Deer bust on St. Martin Island http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/79440617.html
DNR raid on St. Martin’s Island off the Michigan U.P., Nov. 19th, 2009. 31 Bucks and 9 Does on the pole, nothing smaller than a 7-point. Approximately 10 more deer, antlers, and heads found around the ground in the camp. There were a smaller mix of bucks and does. 10 deer without tags, another 10 with wives/girlfriends tags.
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Finally people are speaking out about slob hunting. It’s a dirty little secret that doesn’t get much play in the press. It takes many forms from poaching to shooting into a herd of ungulates, not caring who or what you hit, just to “get your elk”, shooting animals from your rig drunk or sober. Basically it’s unethical behavior by some hunters, who don’t follow the rules and think they can do whatever they want to our wildlife.
Matt Skoglund, a wildlife advocate, who blogs for the NRDC, wrote a great article posted on New West called Wolves, Elk and Slob Hunting..What’s a bigger threat to elk: wolves or slob hunting?
It’s time someone talks about this. I’m sick and tired of wolves being blamed for elk declines. The subject of bad hunting practices doesn’t get enough press. Thanks Matt for speaking out and shedding light on this disgusting practice.
Wolves hunt to live, they don’t have the luxury of going to Safeway to pick up a snack. Yet the anti-wolf crowd loves to throw out their wolf hating rhetoric, blaming wolves for everything from the bad economy to high divorce rates.
Look in your own backyard wolf haters, before you blame innocent animals. Take a gander at these slob hunters and the damage they do to elk, deer and other wildlife. Who’s the cruel one? Yeah, uh-huh!
Matt states “he writes because two recent news stories made me want to throw my computer out the window” Me too Matt, me too.
I included the links below to the two heartbreaking stories Matt mentioned, plus Matt’s article.
What a waste of our precious wildlife, these people have no empathy and no redeeming qualities. None!
“Throughout the centuries we have projected on to the wolf the qualities we most despise and fear in ourselves.” -Barry Lopez
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Wolves, Elk and Slob Hunting
What’s a bigger threat to elk: wolves or slob hunters?
by Matt Skoglund, Guest Writer, 12-17-10
“If you live in the Northern Rockies, you have either read or heard someone claim that wolves have decimated elk populations and thus ruined elk-hunting in the region. The wolves are killing all the elk has become the battle cry against wolves these days, and you hear it or see it everywhere. For a minute, let’s forget that more than 350,000 elk currently inhabit Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. And let’s forget that there are only about 1,700 wolves. “
TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY CLICK HERE:
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(Slob) Hunters play wolf blame game
by Nick Gevock mtstandard.com | Posted: Thursday, November 25, 2010 7:00 am
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/article_dc05115e-0194-11e0-af6d-001cc4c002e0.html
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Bloody November
December 02, 2010 By: Blake Maxwell
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Boulder White Clouds Council
Exposing The Big Game
Footloose Montana
Friends of the Clearwater
Lockwood Animal Rescue Center
Louise du Toit
LUPUSLAETUS
Mercy For Animals
Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance (NIWA)
Predator Friendly®- Because Wildlife Matters
Project Coyote
Project: Wolf
The Nature Conservancy
The Ravensong Group
WildEarth Guardians
Wisconsin Wildlife Ethic-Vote Our Wildlife
Wolf And Wildlife Studies: Jay Mallonee (Independent Wolf Biologist)
Wolf Song of Alaska
Wolves in english ! Les loups en anglais !
WWP's Gray Wolf Page
Yellowstone To Yukon Conservation Initiative
Howling For Justice 
This Is SICK and Those That Do this are SICK and DEMENTED! Do these Stories Ever Make iy To The Right People That Can Do Something or Do Our Beautiful Wolves Just Get To TAKE THE BLAME? I am APALLED that This Happens and no one does anything about it. I would Be Ashamed if I knew and Was able to do Something about it and Didn’t and Let them Slaughter our Wolves. WHAT A CRIME AND A WASTE!!!
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And yet they are blaming wolves for hunting, which is what they are supposed to do while these sickos are out poaching deer and elk, it disgusting. They even have a tv series called Wild Justice that deals with the huge issue of poaching. Then we have the “hunters” like the ones shooting into a herd of elk, wounding them and not caring who they hit. What is wrong with these people? No respect for our wildlife or themselves either.
N.
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At the moment, I can hardly the find the words to say or the steady fingers to type.
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This has to stop Rita and the only way to stop it is to tell others about what is happening. I have no words for it either.
N.
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We have the good ole boy hunters that will kill and kill and you know they cannot use the meat from all the deer. To add insult to injury we have the ones in charge the put the laws in just for their hunts. Just ruined the whole concept of hunting. we have the game wardens out here but they still do this. One guy has a bait and stand right on the fence line. They sell meat also. This area is horrible. In Ga.
