More Wolf Mythology

By Jim Beers

ONCE UPON A TIME….

1. From the Pinedale WY News re: Washington State Wolves:

“”Wolf populations are increasing faster than anyone had imagined,” the legislators said in their April 23 letter. They urged the commission to act quickly “to maintain social tolerance for gray wolves in northeast Washington in the timeliest manner for residents.”"

Conclusion: Evidently those “Beta” (are there “gamma”, “delta”, “epsilon” and all the way to “omega” wolves?) wolves didn’t get the memo (that ONLY ALPHA wolves breed) and have been sneaking out behind the woodpile and doing naughty (as well as ‘undocumented’ things per our august wildlife professionals) things resulting in more wolf pups than the “Alphas” alone are making.

You couldn’t make up this stuff if you tried.

2. From this morning’s St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press:

Minnesota: Moose study confirms high calf mortality rate

“The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources captured 49 moose calves and fitted them with GPS transmitter collars. Within days of finishing their work, 22 of the newborns already had died.”

“Most were killed by bears and wolves.”

“We knew that we would lose a lot of calves quickly,” DNR lead moose researcher Glenn DelGiudice said. “But to see it happening in real time like this is all new for us.”

“We used to see a ratio of about 100 cows to 40 or 45 calves each winter. But in recent years that’s been more like 20 or 30 calves, and that’s not sustainable,” Moen said.

“DelGiudice’s $424,000 study is part of a two-pronged effort to find out why the northeast Minnesota moose herd is plummeting.”

Conclusion: I have written six articles since moving to Minnesota five years ago about the effect the wolf population explosion was having on Minnesota moose. Newspapers refused to run Letter to the Editor about them. I sent copies of the articles to friends and acquaintances that hunted and fished in the State and almost universally they didn’t want to talk about it or told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. For years The August and Honorable (May Gaia Be Praised) Minnesota DNR and their subcontractors at the newspapers and at “the” University have vehemently (and to me laughingly) denied that predation from any source was responsible for the steady disappearance of moose as wolves increased.

The reason for this decades-long subterfuge was and is that the DNR would have had to KILL [oooohhh!] the predators in order to maintain moose hunting and thereby offend their new greenie clients. This was and is as evident as the nose on your face. Like the old canard, “the beatings will continue until morale improves”; people are to be managed for wildlife: those that suggest that wildlife are to be managed for people are to be marginalized or purged from the system!

So the DNR recently closed all Moose hunting (forever??) in Minnesota for lack of moose. To say that a moose permit was THE MOST-PRIZED license a Minnesotan could get (the odds were equivalent to winning the Lottery) would be an understatement. Now this “poor” researcher (he only got $424,000 to “discover” what any Minnesotan with half a brain in a wolf country bar already knew) admits “this is all new for us.”

Any Minnesotan could have asked why the Northern Yellowstone Elk herd in Montana disappeared; why the Lolo elk herd in Idaho disappeared; and why Upper Rocky Mt. moose are now going the way of the Dodo bird and Passenger Pigeon: ALL AS WOLVES BECAME ESTABLISHED AND THEIR POPULATIONS EXPLODED IN THOSE ENVIRONS! My oh my, what a coincidence.

This skit belongs on Prairie Home Companion in a bar conversation with all those guys hitting themselves on the forehead with those new plastic beer mugs that just replaced the old heavy glass ones.

PS In all honesty, Minnesota is no different than most other states in worshiping every word that drips from the mouths of “the wildlife” boys and girls. I just got back in from Iowa and they are setting a new low in this regard as it seems more and more state fish and wildlife agencies race to the bottom as they snivel at the feet of federal bureaucrats and their promises of money and jobs.

God Help Us.

Jim Beers
1 June 2013

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

Deadline for Maine Moose Permit Lottery Quickly Approaching

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is reminding all hunters that the deadline to apply for the 2013 Maine Moose Permit Lottery is less than three weeks away.

Prospective moose hunters have until 11:59 p.m. on May 14 to apply for the permit lottery online. The online application can be found at www.mefishwildlife.com.

This year, 4,110 permits will be awarded, up from 3,725 permits last year.

Permit winners and their subpermittees will be able to hunt in one of the department’s 25 wildlife management districts (WMD’s) which cover more than 21,000 square miles.

This year’s moose permit lottery drawing will be held on June 15 in Greenville, as part of the three-day Moose Lottery Festival.

For more information about the moose lottery, visit www.mefishwildlife.com.

Are Wolves Causing Low Body Fat in Moose in Minnesota?

The Duluth News Tribune has a story from yesterday, March 18, 2013, that headlines that wolves are taking a toll on Minnesota moose; a headline that many of us have waited for for quite some time. But perhaps the headline is a bit premature. Further data collection and research might tell a better and more complete story……..or will it?

