By James Beers
*Editor’s note – In order to understand Jim Beers’ following article and rebuttal, readers must first read the article in the Pioneer Press that Beers refers to. Below is a short teaser and a link to the article, followed by Jim Beers’ response.
“”What it sounds like is a dog chasing a car, doesn’t it?” quipped David Mech, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey and one of North America’s foremost wolf experts.
Mech, who has been briefed on the Voyageurs wolf, said the behavior is a mystery to him. Almost invariably, wolves avoid motor vehicles, he said.
“Wolves doing things like this can end up being killed, either by accident or intentionally,” Mech said.”<<<Read More>>>
Today’s Sermon from, “Book of Wolves, Chapter 6, Verses 2-7”
“Playing”? “Practicing” for what? “Inconsistent with territorial behavior”? “Unlikely mating (one would hope not!) or denning behavior”? “Not chasing” but “playful”??? “Not aggressive”?
Telling us there “is no record of a rabid wolf in Minnesota”, is like having a Doberman breeder (i.e. one who sells Dobermans) tell us there has never been a case of a rabid Doberman in (fill-in-the-blank). As if rabies doesn’t happen in a “Nice” state like Minnesota because… of the ticks that killed all the moose (?) or climate change that is killing the deer (?) or some mysterious and sacred secret that only more funding for DNR/State University research will one day uncover?
Does our top Wolf Druid only know of one Canadian incident of a wolf chasing a vehicle? Has he not heard of the Idaho schoolteacher chased on his bicycle on the Alcan Highway by a snapping wolf and only saved by a semi-truck driver the summer before last? (“Haven’t seen before”?)
Alas, the best advice the Head Druid gives is, it’s a “mystery to him”. He is concerned that the wolf “might end up being killed”?
And lastly, he thinks it “sounds like a dog chasing a car”! To quote old Sherlock Holmes frequent reply to Watson, “Precisely my dear Watson!”
Wolves, coyotes and dogs interbreed frequently to produce fertile offspring. In addition to sharing this commonality, they share behavioral traits. While free-roaming dogs chasing cars and kids on bikes is not unusual, acting as if protected wolves (Ergo, comfortable around people and human habitations) might not do such things or might not do such things more often; is like saying there has NEVER been a rabid wolf in any state as if back when Indians were here they recorded such things or while early settlement (and the necessary wolf control gained steam) wolves were examined when found dead or shot. There are numerous accounts of rabid wolves in Army Fort records and small town newspapers in other Territories and States. All wolves and all unvaccinated dogs plus all other mammals (raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes, etc.) get rabies everywhere the rabies virus emerges in ANY STATE, COUNTRY, AND CONTINENT (except Antarctica). Saying there has never been rabies in Minnesota wolves is like saying no one ever ate a hot dog at a baseball game!
While it sounds cute to say a wolf chasing a snowmobile is like a dog chasing a car. Avoiding the old joke, “what will he do with it when he catches it (?)”, there are some very real differences. First, the snowmobile driver is right there in the open where he is available to a snap or bite by the wolf.
Second, think for a moment about those free-roaming dogs of yore that chased bikes. They frequently bit the kids. Now the kid would stop and go at the dog that would frequently run home or the kid would outrun the dog. Let us do an autopsy here about dogs like the Cardinal Druid above did for wolves. Would you ask “was it ‘playful’”? Even though it bit the kid, it could have been simple protection of the dog’s territory and perhaps really the fault of the kid. Would we be worried that the chow that bit the kid was one of many unmarked chows and that any of them might be “killed”? Would we go to some far-off academic/bureaucrat/”expert”, like one of those cartoons of some guy climbing a high peak to ask some old geezer contemplating his navel, “what caused this”(?); “what must we do”(?) “Oh high priest”? The fact is that dogs (some (?). all (?) or most chase cars and bikes. When they see other dogs doing it (like free-roaming dogs join in killing/chasing sheep or a foal in a pasture) they join in. AND when the dogs drag down or chomp onto the critter or critters that can’t fight back, they all do likewise until all the prey is dead. Anyone that believes (much less pontificates that as an expert it is undocumented and unlikely that a 100-150 lb., unvaccinated, wild wolf and other wolves witnessing this behavior of chasing snowmobiles won’t join in for whatever anthropomorphic reason preached by our Druid and soon enough pounce on the driver or tip the snowmobile or cause it to roll and then jump on the driver and the machine like a greyhound dog that just ran down a coyote and doesn’t stop biting and snapping until the coyote is dead ) – well I wouldn’t send my wife or kids to him for advice about how to behave around free-roaming dogs or wolves roaming the neighborhood at night.
Isn’t it funny how the very same people that want wolves everywhere (else) are the same folks demanding that all dogs be leashed at all times; and all dogs must be vaccinated; and that when they see a “loose” Labrador retriever out the kitchen window immediately call 911 and demand that the same government they want to introduce and protect wild, very large, aggressive, unvaccinated wolves (elsewhere) immediately capture and remove the free-roaming dog out the back window in their neighborhood?
Thankfully we have our Druids and “a team of park officials, including an expert researcher, on Tuesday headed into the park to attempt to track the wolf and learn more about its behavior.” I feel so relieved that if I had one of those old Southern “swooning couches” I’d take a nap.
As if all this news twaddle wasn’t enough, I have tried to reason in the past with the novice “outdoor” writer that wrote this before about these matters but to no avail. Then, as I went online this morning to copy the newspaper article, an interview by an animal “rights” activist with Wayne Pacelle, the CEO and Titular Head of The Humane Society was played on my computer as I called up and copied the article. They were talking about the “sex”-seeking hunters, wolf trophy “hunting” as some sort of fantasy, how wolves kill and control harmful species like beavers, blah-blah-blah.
So the St. Paul newspaper employs a guy that never hunted or fished to write the “outdoor” stuff; he writes wolf apologetics with copious quotes from a guy that has made his fortune from imposing wolves and the newspaper posts it online with a recording of Wayne Pacelle and one of his acolytes spewing every manner of lies and innuendoes about wolves and those opposed to their presence. Beam me up Scotty!
Finally, when someone dismisses what I write as merely vicious diatribes by a bitter ex-Fed, ask yourself how do you oppose liberal newspapers, naive writers, self-serving bureaucrats, and propagandizing academics that are even more sarcastic and demeaning? As with ISIS & Iran, some will say talk to them or find them jobs; others will say, take no prisoners. I am, proud to say, in the latter group.
Jim Beers
4 March 2015
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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net