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nothing,nothing…i don’t find any words…only that, BARBAROUS,BARBARIC AND SOOO PRIMITIVE…
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It just gets worse by the day Agnes. I’m not surprised by anything anymore. Such tremendous cruelty.
N.
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Nabeki the pic leaves me shaken…right now in AK they are blaming Unimak wolves for low caribou numbers. Earlier this year, the USF&W had proposed to study and find out why the numbers were so low. There is no way they have completed that study. Also this is a Refuge area. So AK DF&W want to go in and kill the wolves!
It just never ends. They blame the wolves for their own overhunting.
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I know crytalwolf, it is shocking, especially when they have the nerve to blame wolves for ungulate declines and then you see the damage poaching and slob hunting does. This goes on more then anyone will even talk about. I’ve seen it myself. Especially wounded animals, blood trails. The suffering is tremendous.
Fish and game has dictated the conversation about wolves. All everyone is talking about is ungulate numbers. Most people don’t even hunt and have no idea how many deer or elk are out there. The hunting groups are sucking all the oxygen out of the room discussing deer, elk and caribou numbers. We can’t even mention wolves anymore without getting drawn into converations about ungulate numbers. What do they expect the wolves to eat? Grass? The truth is they don’t care.
If only Goron Haber was still here. This is getting so out of control.
N.
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Thanks, Nabeki for writing about this.
The hunting groups here in Montana, like the Montana Wildlife Federation, keep telling us that it’s a very small percentage of hunters that are unethical slobs. Now, it’s coming out that there are plenty of these types out there. They don’t care enough to be proficient in marksmanship(many don’t practice until the week before hunting season, if at all). Their attitude is “so what if I wound an animal, they’ll be others to shoot at later”.
Look at the number of them that are so over weight that they can’t hunt more than 100 yards from their big rigs, so what do they do?…….they use an ATV to get around. Not only are they leaving a large carbon footprint with their big trucks, but they add more with their ATV. Global warming and climate change is the furthest thing from their minds.
Then, there’s the piles of trash they leave behind….beer cans, glass bottles etc.
Why are more and more private land owners denying access to hunters? Because of the trash and the damage to fences, gates, signs and streams caused by these slobs.
The hunters who are ethical just don’t seem to have much influence on the others and until they get them to clean up their act, the public becomes more and more intolerant of their behavior and rightfully so.
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You’re welcome Jerry. It’s so obvious looking at the pictures of so many poached deer that this is a serious problem. Of course wolves make a convenient scapegoat to blame.
Thing is, elk numbers are just fine. The hunting lobby has managed to turn any conversation about wolves into a debate about elk. It’s ridiculous. I love elk and deer but most of the cournty doesnt’t even hunt. These people are living in a bubble if they think people are sitting around worrying about ungulate numbers for godsakes. Wolves are doing nothing wrong except surviving and these slob hunters are running around poaching, shooting out or their rigs and shooting into herds. Who is the cruel one? It’s not the wolves.
Another thing that gets me is all this talk about how wolves eat or kill their prey. It’s just another smokescreent to demonize wolves. Predation isn’t pretty, that’s life. I have a hard time watching an African lion killing it’s prey but predators are the engine that drives evolution. That’s why they were put on this earth. Yet we have to hear the whining from people that lack empathy and kill without mercy for blood lust. Talk about hypocrites.
N.
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I LOVE YOUR BLOG, I LOVE WOLVES, OUR PEOPLE, SACRED LANDS AND ANIMALS OF OUR FORESTS! I WOULD LOVE TO BE INVOLVED. I AM INTERESTED IN FINDING SOMEONE TO HELP ME WITH A WEBSITE FOR SAVING OUR CEDAR BARK TREES AND ANIMALS IN BC CANADA , THEY ARE LOGGING IT OUT AS WE SPEAK. IT IS FLOODING BAD RIGHT NOW, HE TREES, NO WHERE FOR WATER TO GO. PLEASE LET ME KNOW, THANKS SO MUCH!
MERRY XMAS! GEY-LA-KASLA! GLAKWA KWEENIE!
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Thanks so much Glakwa Kweenie, I’m glad you found the blog and enjoy reading it. There are many dedicated and wonderful people here that care about wolves and want to protect them. We’re totally dedicated to helping them survive in this every hostile environment. We need to protect them, they are a vital part of our ecosystem. I know Canada’s wildlife is under siege as well. I’ll send you an email to learn more about your vision to start a website to save the Cedar Bark Trees and animals in BC.
For the wolves, For the wild ones,
Nabeki
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A question: what is the homo sapien’s true ecological role and place in the food chain?
Do we even have one?
We are unlike any animal on this planet, given that we have similarities in both looks and behaviour to a number of species but the other members of our kingdom appear to have more restraint than us.