It’s always difficult to get an accurate assessment of events such as wildlife studies from newspaper accounts and I don’t think I need explain why. So, from this one newspaper account, I would like to point out just one part of it that presents a confusing and perhaps misleading bunch of statements. This may be intentional bias or not. I don’t really know, but it does little to solve a problem.

Here’s a snippet taken from the article:

Of the two animals that died from other causes, both appear to be victims of wolf attacks. One had been mostly eaten, and the other had injuries from a wolf attack but had not been eaten. From a post-mortem investigation at the scene, it appears wolves got the big cow’s calf and then left the area before the cow died, Butler said.

“She died from secondary issues after being wounded by wolves. … It was pretty cool how (the crews) went in there and figured out what happened,” Butler said.

While wolves were the ultimate cause of death for those moose, Butler said both of them, and even some of the moose that died from capture-related stress, had lower-than-usual body fat in what has been a fairly normal, if not mild, winter in moose country.

“When we are capturing them in January, that’s early enough in winter that they should still have some good body fat, and three of these didn’t. That’s not normal,” Butler said.

A reduction in nutrition, possibly from warm weather in the summer when moose are too hot to eat, or from habitat issues, is one theory why moose are having problems making it through winter.

It’s not so much that this information may be perceived as incorrect as it is that it is incomplete. In addition it’s a continuation of the perpetuated bias found in most all media accounts of why moose are disappearing in Minnesota. For years people have questioned this phenomenon and for years have refused to place any of the blame on the presence of wolves. The blame has always been on global warming. And what is near a tragic event is that perhaps their answer is staring the scientists right in the face as might be indicated from this account.

Two moose are said to have been killed as the result of wolves but the researchers seem to be marveling at the discovery that the moose have lower than expected body fat. Once again, the blame is put on the possibility that it is warmer summer time temperatures, along with reduced habitat, that is causing it. Again, not that this assessment is wrong, but for God’s sake do any of these researchers have an understanding of stress factors on moose, the result of which comes from the mere presence of wolves? Have they no elementary knowledge that stressed out moose will not eat as they should in order to gain the needed fat supplies to get through the cold winters? Or that the body fat will come off quickly and/or never be put on due to constant harassment?

It doesn’t end here either. Also included in the snippet above is the account of the cow moose’s calf that was eaten while the cow, having been attacked also by the wolves, was left to die. What is just as infuriating to me is that not only do I see the seemingly blind ignorance of not attributing low body fat to stress from wolves, it also appears that the researchers can’t understand why there is such a low calf recruitment of the moose.

Some people don’t understand that it isn’t necessarily the adult moose that need to be killed off to destroy a population. All you need do is reduce the calf recruitment, that is circumstances that do not allow for calf moose to live beyond their first year, to a level where sustainability becomes problematic. When calf recruitment nears zero, one can expect to find precipitous drops in total moose populations.

In the account shown above, are we not seeing the preferred diet of the wolves? Is not the young calves, obviously easier for the wolves to kill than a full grown moose, the cuisine of choice? And if this is true, why then is it some seemingly obtuse puzzlement to understand why moose calf recruitment is in trouble?

It is hopeful, yet I remain skeptical, that a completion of this study will get to the bottom of the problem. The skepticism comes when one reads accounts such as this that makes people like me see that researchers are seeking a pre-hoped-for outcome.

And speaking of incomplete studies and information, will we also from this study, get any work done on all the diseases that moose suffer from; one of them being hydatid cysts found in the lungs that can have not only health issues, but lessens a moose’s ability to escape predation. If they want to know what’s killing the moose, all factors must be considered. Otherwise, these people will just stick to the claims of global warming and loss of habitat; which may be their goal anyway.

Applications for the 2013 Maine Moose Permit Lottery now are being accepted.

The deadline for online applications is May 14, 2013.

If you applied for a moose permit last year or the year before, all of your information is pre-filled into this year’s online application. To start, type in your first name, last name and date of birth the same way as in 2012 or 2011. The computer will look up your information. Please review your personal data and make any necessary changes. It’s easy!

Once you’ve filled out and paid for your application, you’ll be able to print out a confirmation page. An email confirmation will also be sent to you.

Permit winners and their subpermittees will be able to hunt in one of the department’s 25 wildlife management districts (WMD’s), which cover more than 21,000 square miles.

Legislative changes put into effect last year have given long-time lottery applicants who have never won a permit a better chance at winning.

Bonus points are awarded for each consecutive year the applicant has applied for the lottery since 1998 without being selected and each bonus point gives the applicant an additional chance in the drawing.

Bonus points are earned at the rate of one per year for years one to five, two per year for years six to 10, three per year for years 11 to 15 and 10 per year for years 16 and beyond.

