The joke gets bigger with each passing hunting and trapping season. While one could say that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) has made progress to acknowledge that the state’s missing elk herds are due in part to predation, the joke remains that loss and changing habitat is blamed as well and IDFG’s plan on limiting predation is to, “develop opportunities to increase hunter and trapper effectiveness”, that is according to the Idaho County Free Press.
Think about the brains that must have existed that would come up with a plan to make hunting and trapping of wolves more effective. To admit that predation by wolves is a part of the problem with shrinking elk herds and then present a plan that is akin to urinating over the side of an ocean liner thinking you might flood the coastline has to be considered an elitist attempt to placate what IDFG believes is an ignorant citizenry.
In 2009 I wrote that Idaho’s proposed plans on how to “manage” wolves, if they were ever taken off the Endangered Species List, would be ineffective. In addition, I crafted a multi-part series, “To Catch a Wolf”, highlighting the difficulties historically worldwide in “managing” wolves. I enclose in quotes “manage” because prolific predators like wolves aren’t managed, as in categorizing them as a game species, but need to be controlled.
You can find more information on Idaho’s lack of success in controlling wolves with links to the information I referenced above by following this link.
Should IDFG follow the same pattern of wolf management, and there is no reason to think they won’t, it will mirror what has taken place so far. It took over a decade for IDFG to admit that wolves might be having a negative impact on the Lolo elk herd. Now they acknowledge wolves play a role and propose an idiotic plan that will do nothing to limit wolves and increase elk populations. One can expect that 10 years from now, IDFG might declare that their idea of making more effective wolf hunters and trappers to better “manage” wolves, didn’t work. And yet again, there is always the excuse to fall back on that habitat is the real problem.
Expect no real changes. Let’s go pull some knapweed and plant some grass.
