A few years ago I pulled the plug on wasting my time trying to fight a rigged corrupt government system that grows and perpetuates wolves across the landscape of America – a practice that runs contrary to anything that once resembled normalcy and sanity.
At the time I made my announcement, I did hint that I might, from time to time, shine the light on the continued fleecing of hunters and trappers, and tax payers in general, when it comes to gray, red, Mexican, and any other mixed breeds of hybrid, wild canine designed and released into the backyards of Americans in the Northern Rockies, the Southwest, Southeast, and Western Great Lakes regions to perpetuate scarcity.
I more or less keep up with what’s going on. I swallow back my regurgitation when I hear the word wolf, shake my head and head in the other direction. However, I’ll be the first to admit it when I can boldly and proudly write: I told you so.
The other day I was alerted that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) was asking taxpayers to fork over more than $400,000 a year to count wolves in their state. Please go back a read that again.
You see it wasn’t enough that the state of Idaho, in gutless, silent acquiescence, allowed activists, mostly rogue quasi members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), to spread wolves throughout their state, they went so far as to arrange things so that the wolves would continue to proliferate only instead of the Federal Government criminals footing the bill, the state of Idaho had to cough up the money to perpetuate wolves and destroy their prized game herds, i.e. elk, deer, and moose. These sportsmen claimed a victory. How so? How are those elk tags going for you? When’s the last time anyone hunted moose?
I’ll get to the “I told you so.” During the process of watching the wolves grow to numbers ginormously exceeding the target number of “recovered” wolves (10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves), the state, with the help of a handful of criminal politicians (aren’t they all?) got the Feds to turn management of wolves over to the state. This, of course, came when wolves in Idaho numbered probably somewhere around 1,000 – who knows for sure? Management involved finding ways to bilk the sportsmen of dollars to fund management, while at the same time their game herds began to nose dive due to wolves slaughtering the choicest of the elk, deer, and moose.
Never fear, the state offered a solution – a “trophy” wolf hunt.
About this time, I railed on the IDFG, laughing in their face at their ignorance that a “trophy” wolf hunt was going to have any effect whatsoever on controlling wolf numbers. I said back then it wouldn’t have any effect and that in about 5-8 years the state would be trying to figure out how they were going to control wolves. They still haven’t figured it out and never will, I’m afraid.
I began writing a multi-part series on the historic challenges that faced countries, cultures, and tribes across the world in their attempts to rid their landscapes of undesired wolves. I later took the time and pieced the multi-part writings into one piece. I called it, “To Catch a Wolf.”
In October of 2014, and again in February of 2017, I published an article about trophy wolf hunts, addressing specifically the claim by ignorant wildlife managers and activists, that offering trophy wolf hunts was somehow going to cause elk, deer, and moose populations to plummet. No, you can’t make this stuff up.
If you are interested in facts about wolves and some of what has transpired that has gotten Idaho to the point they are at now – dwindling game herds and anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 wolves and god knows how many breeding pairs – please take the time to read the links I’ve provided above.
In the meantime, it appears that citizens of Idaho are about to get shafted once again. They are being asked to supply the inept fish and game department $408,000 a year so they can count wolves. What for?
Mind you, we just learned that the same IDFG used $120,000 to kill elk that the department say are destroying ranchers’ crops. Not only is this fascist regime not giving hunters an opportunity to reduce elk populations in regions the state claims need it, but they are charging the sportsmen so the department can do it themselves or pay others to do it, while donating the meat to food banks. How big of them!
There’s a couple of sayings that come to mind here. One of them goes something like “Burn me once, shame on you. Burn my twice, shame on me.” But then again, perhaps we are well beyond burning twice. I think we’ve reached the point where insanity has crept in and taken over.
I was livid when sportsmen, wolf control activists, IDFG, and politicians agreed to take over management and charge the taxpayers and sportsmen for that privilege. Thanks a lot! More money and more wolves. That worked out real well.
If I was an Idaho citizen, I would place a big fat demand on any notion of providing nearly a half-million dollars to IDFG to count wolves. Here’s the demand.
Presently, depending on which lie you want to believe, there are from 1,000 to 1,500 wolves in Idaho. I don’t know how many breeding pairs. I don’t care how many breeding pairs. There are plain and simple too damned many wolves….period!
When the criminals illegally dumped the wolves on Idaho, they were promised that when there were 10 breeding pairs or 100 wolves, the species would be considered recovered and the state could take over managing wolves so long as they met that requirement. How did that work out for the victims? I thought so.
If the IDFG wants $408,000 to count wolves, give them the money with the understanding that by counting them and knowing where all the wolves are, they can then systematically kill enough wolves, geographically laid out to maintain a certain density and lower the total wolf population back down to 10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves. Anything short of that, IDFG can go pound sand.
Once Again, Proposal In Idaho Charging Hunters/Ranchers to Control Wolves
Nearly one year ago, I published an article in disagreement with a bill in Idaho, proposed by Rep. Judy Boyle, whom I would like to consider a friend. Her bill would have added $4.00 to the cost of a wolf hunting permit and take $8.00 from each wolf hunting tag sold to pay for livestock losses to ranchers.