Starting in 2011, applicants can skip a year and not lose their bonus points. So if you applied in 2011 but not in 2012, you still have your points if you apply in 2013.

GOOD LUCK and Safe Hunting!

Best wishes,
Your Friends at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

Apply HERE!

Minnesota Moose Dreamin’

By Jim Beers (republished on this website with permission from the author)

Link:

The following article (Minnesota moose.. hunt suspended)[Link provided above to referred to article] from the front page of today’s St. Paul Paper is worth reading to either make your blood boil or, if you’ve been following the demise of big game hunting in the US, give you a good excuse to shake your head with a wry smile.

There is a reward of a 50-cent coupon to the Wacky Minnesota Gift Store if you can find the word – WOLF – in the article. There is a 25-cent coupon to JoAnns Fabric Store if you can find the words – Echinococcus granulosis or tapeworms spread by wolves (the generic word “parasite” doesn’t count) – in the article.

So, to all you former Montana and Idaho elk hunters now playing violent video games on your kid’s smart phones while they are at school; take note that the Minnesota elk hunt this year (for two isolated and small herds in isolated woods in NW Minnesota where they should be vulnerable to hunting) was a bust. An expected harvest of 23 elk could do no better than 9; calling Sherlock Holmes and Watson. These same DNR/Outdoor Writer Worthies are also mystified about what is going on with the elk as well as the moose.

To all you Yellowstone Park Visitors, this Minnesota moose/elk disappearance practically overnight is credited to unspecified diseases and habitat changes due to global warming just like the missing Yellowstone moose and elk. I refrain from the other reason given by the nicely-uniformed National Park Service “experts” that the moose and elk are mysteriously “staying in the backcountry” since Minnesota “backcountry” is both inhabited and hunted thoroughly so such lies are hard to make. Of course wolves are blameless to all these government wolf-manipulators for their no longer hidden agendas from killing hunting to making gun ownership more problematic.

Why no less an authority than the “head biologist for the fish and wildlife department of the Grand Portage band of Lake Superior Chippewa” is quoted as saying, “Parasites, disease and habitat are all potential factors” (i.e. in the demise of moose). I refrain at this point from using another quote from the article that would be out-of-place and unfair –“That’s insane”.

Since I moved to Minnesota 5 years ago I have spoken and written about how Minnesota wolves are at their highest populations and densities in the past century for the past 20 years since the federal government ripped state (and therefore state resident) wolf management from a compliant state wildlife agency over 40 years ago. I have made pen pals of the outdoor writers to their great amusement and created a reputation with the paper as an hilarious old crank. The high wolf populations being maintained by livestock, dog, deer, moose and elk meat in Minnesota is having the SAME effect that it has in Montana, Idaho, Ontario, Alberta, Alaska, British Columbia, Siberia, Kazakhstan, etc. etc.

The primary Minnesota wolf habitat is and was EXACTLY where the moose and elk lived (note the past tense). The graph of wolf population increase over the past 20 years coincides with the moose/elk population estimate/hunting success rates for the same period. Duh!

Every news article about the missing moose only mentions wolves by way of vilifying those that even suspect wolf depredation as a factor (much less THE factor) as troglodytes that should be locked in the attic with the old uncle that slobbers and passes gas around genteel folks. This writer has been so designated.

So, the rest of the world take note: Alaska abandon your wolf control to maintain moose; Siberia abandon your wolf control to save reindeer; Kazakhstan and Russia abandon your wolf control to save livestock and the old ladies and kids that tend them – All of you look to Minnesota bureaucrats where such losses (except for the old ladies and kids that are too hard to deny) these losses are due to GLOBAL WARMING AND UNDEFINED DISEASES. Stop all that wolf control, until Minnesota determines the REAL REASONS and (along with uniformed US National Park Service Storytellers) reveals the deep dark secrets you have been too dumb to figure out. Keep up your anti-wolf-hunt lawsuits Michiganders and shut down your power plants – Global Warming and Diseases are the enemy, certainly not wolves! Wisconsinites stay cold and in the dark all winter to reduce your carbon footprint to save moose, elk and deer meat for higher wolf population densities to replace hunters and armed citizens while moving rural folks into cities!

Note how an esteemed Minnesota “wildlife research manager for the DNR” “thinks” Ontario is “seeing the same thing”. Thinks? Doesn’t he have a phone? Doesn’t he “think” those are the same woods (albeit measured in kilometers), wolves and moose in the contiguous wolf/moose habitat from central Minnesota to Hudson Bay? Two weeks ago my wife and I had lunch with a great retired Canadian law enforcement officer and his wife. His Ontario hunting camp (a dozen plus guys) was not good at all last year for either moose or deer. His (and his neighbor a retired Ontario wildlife guy) reason? There were wolf tracks and wolves everywhere but they are now killing wolves and coyotes year-around with complete expectation if they kill enough of them and keep killing them the moose and deer hunting will recover hopefully in a few years.