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We sure do a lot of damage to our wild brothers John. Too much Manifest Destiny and not enough empathy.
N.
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There was a fellow from the RSPCA who had a picture of a brumby strung up on a hunting rack on his desk. He told the interviewer it was to remind him of why he was in the group and expressed his abhorrence of animal cruelty. This same man casually walked up to a dingo that was lying peacefully on a beach on Fraser and shot it near point blank in the head.
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It’s tragic that these sort of things don’t surprise some of us anymore. We are so used to the sick and cruel news. Ever since the Middle Ages, people have been blaming wolves for rediculous things. Killing children in the night, stealing their women, haunting them in their sleep, the list goes on. Because they were heard howling in the night, and slinking around in the deep, dark woods, people thought they must be demonic, so therefore started to make exciting stories about them. Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, The Boy who cried Wolf, and similar stories are still being thought up. All because of these superstitious old hags passing their wretched stories down from generation to generation. It’s amazing how a couple of little stories could change peoples views on wolves so much. Like the movie “Jaws” destroyed peoples views on sharks, especially great whites. People are so ignorant, wolves have to be one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet. People don’t care about them. They donate money to ‘noble’ and ‘majestic’ animals like lions, and don’t even give a wink to the much more beautiful and important wolves.
I was watching this program once about dogs. There was this ignorant ‘scientist’ who said “How could a dog be bred from a vicious and aggressive wolf?”, he claimed that the dog evolved from dingos and some wolves, which is a completely stupid theory. The dog that you see running around in the fields whilst someone is throwing a ball WAS BRED FROM A WOLF once upon a time. People still refuse to believe this.
Back on topic of the inhumane killing of deer and such. Red deer in Scotland are doing the exact same thing as what happened in Yellowstone before the wolves returned. Many of the ignorant people in Scotland are very against this idea. They feel it would be deadly, and many people will die because of wolves. But thankfully, the people who KNOW about wolves are taking action and wolves are hopefully going to be released into a gigantic enclosure in the highlands of Scotland.
http://www.wolvesandhumans.org/wolves/wolf_reintroduction_to_scotland.htm
Releasing wolves to Scotland would be a great benefit to the wildlife, and the government. It would boost tourism, which means more money for Scotland. It would also mean that people wouldn’t keep having to go out to cull the red deer to keep their population down. Wolves would also help animals like the capercallie to survive.
Imagine, wolves roaming the highlands of Scotland once again!
Zarago
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Hi Zarago,
It’s so true wolves have been demonized through the ages by ignorant people. They are still suffering from that persecution today. But it’s our job to challenge those perceptions and to speak out for wolves. If someone makes a dumb remark to me about wolves i don’t let it slide. I ask them where they got their information and try to set the record straight. So many people just repeat what they hear and because 99% of what is printed about wolves is usually negative, then people will parrot that back. You are so right they truely are misunderstood animals.
I think it’s great they want to reintroduce wolves to Scotland. I think it would solve the deer problem and bring balance back to Scotland’s ecosystems. Thanks for sharing.
N.
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Nabeki,
Thank you for agreeing with me on this one. I think I have finally found someone who does!
People have just GOT to understand how important wolves are to the world, and that they are not ruthless killers like they appear in books and films.
~ Zarago ~
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Did you hear about the new Red Riding Hood movie coming out? The Grimm brothers and Aesop are some of the people behind such demonising.
In medieval times, the Christian church with its influence over a large population of believers and determination to eliminate the pagan religions (not to mention the people who believed/harboured them) ‘persuaded’ writers to vilify the creatures pagans believed to be sacred. The bible cites many references of the wolf being the servant of the devil.
Places where hunting and farming have footholds in economy and authority generally demonise that which they consider their enemy (predators) despite the truth being to the contrary.
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No I haven’t heard about it John. Wolves certainly don’t need any more demonizing. Do you have more info on it?
For the wolves, For the wild ones,
Nabeki
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1486185/
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Sounds terrible John. More children in danger by wolves myth. Just what wolves don’t need. It seems the world is divided into wolf supporters and wolf haters. Thanks Obama administration for delisting wolves when youredecessor George Bush couldn’t even accomplish it….NOT.
N.
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Thanks for the update John. Just what wolves don’t need right now. It seems the world is divided into wolf advocates and wolf haters. The Obama admin stirred up this hornets nest by delisting wolves, when even his predecessor George Bush couldn’t accomplish it. Unbelievable mess.
N.
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We are lucky to have you standing up for wolves in Scotland Zarago. Wolves are apex predators, so important to healthy ecosystems. I hope wolves get their chance to return to Scotland.
