Get Rid of the Wolves

..."feral".

I thought it was spelled "ferral" until I looked it up.

Angeline
Speakeasy Moderator

I hasve a problem with my spelling that time.

I doubt you intend to imply native Americans are on some animal level. I also hope you don't think animals should have the same "rights" as humans, or be "equals". I see no correlation between the two different subjects, one has nothing to do with the other.

...you don't have to outrun the wolf; you just have to outrun the person next to you.

In other words, the only people who have to worry about wolves are the ones who are slower than most.

WolfM@N

I have nothing against weaker animals being culled from elk herds, I have nothing against some pastures given over to aspens although I'm not sure how that's supposed to be an improvement over the pasture. If the lie the public was sold on proved correct and wolves knew the park boundaries and didn't present a clear and evident danger to surrounding ranches and humankind then I'd not care about the wolves being there. The Lie however has been exposed by the Truth and it's time to accept that and put things back the way it was before and make it safer for all humanity and domesticated animals in that region. It was wrong to place them all at this unnecessary danger and it can only be made right by removing the danger that was introduced by well meaning but misguided wolfies.

Can you support your allegations or not?

You can do some homework on it for yourself. Just put wolf and attack into Google and find all the evidence you need. Whether you accept it or not is a different matter.

or at least you should. Since you disagree with the vast lobby of scientists that decided the ecology needed the wolves you should have some credible evidence to support your point. Tell us, do you know and have proof that the wolves are bad for the ecology or is it simply faith that drives your opinion?

...wherever we have coyotes we already have wolves, so why bring more in?

and good for business.

Well he's wrong. We have coyotes in WV and western PA and I know there's never been a wolf here in my lifetime.

and he is wrong all the way around.

No one in this thread named Ed (or Edward or any form of it) said what James has attributed to this mysterious "Ed". Don't believe it? Just read ALL the posts and you will see quickly that ONLY James has made the claim.

He has also somehow in other posts managed to claim that I indicated that Foxes, coyotes, dogs, etc. were decended from wolves -- again 100% incorrect as he was informed quite pointedly that dogs are a subspecies of the wolf (all of the above including the wolf are family members of Canidae.

James has a tendency (and bad habit) to invent statements and attribute these inventions of his to others (rather "inventive" but deplorably dishonest).

However, you stated "We have coyotes in WV and western PA and I know there's never been a wolf here in my lifetime." and just to keep you honest you need to qualify that with something on the order of "outside of zoos and nature habitats and possibly animal rescue centers".

Wolf Facts
A wolf has very well developed senses. It can hear a rodent moving under heavy snow cover and other wolves howling from several miles distant. It can smell prey that is more than a mile away.

Wolves run on their toes. This lengthens their legs and makes it possible for them to run faster and turn more quickly.

There are probably fewer than 2,500 wolves in the entire United States today, outside of Alaska. Most of them occur in Minnesota and neighboring states, though a few occur in the northern Rockies and the northern Cascades.

All dogs are descended from wolves that were tamed in the Middle East about 12,000 years ago.

A wolf's winter coat is very wooly. It can be two and a half inches thick, with individual hairs as long as five inches.
The Wolf and You
Wolves in the wild are afraid of humans and generally avoid contact with them. No healthy wild wolf has ever been documented to have killed a person in North America.

Wolves rarely prey on domestic stock, but such incidents do happen. Wolves that kill livestock, such as in Minnesota and Montana, are removed from the area by experts employed by the federal government. Plans have been developed to deal with problem wolves if livestock losses occur in Washington.

Research
Agency biologists, non-profit groups, and private scientists are studying wolf occurrences and distribution in Washington. The results of monitoring using human howling surveys, remote cameras, and other techniques will give scientists information on the wolf for development of a conservation-management strategy.
http://www.nps.gov/ccso/wolves.htm

Going off topic is not a tactic that will work either. Now, can you provide evidence that you collectively know what's better for the ecology there than all of the scientists and ranchers that decided the wolf needed to be reintroduced to the area? Yes or no James?

$500,000 has been set aside for wolf predation on cattle. I do know cattlemen will try to say that a wolf got their cattle when they died for other reasons so the cattlemen can get reimbursed for the cattle.

As for googling wolf attacks on humans you might read this The first comprehensive and detailed report of attacks by wild wolves on humans in Europe, Asia and North America has now been published (Linnell et al 2002). The report's eighteen researchers reviewed the most reliable records they could find, written in 13 languages and dating from the 16th century to the present.