Finally, back in the 1990’s I testified before the US Congress about how US Fish and Wildlife Service hacks stole $45 to 60 Million dollars from the Hunting and Fishing Excise Taxes intended only for State agencies to manage State Fish and Wildlife Resources. This was after Congress had denied USFWS funding for this hair-brained scheme. But undeterred by lawful authority and on a mission for “Gaia” they stole millions from hunters and game management so that federal bureaucrats could capture Canadian wolves, import them illegally and release them without any state concurrence in Yellowstone Park to eliminate ranching, elk, moose and hunting/rural safety in the Upper Rockies states. I was shocked, angered and disgusted at the time as a hunter who still believed that at least the State agencies were still on the hunters’ side but how naive I was for a guy in his fifties. If this Minnesota “Moosegate” debacle is how they are using the excise taxes, USFWS might as well steal it all and if there is any left over after paying themselves bonuses, give it to Garrison Keillor to do a skit on The Prairie Home Companion explaining where all the Minnesota moose and elk and deer and pheasants have gone. At least it will boost the sale of those biscuits in the oil-stained bags and maybe create another non-government job or two to slow the slide in the Minnesota economy.

Jim Beers
7 February 2013

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

Apply For Maine Moose Permit And Do Some Complaining While You’re At It

Yes, it’s that time again. Time for those of interest to apply for a chance at a moose permit to hunt moose in Maine. Visit this link at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) website and fill out your application.

And while you’re at the site, take a couple extra minutes to contact the MDIFW Commissioner and let him know that all the money you’ve contributed to be used for growing and maintaining a moose herd isn’t being spent for your benefit. Maine has for years stated there were only 29,000 moose and they carefully thought the process through before deciding how many permits to allot. Well, now that more of our money has been spent the past three years to count moose and MDIFW has decided there are really 76,000 moose, MDIFW, (after giving it careful thought?) has decided to allot an additional, whopping, 430 permits. Golly! Ain’t that swell?

Let’s see. My math is a bit rusty but rattling off some numbers in an empty head I think this shows somewhere around a 60% increase in the estimated number of moose, and yet only perhaps a 12% increase in permits. Does that make sense to you? Do you feel like you’re getting screwed over?

According to the Boston Globe, Lee Kantar, MDIFW’s head moose biologist, explains why hunters, who have footed the moose recovery bill for what now seems a bazillion years, can’t have but a scant 430 permits:

“What some people fail to understand is we have very clear responsibilities for managing moose for a variety of publics, not just hunting,” Kantar said. “Wildlife viewing stands on equal ground, so you need to be cautious on your permit levels, and that means accounting for your unknowns,”

So, let’s get this straight. For the past several years MDIFW believed the state had 29,000 moose and could comfortably (“accounting for your unknowns’) issue 3,725 moose permits. But now with MDIFW believing there are 76,000 moose, only 4,155 permits can be issued…….I assume to make all the rest of the “on equal ground” moose available to the “on equal ground” moose gawkers who contribute nothing to the growth and maintenance of the herd. Oh, wait. That’s right they pay the governor a handful of tax dollars, that, incidentally, do nothing to help out the moose herd. Shucks! Did somehow those “unknowns” get pulled out of somebody’s dark side or is this placating the environmentalists out of fear they will get offended if Maine decides to kill a handful more moose?

Maine sportsmen deserve better than this slap in the face and kick in the groin. Some have applied for a moose permit since the lottery’s inception and have never been drawn. And this is the treatment they get for their persistence? You can’t hunt them even after your investment, but we’ll make sure the moose gawkers get more “equal ground” than hunters get. Pathetic!

The Moose That Needs A Lot of Attention

The Caption reads: This is our son and grandson trying to work in a woodlot but the moose seems to want a lot of attention. Picture taken this morning.

Maine Moose Hunt Numbers Coming In

According to John Holyoke, “Out There” at the Bangor Daily News, 2,895 of 3,725 moose permit-holders were successful in bagging a moose. That’s about a 78% success rate or a 12% increase from last year.

Homeland Security in the Moose Poaching Business in New Hampshire/Canada

Thanks in part to a federal Homeland Security grant titled “Operation Stonegarden,” teams of officers conducted surveillance of several hunting shacks, as well as foot patrols on the border in the upper reaches of Hall Stream.

Vehicle access is limited in this area, and officers had a 1- to 1.5-mile hike to reach their intended positions, where some spent a chilly night in sleeping bags in 17-degree temperatures.<<<Read More from The Telegraph>>>

A Cherished Matched Set of Moose Antler Sheds

A Maine trapper, checking his trap lines with his trusty partner, discovered a perfectly matched set of moose antler sheds. What a find!

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