And now I am reading that Idaho’s Governor “Butch” Otter is proposing to allot $2 million in start-up fees to create an entity for the purpose of funding wolf population control. After the one-time $2 million, then the funding will come from, “annual contributions of $110,000 from members of the livestock industry and a match from Idaho sportsmen thereafter. Some of that funding will come from hunting licensing in the state, Siddoway said.”
Senator Jeff Siddoway, is a sheep rancher in Idaho and over the past year had a mass killing of his sheep by wolves. He states:
I can’t say that I feel his pain because I’ve never had to endure such losses with anything, and those losses are due to not only people protecting a nasty wild dog but introducing it into a landscape that had been vacant of wolves for many decades. This action could have and should have been prevented from the beginning.
Also as a result of introduced, Government wolves, the hunting industry in Idaho, has for the most part, gone to hell in a hand basket.
While some are expressing joy and a victory that a funded program said to be focused on “wolf control,” I wonder how many people have any idea just what the Gov’s ideas or definition of wolf control are?
And consider this statement by Mr. Siddoway:
Can you imagine what will happen the first time the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, or some other Idaho government agency, attempts to fly aircraft for the purpose of killing wolves? This will be tied up in the courts for years, leaving only the, “allow more people to go out and actually do the hunting and trapping.” See, “To Catch a Wolf.”
So far, all efforts put forth with wolf hunting and trapping has done little to “control” wolf populations. Even a recent, purpose-driven wolf and coyote killing derby resulted in no wolves killed. If Idaho can find enough money to pay enough hunters and trappers of wolves, for a long enough period of time, to make it worth their while, then it may prove helpful.
But this isn’t really my gripe. My gripe is that this is no victory. This is akin to ask a feller to braid his own rope for his own hanging. Wolves were dumped in Idaho and just who was it that made that decision? Did the hunters and the livestock industry, along with all the citizens of Idaho, get to vote on this? From information I have found over the years, it was the fish and game department who illegally authorized the Federal Government to dump the wolves and litter the landscape with disease. What was done about that?
Professionals in the field of wolves, were asked what would happen if wolves were introduced. Any scientific notions that opposed introduction of wolves, were ignored. What was done about that?
To date, the Federal Government, in cahoots with the Idaho Government, have made all the decisions, mostly all on their own, to infest the forests of Idaho with killing machines that have endangered the lives of people, destroyed ranching, put many outfitters out of business, spread human killing diseases across the plain, seriously destroyed the elk herd, raised hell with deer and moose, etc.
In addition to all of this, Idaho had the audacity to then turn around and charge hunters for a permit and tag to kill these vermin when populations got to be at least 10 times what government officials once declared as a “recovered” population. How much hatred can exist toward the outdoor sportsman?
And now that the hunters and trappers are helping to pay those who destroyed their passions and livelihoods, who continue to protect these nasty animals, the Governor of the Gem State wants the victims of their crooked and failed wolf worshiping introduction program, to pay to “control” wolves. If that ain’t fascist and dictatorial government at its best I don’t know what is. I wonder. Are rape victims require to pay an additional tax in order to “control” rapists? How about murder victims?
I wise man once told me that the epitome of ignorance was when a person meets with somebody that wants to take advantage of them, they get screwed over and yet walk away with a smile thinking they had achieved a great victory.
While I agree that killing wolves is a good thing, it is a damned shame that the victims are being asked to pay for it. What kind of justice is this?
In addition, the article states the make-up of a board of directors who will oversee this communistic plan:
If the member at large will actually be a representative of the “wolf advocates”, then how much in higher taxes are “wolf advocates” going to pay in order to have a voice on this board? Isn’t it one of President Obama’s demands for “an even playing field” to require the same from everyone, or does this work only in the direction that fits an agenda? If so, then there needs to be compensation paid by “wolf advocates” so they can have a voice. Excuse the punny story but isn’t this just a bit akin to Ben Franklin’s analogy of two wolves and a sheep sitting down to discuss what’s for dinner?
Killing wolves is a good thing; the more the better, from my perspective. But to kick the livestock owners and hunters and trappers in the groin, over something they didn’t want in the first place is wrong on every level. Isn’t this corruption at its ultimate? The rotten bastards who were responsible for bringing imported wolves back to Idaho should all be jailed.
Why not levy a tax on government employees salaries and make them pay for their damned mess they created?
As I first pointed out, I don’t live in Idaho and I don’t have a dog in this fight, except for the fact that these kind of fascist and dictatorial toned down pogroms tend to filter over into other states. I see no victory here in agreeing with Gov. Otter’s proposal; one that was buried in some other bills I am being told.
If the program passes, it will likely be because ranchers like Mr. Siddoway, along with sportsmen, (and can we really blame them?) will follow the premise that killing any amount of wolves is a good thing. And, only time will tell if such a program will accomplish what Siddoway and others believe it will.
History should be convincing enough that this program will fail and/or the money will be used for something else – probably another program geared against the efforts of the Livestock Industry and sportsmen.