolves. Put your prejudice away and learn the facts before you judge. And you call yourself an authority. Give me a break.
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Mark Lehigh, I do not hunt and will only kill for my survival. I live in ND but know Minnesota farmers, ranchers who loose livestock to wolves. Too many wolves mean thay need to expand their food source. Allow this wolf population to increase without management, perhaps they will hunt liberals, perhaps treehuggers like you, who do not understand even the basics of wildlife management. But do not confuse wildlife management with deer hunting, although important, to the motives of people like myself who believe it is a necessary step to control wolf population!
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Johnb, haven’t seen any wolves out driving either, do they have cars?
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When I took my wildlife management classes, we spelled lose “L-O-S-E”. Where did you take your wildlife management classes?
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Today’s article finally printing what I stated all along, that there are more Wolves than previously reported.
“Minnesota’s wolf population is estimated at 3,000 animals, but that’s a February population figure. Pups are born in May, and the population might swell to 6,000 wolves, according to L. David Mech, a senior scientist with the Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota. The population drops again by February as wolves are killed by other wolves, by state or federal trappers working at depredation sites or in collisions with vehicles.
“There’s probably 5,000 wolves in the woods right now,” said Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association.”
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If you want to be credible then quote people like David Mech and not Mark Johnson of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. Where does his expertise come from by sitting in a tree while deer hunting. Give me a break. Just what we need to have the Deer Hunters Association telling us how to manage. And stop the political attacks because it just lessons your argument to show how short minded you are. Yes there are problem wolves that need to be managed, that is acceptable but to allow open season on wolves where they are not a problem is just a way to appease the special interests who want the wolf eliminated.
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Fees from hunting and sales taxes for hunting equipment have done more for protecting wildlife and habitat than any tree hugger ever did. White-tailed deer & mallard ducks were nearly wiped out in the 1900′s, only to be revived with healthy populations today largely paid for by hunting fees and taxes. Without hunting, tree huggers likely would not even know what these animals are, much less enjoy them today in the wild.
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I think more & more people are realizing we are just using these wild animals for greed.
Science is proving everyday what many people already thought.
See Link:
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
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I should note that I beleive their level of consiousness should make us think twice.
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Disgusting that people are hunting these few thousand big shy dogs for sport and pleasure. We don’t usually kill dogs in the US for pleasure and have the state take a cut of the dogfighting profits because we “have to” to pay for managing the 70-80 million domesticated ones, why tolerate it being done to these canines, merely with double-digit percent larger brains and some abilities to live free without humans, to provide someone with a pelt or a rug symbolizing the grief and loss suffered by the other members of the pack. This has to be the epitome of bad taste.
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I expect quite a few free roaming dogs will bite the bullets during gun season too.
I wonder what the people who claim we need to kill wolves to protect children will say if a child gets caught in a leghold trap in the winter.
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And, exactly when is the last time THAT happened? Trapping the woods happens every year since the age of the mountain man. This hunt doesnt change a thing. Better stay in your kayak where its safe, buddy.
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You make my point perfectly. When was the last time a wolf attacked or killed a child in Minnesota, or the US? And yet we have people crying for wolves to be killed in order to protect their children. Why are they not crying about traps? The chances of a child being caught in a leghold trap are similarly small, but traps capture non-target animals all the time.
The point is, people are willing to manage wolves based on a ridiculously small chance of harm to a child, someday, somewhere. If even one child gets nipped, someday, somewhere, they will feel vindicated. So why not the same outrage against traps, which surely are no less likely (if not much more likely) to nip a child?
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