OT: Wolf Watch - Page 9

LOL....


No.

There is debate there as well as to the origin of the domestic dog.

Personally I believe the wolf is one of several ancestors to dogs but thats just me.

Moons.

Taxonomic or Genomic debate?  I'm not aware of any debate involving qualified experts.  For that matter, since the classification of merely Canis lupus, while dropping any specified subspecies, from what I can tell from a legal standpoint........ during that time, all of our domestic pets were covered under the endangered species act!

I guess what it all boils down to is simple:  The native wolf to this area is nearly extinct, or completely, depending on where you live in the Northwest.  There was a few years ago, still a small pack of the native wolves living in the Continental Mountain area of extreme Northwestern Idaho, Northeastern Washington.  They haven't been sighted now in a few years up there.  But they were there.  And guess what?  There is and was a herd of elk there...Along with moose and deer. The native wolves didn't decimate the elk in their area, even though they could.  There have always been plenty of rabbits, grouse, and other small wildlife in the area as well, though to this day there are no coyotes in the area...

Now, if all wolves were the same, why have these native wolves not reproduced and become extremely destructive to their habitat up there?  Is it because they are the subspecies which belongs here, which lives in a natural balance with the prey?

You decide.

Crys

Every time I go looking I have no problem finding disagreement among (qualified experts).

I just figued your point was that the reintroduced wolves were not native species in a given area.
That is correct.


Moons.

Crys,
The difference is man.

If you have livestock in a habitat you have added to the available food supply.
And you change the rules, all of them.

Along with the physical changes from evolution came knowledge, things are lost and must be re-learned with these new rules in place.


Moons.

Agreed.

Crys

Reviewing the ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System), it doesn't appear that there have been any alterations to the classification of C. lupus subspecies since 1943.  I have no idea where this is currently debated.

And this map was from Mech (1970), not by google or wikipedia or whatever.




Anyone who seems to think that "management" is just another word for hunting, should read the last line of this abstract.



Perhaps, epizootic measures have already been taken.  Just perhaps.  Even if not, why do you think they would even assume that management would be necessary at all, for a species that was supposedly greatly "endangered" just two decades ago?  Because, as I've stated already, the population has grown exponentially, and the resources to sustain that population decreased at equal rate.  Who still thinks that things will balance out naturally on their own, without great sacrifice made by various plant and animal species other than man?  They've been upgraded to a "species of concern" this last year, but I'm afraid there's more meaning to the word concern than what's implied.  And not just for their predatory habits, but also for the risk of spreading disease.

There was a lone wolf sighting early this morning, near the Yellowstone River at Columbus MT, about 10 miles from my residence.  The observer commented that, for it's size, he couldn't believe how incredibly fast it was running.

Was that because it was so large?  The reason I ask is that we have folks claiming that the Canadian grays are not large at all...And the accounts from back when native wolves were common said that the wolves were usually around eighty pounds...I'm sure there were a few that were a little larger, as well as some smaller, but if that size was the effective size based on their prey in the area, they would have been pretty uniform.

Crys

I never knew there was a species of wolf that grew this big.  That is huge!  ecs