Looks like no more wolf hunting

[cobb]

News release.
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mammals/wolves/mgmt.html

A federal judge's decision to immediately reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan place the animals under protection of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Facebook discussion.
https://www.facebook.com/mnwildlife/pos ... re_comment

[Grayskies]

If there are more wolves and more packs and their range is larger, why put them back on the list?

[crbutler]

The reasoning is that USFW did not prove that the wolves are no longer threatened across the entire lower 48, which is how they originally listed them. They are locally numerous, but this judge said that the USFW must prove the entire population is OK before removing them from ESA.

Note that there are reports that this judge is hardly a "disinterested" party. Her husband reportedly runs the National Geographic society.

This can be appealed, but that will take time and money. I doubt that Dayton is interested in doing so, so it will be a group like SCI that does so.

This is the antis doing what they are best at- finding some irrelevant point and picking at it. Note that they went out of jurisdiction to judge shop on this case- it was not brought in one of the states that had delisted them.

[Grayskies]

http://host.madison.com/news/local/envi ... 82f5e.html

One of the other states like Wisconsin may appeal it.

[linksep]

To take that argument to it's logical end: Albacore Tuna is non-existent in MN, thus it must be endangered and can no longer be fished. Say goodbye to your tuna salad sandwiches.

[Grayskies]

To take that argument to it's logical end: Albacore Tuna is non-existent in MN, thus it must be endangered and can no longer be fished. Say goodbye to your tuna salad sandwiches.

Would not mind, tuna just doesn't taste like it use to!

[45Badger]

If this gets turned around and anybody here wants to hunt wolves, please send a PM. I've got property in Nickerson that has more wolves and fewer deer than I like.

[OldmanFCSA]

S - shoot
S = shovel
S = shut up


No longer an issue.

[chopper]

They said on the news that people will just go back to shooting them and not saying anything..

[Lumpy]

Local management may be needed, but remember that wolves are bouncing back from near-extinction in the lower 48. Genetic diversity is an issue, and keeping the wolf population culled to a barely-viable minimum would eventually cause inbreeding problems. Populations can survive bottlenecks provided they're able to reexpand afterwards- mating with second cousins for generations isn't a good idea.

[ex-LT]

S - shoot
S = shovel
S = shut up


No longer an issue.

I cannot confirm nor deny that our hunting group (all cousins, uncles, etc) practices this method, but I agree.

A retired CO where we hunt once told one of my cousins, "I don't care if you shoot one. I just better not find out about it."

A friend of one of my uncles is dating a female CO up there. One day, they were in his deer stand, and three "government dogs" went trotting by. Afterwards, she turned to him and said "I suppose if I hadn't been here, you probably would have shot one of them." He replied, "I would have shot ALL of them."

There's no love lost up there when it comes to wolves.

[45Badger]

Ok, I'll revise my offer. If anybody wants to go camping about 2 hours north of the cities, drop a PM

[bensdad]

Local management may be needed, but remember that wolves are bouncing back from near-extinction in the lower 48. Genetic diversity is an issue, and keeping the wolf population culled to a barely-viable minimum would eventually cause inbreeding problems. Populations can survive bottlenecks provided they're able to reexpand afterwards- mating with second cousins for generations isn't a good idea.

I don't believe you are familiar with the wolf population in northern MN. To describe their MN presence as having been, "near-extinction" is just plain false.

[ex-LT]

Local management may be needed, but remember that wolves are bouncing back from near-extinction in the lower 48. Genetic diversity is an issue, and keeping the wolf population culled to a barely-viable minimum would eventually cause inbreeding problems. Populations can survive bottlenecks provided they're able to reexpand afterwards- mating with second cousins for generations isn't a good idea.

I don't believe you are familiar with the wolf population in northern MN. To describe their MN presence as having been, "near-extinction" is just plain false.

To be fair, when they were added to the endangered species list, the timber wolf population in MN was less than 400. They weren't on the verge of extinction, but I'd say that's close enough to call it "near-extinction". If protections hadn't been put into place 40 years ago, it's quite likely that the eastern gray wolf would be extinct in the lower 48. The most recent estimates put the MN wolf population over 3000 wolves - quite a success story, and definitely more than enough to be considered a "sustainable population."

[cobb]

Local management may be needed, but remember that wolves are bouncing back from near-extinction in the lower 48. Genetic diversity is an issue, and keeping the wolf population culled to a barely-viable minimum would eventually cause inbreeding problems. Populations can survive bottlenecks provided they're able to reexpand afterwards- mating with second cousins for generations isn't a good idea.

I don't believe you are familiar with the wolf population in northern MN. To describe their MN presence as having been, "near-extinction" is just plain false.

To be fair, when they were added to the endangered species list, the timber wolf population in MN was less than 400. They weren't on the verge of extinction, but I'd say that's close enough to call it "near-extinction". If protections hadn't been put into place 40 years ago, it's quite likely that the eastern gray wolf would be extinct in the lower 48. The most recent estimates put the MN wolf population over 3000 wolves - quite a success story, and definitely more than enough to be considered a "sustainable population."

And they would not have migrated from Canada back into Minnesota like the illegals have been doing into Arizona from Mexico?