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YallNeed_Shrooms t1_irxrxo5 wrote

Reply to comment by doing-mybestOK in Endangered gray wolves are being poisoned in Washington state, officials say by zsreport

Cattle farmers are the only people invested in killing these wolves.

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shinsain t1_iry0y5v wrote

This is totally the cause. Those entitled fucks. Think they've owned the land longer than the wolves. It's going to be unfortunate when they realize that they were incorrect, but whatever. Being stupid is fun for some people.

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RangerDangerrrr t1_irymb6n wrote

I hate to be the guy with the controversial opinion but I'm going to have to say it.

The cattle farmers did use this land before these wolves were introduced to the area. Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho were home to a very large subspecies of coyotes up until 200 years ago.

In the 1990's and 2000's Washington State purchased these grey wolves (a subspecies from Canada known to be the largest wolves in North America) and introduced them to the ecosystem. They have wreaked havoc on deer, elk, bear and moose population through all of Idaho and Eastern Washington. It has completely destroyed ecosystems in many counties of Idaho and the government spends upwards of $125,000 an HOUR sniping them from helicopters.

Yellowstone National Park will tell you that the ecosystem has flourished since the introduction but that is simply because Yellowstone is a man-made and maintained ecosystem it is not natural and should not represent the whole introduction of a non native wolf to an area that never had wolves that size.

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Jaynier t1_irysucx wrote

Wolves used to cover the whole continent before being displaced and often eradicated by humans. We are obligated to restore the natural order of our ecosystems. Nice story but farmers don’t have the high ground here.

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RangerDangerrrr t1_iryuak6 wrote

Maybe, but they were nothing when compared to the largest sub species of grey wolf on the planet. North Idaho was home to the red wolves, but the sub species of coyote was larger. The ecosystem cannot support these large wolves and it shows. Washington introduces a non native species and Idaho spends millions of dollars cleaning up the mess.

There are dozens of organizations that are investigating the elk and deer population and reporting their data. Here's one:

https://www.rmef.org/elk-network/informing-misinformed-wolves/

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firephoto t1_iryshwe wrote

Nice talking points. It must be my imagination living in Eastern Washington that these large coyotes I see are not actually so. This isn't to say I haven't seen typical smaller coyotes, but there are in fact larger ones at this now point in time. Are they hybridized from dogs, probably, is a coyote a dog? yes. Is a wolf a dog? yes. hmm. Before the wolves it was wild packs of wolf hybrids in northeast Washington. Yes, before the wolves this was the news. Then wolves became established and the hybrid wild dog packs were no more or not news worthy.

Now lets get into some physics. How high of a fence can a wolf jump? Will a wolf cross a boundary with a high voltage pulsing electric wire? I know my local coyotes will not cross a path that has a pulsing electric wire that is 8 feet off the ground. I even observed some raccoons in the middle of the night that would not cross an extension cord that was powering something within the last month. Seems these wild animals don't like electricity, maybe they've been shocked, but whatever it is they certainly can sense it. Now this isn't new, anyone with animals and an electric fence knows that the animals won't just stroll up to the wire and get shocked, they know it's there. With solar and batteries, a single charged electric fence line can be anywhere. This isn't 1820 or 1920 or even 20 years ago.

But back to the point, most of us do protect our animals with fences of various types. We keep in and we keep other things out. I have trees safe from beavers and I have birds safe from everything and used to have horses safe from everything. It would seem like a very small minority of the livestock animal owning population is allergic to fences that protect their livestock. They claim the fence is expensive but then cry when their expensive animal is killed. They don't cry when they install $100,000 irrigation systems, or buy $75,000 pickups, or $20,000 trailers, or $15,000 atvs, but that fence is just too expensive. It's not that surprising considering the law in a lot of places requires the non-livestock owner to fence OUT the livestock. Free range free loaders.

The real problem here isn't even fences, or animals, it's government leases that I could afford if I were allowed to lease those lands and I don't have any cattle. It's stupidly ridiculously cheap. If it was corporate land they would get a fine for giving something away.

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500and1 t1_irzof5r wrote

Maybe the government should snipe the farmers from helicopters

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sleeknub t1_irz7qul wrote

I’d rather not have a ton of wolves around when I go outside. Probably a lot of people with children feel the same way.

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500and1 t1_irzok2p wrote

I’d rather not have a ton of children around when I go outside

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sleeknub t1_is4ayrz wrote

The wolves will help with that.

To be clear, I don’t have children and I still don’t want there to be a ton of wolves around when I’m outside.

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bwc_28 t1_is1g60t wrote

They don't attack people 99.99% of the time, and when they do attacks aren't fatal. In the past 30 years there has been ONE fatal wolf attack in the US, and that was in Alaska.

Children themselves are more of a threat to people than wolves.

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sleeknub t1_is3fsiu wrote

In the past 30 years there haven’t been a lot of wolves around people. With populations growing at 25 percent per year, that definitely will increase.

I’m pretty sure you didn’t word your last sentence correctly, because I don’t think children are a threat to people or wolves.

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