Wolves back on the EGS

A federal judge in California has over ruled the Trump administration’s removal of Gray Wolves from the Endangered Species list last fall.

They now fall under federal jurisdiction again and can only be shot or trapped by a licensed federal official, or if protecting human life.

How many times is this going to happen? I like having wolves as a part of the natural landscape but the states can run their own management program, just like they can with other species. A limited, quota-based hunting and trapping season is perfectly fine.

I will say what Wisconsin did last February is not the right way to do it though. They put that together very hastily and went overboard on the harvest. Maybe that played a role in this judge’s reversal.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/10/1079965463/protections-for-gray-wolves-restored-across-much-of-the-u-s

My question is how the heck can a member of the judicial branch make such a declaration? They are to judge if a law/policy is constitutional or not, not if it is prudent or effective. Or do I need to retake civics?

Greenhorn wrote:

My question is how the heck can a member of the judicial branch make such a declaration? They are to judge if a law/policy is constitutional or not, not if it is prudent or effective. Or do I need to retake civics?

The wolf lovers are playing the same card over and over again. They are venue shopping the same allegations from one judicial district to another until they find a judge that agrees with them.

The allegation is always the same, that the USFWS committed a procedural error in the delisting process.

First, they found a sympathetic ear in New York and got the delisting canceled. Now they went with the same lawsuit to California and got the new delisting canceled. There is no end to how often they can go to this well because all it takes is finding one judge to agree that one un-dotted “i” or uncrossed “t” amounts to a procedural error and bang–wolves are back on the ESL.

This is absolute madness.

The delisting does not apply out west in the Rocky Mountain states though. That cannot be reversed by a judge because Congress took them off on their own.

Now if we can just get Congress to remove them for the Great Lakes population too now…

No chance wolves will ever be permanently delisted in the great lakes. To much money and sympathy on the wolves side. Resource management has been on the slow turtle train to being managed off of social perception vs scientific data for a while now and is starting to percolate more and more towards less and less hunter friendly formats. The biggest thing I will never understand is resource management agencies are still obligated to take some of the burden of cost of time and effort dealing with wolf conflicts. Colorado is going to have a real strain once wolves start effecting game herds with increasing demand for nr big game tags and livestock losses in a decade. Maybe even less once the wolf population becomes firmly established and starts effectively culling herd numbers and killing stock. A lot of money on the line. Minnesota has so few hunters affected and willing to stand up for delisting. Plus our pockets aren’t as deep and the reach to aquire sympathetic ears far outside the area wolves actually affect. As the numbers of deer hunters continue to dwindle in the ne and deer camps keep folding the tents up for good, a big woods tradition is a half a generation or less away from dying. Not the wolves fault, many factors are affecting the outcome. But the wolf population is a factor. So are bears and coyotes. As well as forest management practices, less hunters, hunters hunting differently and bad winters. Own property that’s been affected by wolves and high winter severity levels, and bad deer numbers since 2013 that have never recovered. Camps are closing up, hunters are leaving and many doubt there’ll ever be a push for hunter numbers to come back or a rekindling of big woods deer camp lore. Sitting in a stand is pointless for a lot of people in areas with deer densities well under double digits per square mile. People aren’t built like years ago. Most hunters a generation ago were more still hunters vs sitting in heated structures. Less people moving deer has had a drastic affect on deer movement. Have researched and read a lot about wolves, habitat management, herd management, hunter participation, harvest data, and the one thing perplexing to me still is even when the wolf numbers tanked after a long spike in numbers, sightings and sign, the deer numbers didn’t rebound like expected. That’s not the wolves fault. Am no wolf sympathizer even kind of, but there’s more to low deer numbers than wolves. What is happening in the northeast is puzzling. Seems like it’s a simple solution of lower the wolf numbers and deer numbers will rebound with some mild winters and good fawning conditions. But in a lot of areas it just hasn’t happened. That’s not lost on big game managers or hunters in the field. In Minnesota we have winters, and often multiple bad ones in a decade. A few in a row with bad fawning conditions in the spring, tied in with habitat that is degrading for winter/spring needs and it’s a constipated issue of complexities that are not quickly or easily flushed out or fixed. Finding solutions takes time to figure out not only answers to the issues, but what the he’ll the questions or issues we need to be addressing are in the first place in any kind of efficient or effective manor or order of importance. As deer herds are depleted in one region wolves will expand and move their ranges and territories. The range of wolves is increasing and it’s not uncommon to see them it what use to be uncommon areas even a decade ago. As that continues, there’ll be more human interaction and conflict. Having no way to address conflict within any sort of reasonable guidelines, other than you have to feel like your life is being threatened and the high chance of having to prove that in a court of law has set a precedence that’s arrogantly ignorant. Wolves are not endangered under definition by the spirit of the endangered species list and constantly bumping them on and off makes a mockery of the list. That’s sad on so many levels to rational thinking bipeds. In Minnesota that leans so hard left because of basically 10 counties out of 80 some, voting is about the only way there’ll ever be enough pressure on judges or courts to actually give state control of the wolf population. With our current governor against hunting wolves even if the state had control granted by the judicial system, would bet dollars to doughnuts he’s happy as a peach it’s off the table and perceivedly out of his control.

