wolves

Do Wolves Keep Forests Nutrient-Rich?

A friend of mine, best selling author and fellow hunter Marc Warnkerecently got into an online tussle with an anti-hunter about wolves. They sent him an article from a blog which included all of the “facts” on wolves and how they keep forests nutrient-rich. Neither Marc nor I are wolf haters, but we are realists. Here is Marc’s well thought out reply:

Thanks for the thought and I know your intent was to educate me and I appreciate that. I found this [article] interesting, yet not without obvious bias. I’ve personally witnessed different results, multiple times. But it’s all good. My main concern would be that we participate intelligently in the “predatory” cycle along with the wolves. People, hunters, and wolves are not the enemy or inherently bad. For some reason there is an agenda to slam one or the other to meet an agenda based on feelings. This is a logical issue. We all have a right to the resources, wolves and people alike. Population control and balance is the issue at hand, as it concerns prey and predictor species. Humans are the ones who are responsible for population control and people must claim our God given right to harvest wild game. This issue is not at all about the wolves. It’s about someone’s “pet species,” and the eventual agenda to replace our role as population controllers by eliminating hunting. Who is protecting the Idaho elk herds that are down as much as 90% in some areas. If humans did that, we would be put in jail. Please don’t take offense to this. I am very, very fearful of having my sons rights to hunt with me, taken away.

That is the agenda behind the “science.” If you think I’m exaggerating or a kook willing to entertain conspiracy theory please ask me the story sometime about the biologist I hired to tour me through the rain forest of N. Australia. He laid out the whole agenda because he didn’t know who he was speaking to. He thought I was friendly to the idea of gun ownership bans and making hunting illegal. He was very globally connected and said the agenda behind the wolf was to replace humans with a large predator for population control. When I asked him about the “predator pit” that will show up for the next several hundred years he said it was just a “cost of doing business.” A predator pit happens when a large predator is introduced into an environment and they eat all the prey species and boom in population. As the predator booms, the food (prey species) runs out and the predator dies off. In short, there are huge population swings that take hundreds of years to stabilize. My son will be attempting to learn to hunt during one of the lowest of lows of this population swing and for that I am resentful of someone’s pet project that was truly unessential.

~ Marc Warnke

See the original article at GotHunts.com

wolves

Do Wolves Keep Forests Nutrient-Rich?

A friend of mine, best selling author and fellow hunter Marc Warnkerecently got into an online tussle with an anti-hunter about wolves. They sent him an article from a blog which included all of the “facts” on wolves and how they keep forests nutrient-rich. Neither Marc nor I are wolf haters, but we are realists. Here is Marc’s well thought out reply:

Thanks for the thought and I know your intent was to educate me and I appreciate that. I found this [article] interesting, yet not without obvious bias. I’ve personally witnessed different results, multiple times. But it’s all good. My main concern would be that we participate intelligently in the “predatory” cycle along with the wolves. People, hunters, and wolves are not the enemy or inherently bad. For some reason there is an agenda to slam one or the other to meet an agenda based on feelings. This is a logical issue. We all have a right to the resources, wolves and people alike. Population control and balance is the issue at hand, as it concerns prey and predictor species. Humans are the ones who are responsible for population control and people must claim our God given right to harvest wild game. This issue is not at all about the wolves. It’s about someone’s “pet species,” and the eventual agenda to replace our role as population controllers by eliminating hunting. Who is protecting the Idaho elk herds that are down as much as 90% in some areas. If humans did that, we would be put in jail. Please don’t take offense to this. I am very, very fearful of having my sons rights to hunt with me, taken away.

That is the agenda behind the “science.” If you think I’m exaggerating or a kook willing to entertain conspiracy theory please ask me the story sometime about the biologist I hired to tour me through the rain forest of N. Australia. He laid out the whole agenda because he didn’t know who he was speaking to. He thought I was friendly to the idea of gun ownership bans and making hunting illegal. He was very globally connected and said the agenda behind the wolf was to replace humans with a large predator for population control. When I asked him about the “predator pit” that will show up for the next several hundred years he said it was just a “cost of doing business.” A predator pit happens when a large predator is introduced into an environment and they eat all the prey species and boom in population. As the predator booms, the food (prey species) runs out and the predator dies off. In short, there are huge population swings that take hundreds of years to stabilize. My son will be attempting to learn to hunt during one of the lowest of lows of this population swing and for that I am resentful of someone’s pet project that was truly unessential.

~ Marc Warnke

See the original article at GotHunts.com

wolves

Building Trail, Fishing & Wolves

My buddy Kris Keller who runs Sulphur Creek Ranch invited us on a wolf hunt / scouting trip for elk season. There was one catch though. We had to help him build “a little” trail first. No problem. It was only a 3 1/2 hour ride from the trailhead, but by dark we still weren’t to base camp and a big storm was headed our way fast! Did I mention I had never been to this camp before? Kris told me to “…ride to the lodge, take a right, go to the top of the ridge and then take another right to the top of the next ridge. Once you’re there, head left down towards some lake looking stuff“. Easy right?

So, 4 hours later it was pitch dark and I was hoping we were at least getting close when the rain and hail hit… Hard. I was leading my mule and trying to track Kris’s horses (I could only see during lightning flashes after which I was blind), but their tracks were fading fast in the rain. Just when we were about to stop and make camp I spotted a flashlight a we were there. Relief, ’cause I hate long nights in the rain. Been there. Done that.

Kris and his crew helped us unsaddle and get our gear out of the rain and the saddles stashed under mannies. Camp was at a spectacular high mountain lake and consisted of a tarp stretched over our sleeping bags. Usually just fine this time of year, but we hadn’t been counting on a torrential downpour, so we spent the next hour tying down the tarp and digging ditches so we’d have a dry night.

I’m not going to go into details about the next two days because I’d rather forget. If you’ve never built trail with a Pulaski before, well… I don’t recommend it. ‘Nuff said. Even though it was hard work it was nice getting out of the office and in the evenings we fished the lake for some BIG trout. I’ve never seen such a well producing high mountain lake. Gonna have to go visit that lake again.

With trail building over, we headed back down to the lodge to start wolf hunting. This would be my first experience hunting wolves and we were all excited to get started. For the past week the wolves had been hanging out on the runway every night and hopes were high. We spent the next few days covering lots of miles on the horses. We worked a few bulls for my buddy Brent Martell who had an archery elk tag and looked over some pretty country, but we never caught up with the wolves. Oh well, so it goes more often than not when you’re hunting. All that means is that I still have a tag in my pocket. Now I get to try again.

See the original article at GotHunts.com