They identified three kinds of wolf attack:
Rabid - where wolves have gone mad because the rabies virus has infected their brains.
Predatory - unprovoked attacks where wolves appear to regard humans as prey.
Defensive - where wolves are provoked by people to attack, such as when trapped or cornered.
They found that:
Most fatal attacks were by rabid wolves.
There were few fatal predatory attacks and none in North America.
There were no fatalities when wolves attacked defensively.

Where is your proof?

Diana

is that when a dog attacks it tends to keep up the attack regardless of the actions of whatever it attacks (or the reason it attacked)

When a wolf or even wolf dog attacks it only keeps up the attack until it can escape. If you have cornered one and it charges all you have to do is step aside and it races right past you. If you don't move it will knock you down but once you are down its escape route is clear and it makes use of it.

Sadly, a few wolf dogs have indeed killed a few children but in each instance it was confined within a very small enclosure (or chained) and had nowhere to go and thus still felt threatened. That is not any fault of the animal but of the owner.

He hasn't done that yet.

..... but in the case of a forest fire or a flood forcing the animal "residents" to flee to a safer location, they will not attack each other regardless of their link in the food chain.

We often hear of domesticated dogs and cats becoming great friends, and even dogs serving as wet nurses to kittens. Some enjoy a pet avian perching on them.

A harbinger of things to come?

Angeline
Speakeasy Moderator

that possibilities are there. We also see the opposite, of previously tame animals attacking humans. Sometimes a cause can be seen, sometimes not. If there is a God with good in mind for all, though, he would indeed be able to set up a system with only "good" characteristics allowed to prevail- even among the two-legged predators.

A careful reading of Genesis as history certainly allows for the idea that man did not, for a long time, consider animals as a food source. This doesn't mandate vegetarianism at the present day, but vegetarians have shown that eating only food products that don't involve harming or killing an animal can support life very well.

I'm sure you must be refering to Noah and things said in that story. One thing everyone overlooks are the sacrifices Noah did and even then a distinguishing between "clean" and "unclean" animals to be used for that. Just that would indicate a prior knowledge and practice of animal slaying. What most key on is the permission given there of every beast becoming food for man. Taken in full context it might imply there was some restriction on eating of meat, or on eating of certain "unclean" animals for food prior to the flood. There is an implication perhaps that prediluvian inhabitants were vegetarians, or maybe Noah and his family were vegetarians. Looking at why God destroyed the earth and the "violence" that was in it, I suspect the Holy comment about animals being food like every green plant may have been directed specifically at Noah who may have been a vegetarian. Later we see specific commandments about how to do sacrifices during the days of Moses, maybe similar to those understood by Noah and then later Abraham. One interesting observation about those are the communal nature of them in which certain portions of the "clean" animal are burned in sacrifice to God, but other parts are consumed by the one doing the sacrifice and the one who brought the sacrifice. So, I suspect there was meat eaten, at least on some occasions prior to the flood, but perhaps Noah himself had previously abstained from it and God was setting him straight on the matter, or expanding the list to include all edible flesh of animals as OK.

I tend to think that most people were vegetarians before the Flood, not because of a command (there's no record of one) but out of lack of necessity for a larger diet.
So much for my opinion; now for fact: Abel's sacrifice was of "some firstlings of his flock, even their fatty pieces", and "Jehovah was looking with favor upon Abel and his offering". No record of his eating any of it. Ditto Noah.
It's worth noting, as you do, that the 'fatty pieces' later were Jehovah's, while the rest of the clean parts were for the support of the Levite class, as was the tithing arrangement. (You'll recall that only the tribe of Levi had no land inheritance in Israel.) But these were Mosaic provisions, explicit, and limited in time from the "ten commandments" era until Jesus fulfilled the Law. (Mt 5:17) Also they were instituted long after Gen 9, so meat eating was common by then. That's why I said "Genesis as history", including the stream of time. (Genesis is a very linear account from Ch. 5 onward.)
Part of my comment was offered because there are modern religions which teach abstention from meats as commands. That's not a Christian teaching- just the opposite. (1 Tim 4:1-5) Will vegetarianism come [back] in the promised new system? Some think not because 'I won't go to [Paradise] if I can't have beef tacos'. But the overriding fact is at Ps 145:16.
Let Jehovah worry about the catering; we need to concentrate on what he expects of us now. (Mt 7:21-23)