It’s just a reflection of the bigger issue in this country.

This ruling will only make residents in wolf country more determined to take care of any problems themselves.

Balance is the answer to almost everything in nature. Wolves are not an enemy that should be decimated from the earth, nor should they go unchecked in population.

I support the managed hunting of wolves and hope to get enough time to try it someday.

buckybadger wrote:

Balance is the answer to almost everything in nature. Wolves are not an enemy that should be decimated from the earth, nor should they go unchecked in population.

I support the managed hunting of wolves and hope to get enough time to try it someday.

I agree! They are an apex predator that does not need to be eradicated like cockroaches. Our ecosystem can easily support a specific reproducing population of them here, while also having a lottery-based quota harvest through a limited hunting and/or trapping season.

I’d love to try and hunt one someday too. Even to just see one in the wild would be incredible.

The argument I sometimes hear is that “you shouldn’t hunt something if you can’t eat it.” So why are we hunting coyotes, fox, and bobcats then? I don’t think all the predator hunters are eating their target, and a wolf is no different.

If you want to hunt a wolf go to Canada there is no way Wolves should be listed as endangered, there are well over 10,000 in Canada. There is a reason they were removed from areas where people and livestock live.

Population will be managed you just wont here about it.

buck-slayer wrote:

Population will be managed you just wont here about it.

Yes SBS may be invoked in some instances.

I was told by someone that when they get delisted the Lawyers for the Anti’s are actually paid for by tax dollars as they have “won” the case…..Seems like a steaming pile of crap to me!

gim wrote:

Even to just see one in the wild would be incredible.

I have seen several and they are pretty dang cool to see. My buddy in college feels a bit different however. He was walking to his bow stand carrying a shotgun in case he saw a grouse. He hears something behind him and thinks it was a buck he was targeting and slowly turns around to see the growling face of a Timberwolf. He nearly crapped his pants as I would have too. He shot his gun in the air and it took off.

CaptainMusky wrote:

I have seen several and they are pretty dang cool to see. My buddy in college feels a bit different however. He was walking to his bow stand carrying a shotgun in case he saw a grouse. He hears something behind him and thinks it was a buck he was targeting and slowly turns around to see the growling face of a Timberwolf. He nearly crapped his pants as I would have too. He shot his gun in the air and it took off.

I heard some howling in the distance one time in the darkness as I walked to my stand. Then the howling got a little closer. I have never climbed into my stand quick as I did that morning lol. I was up 20 feet faster than a ring tailed lemur.

last fall I came face to face with an all black wolf walking out of the wash house, no shirt on crocs and pants (with gun belt) was about 15 yds away from me crouched in attack position and I drew on him and just held on him waiting seemed like forever but but maybe about 30 seconds he turned around and casually walked into the trees…. I think he was there looking to pick off one of our dogs! the wolves up north in mn are out of control and getting really brazen around people.
The last year I have had more wolf encounters than I have my whole life. that being said I love watching them as they are very cool, but its defiantly concerning how unafraid of humans they are getting. not to mention the Moose population is decimated

Sounds to me like it was a safety issue…
DT

There have been many reports–and many of these substantiated by video evidence–of wolves coming in very close to humans while hiking, snowmobiling, atv riding, fishing, etc where the wolves did not seem concerned about being in close proximity to humans.

Not that the wolves are acting aggressively right now, but IMO this is a matter of bad things to come. All animals learn about danger from the animals that raise them. Wolves are clearly learning from other wolves that man presents no specific danger.

The longer this goes on, where wolves learn, essentially, that there is no reason to stay away from man, the more we get into dangerous territory. This is no different from black bears that learn that campgrounds with humans = free and very tasty food. Once this behavior is learned, it’s very, very difficult to break.

What makes this situation with wolves worse, is a wolf is a 100+ pound carnivorous predator, and every year that they are not managed, there is another generation of wolves learning that man presents no threat. How long is it before wolves start to view man as kind of a very slow, very defenseless, 2 legged deer-type species? It is almost inevitable that under the right conditions wolves somewhere in MN will get the idea to start hunting man.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

It is almost inevitable that under the right conditions wolves somewhere in MN will get the idea to start hunting man.

I don’t think that’s going to happen. There may be isolated incidents of a wolf attacking a person on rare occasion, but I do not think there will ever be a time when a pack of wolves specifically seeks out and hunts us. This isn’t a JAWS movie from the 1970’s. Single, lone wolves that are outcasts from a pack are desperate and hungry. These are the ones that might attack a person.

Could there be more unnecessary interaction between wolves and humans? Of course there could. Wolves are canines and they do not tolerate other canines in their territory, which is often why they attack domestic dogs.