For the wolves, For the wild ones,
Nabeki
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Nowhere does the Bible say that wolves are servants of the devil. Sometimes it refers to evil people as “wolves,” but that’s a little different. The wolf’s predatory nature is being used as a vivid metaphor for individuals who attack and harm other people; however, the Bible is not thereby implying that wolves themselves are bad. This type of metaphor is not limited to wolves either; evil people often get compared to lions too. (Bear in mind that the lion is used as a metaphor for Jesus in other verses. This helps to demonstrate that metaphorical use of animals in the Bible is based on various qualities that those animals have, not on their moral worth. If one species can represent both someone good and someone bad, then these metaphors obviously don’t indicate that the animal itself is good or bad — they just play off different behaviors of that animal.) And the original Greek manuscripts from which the Bible was translated were written long before medieval times, so pressure against medieval pagans would not have been responsible for these figures of speech. How such pressures may have affected tradition, though (as distinct from the Biblical text), I can’t say.
Anyone who tries to use the Bible as justification for despising wolves is sorely mistaken, as far as I’m concerned. Consider the following:
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31a)
The LORD is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works. (Psalm 145:9)
These verses demonstrate the value and care that God gives to all creation. Notice that wolves are not made an exception. And wolves are specifically mentioned as being present (and peaceful) in God’s future kingdom on earth:
“The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the LORD. (Isaiah 65:25; see also Isaiah 11:6)
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Thank you captainsakonnna for your very interesting and inciteful post. I think certain people in our society will go to great lengths to sully the wolves’ reputation, even quoting scripture. But to assign god and bad motives to an animal that is just trying to live out it’s life the way god intended, is wrong on so many levels. I have no idea what fuels this hatred of a species but I don’t think it has anything to do with wolves. They are just convenient scapegoats.
For the wolves, For the wild ones,
Nabeki
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“For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”
– Acts, 20: 29
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
– Matthew, 7: 15
Captainsakonnna,
The bible has indeed been edited, misinterpreted and rewritten many times. Nowadays, it depends on how one interprets the text. For example, the wolf which is stated to graze by the lamb. The lamb is the believer and the wolf, is the non-believer or ‘false prophet’ (therefore a ‘danger’ to the faithful), both are deemed good to god so long as they eat the same food – meaning to follow the same faith. Seeing as it is the lamb’s food the wolf is eating…
*Please note: I don’t mean this as an attack on Christianity nor good-natured Christians and I apologise if this has offended anyone.
In any case, the ‘vilification’ was taken quite seriously and still is today by some, as is the teaching of human domination over all life on this planet. The latter really adds up to a convenient excuse for allowing cruelty against animals for those who want to do them harm. I’ve heard hunters and trappers stating that it’s their god given right, that god gave them dominion over the animal or that god gives them permission to do it (if that fails: the 2nd Amendment).
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Correction: The bible has indeed been edited, misinterpreted and rewritten.
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Thank you for your kind words Nabeki, I shall do my best to stand up for wolves everywhere. Currently, I am too young to do much (only thirteen) and I live in England, not Scotland, so it’s extremely difficult to do much about it. If only I was older.
I do read the bible, and I have looked in the index for “wolf” and I have to say, it does not give them a nice picture at all. The only reasonably nice one is “the wolf will lay down with the lamb” and the others are actually rather nasty.
Now, this is not the fake bible, this is the most accurate translation you can get (yes, I know that for a fact).
Meh, why would God ask someone to write bad things about these beautiful, gentle creatures? God created them, and I know that they were a threat to their livestock, but come on, this is just not right.
~ Zarago ~
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Zarago….So wonderful to have young people like yourself that care about wildlife. One day your generation will be in charge of things and hopefully will do a better job of caring for our wildlife then our generation has done.
For the wolves, For the wild ones,
Nabeki
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I most certainly hope so Nabeki. I hope to have a job in wolf conservation. And I am trying to get a hold of the UK Wolf Conservation Centre to know what I have to take to be qualified to do this work.
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Zarago..that is great news. We need more compassionate, caring people taking care of our wild places. So good to hear it. We’ll all be rooting for you.
N.
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Peter Kiermeir (Ralph’s blog), found this article:
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/article_e40545f8-29a4-11e0-80a4-001cc4c03286.html
“As an endangered species the wolf is a threat to hunters and their other species of concern. As a game species, however, the wolf can be to the U.S. what the lion or leopard is to Africa – the epitome of hunting adventure.”
They just don’t get it do they?
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Nope they don’t get John. This paragraph says it all:
“In short, we need to be practical and get the delisting job done right now while a window of opportunity is open. Pass the Baucus-Tester bill and we could have a wolf hunt in 2011, and we could engage in immediate management actions to help save what’s left of the elk herd by the end of this winter.”
Yeah just what we need, return wolves back to Montana and Idaho so they can have their wolf bowhunting seasons, wolf trapping, wolf calling, wolf baiting, wolf back-country rifle seasons, wolf slaughter. Who knows, wolf spearing season?
N.
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