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  #121  
Old 02-04-2015, 10:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Torkdiesel View Post
I have heard rumours of the cull being expanded now into other areas of the province. Has anybody talked to a biologist that can confirm or deny this.
I hope this is true. I am all for it. They are doing a great job and I hope they continue. A wolf cull like this is well proven. Wether they use poison or arial shoot them it is an effective method. Yes it is expensive but it gets the job done. What ever it takes to bring the numbers down. If they have to shoot a few moose or elk for bait to get this done fine. For every moose they kill and load up with poison they are saving 100 more. Good job to all involved.
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  #122  
Old 02-04-2015, 10:19 PM
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I hope this is true. I am all for it. They are doing a great job and I hope they continue. A wolf cull like this is well proven. Wether they use poison or arial shoot them it is an effective method. Yes it is expensive but it gets the job done. What ever it takes to bring the numbers down. If they have to shoot a few moose or elk for bait to get this done fine. For every moose they kill and load up with poison they are saving 100 more. Good job to all involved.
I don't mind the arial shooting to help keep the numbers in check but in my opinion they should do away with the poisoning. If it was possible to contain the poison to wolves it would be somewhat better but the bykill is hard to swallow. Birds of prey, wolverines, marten, fisher, weasel, coyote, Cougars and fox are just collateral damage.
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  #123  
Old 02-04-2015, 10:23 PM
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I don't mind the arial shooting to help keep the numbers in check but in my opinion they should do away with the poisoning. If it was possible to contain the poison to wolves it would be somewhat better but the bykill is hard to swallow. Birds of prey, wolverines, marten, fisher, weasel, coyote, Cougars and fox are just collateral damage.
I absolutely agree.
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  #124  
Old 02-04-2015, 11:13 PM
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I don't mind the arial shooting to help keep the numbers in check but in my opinion they should do away with the poisoning. If it was possible to contain the poison to wolves it would be somewhat better but the bykill is hard to swallow. Birds of prey, wolverines, marten, fisher, weasel, coyote, Cougars and fox are just collateral damage.
Fair enough and I respect your opinion. I know they are using experts that have a great deal of experience. They have developed strategies over the years to keep non target kills to a minimum. Placement of bait sites are very important. By placing baits on a lake or in a large open area greatly reduces the risk of killing most members of the weasel family as marten, fisher, and weasels do not like to venture too far out from cover. Most cougars do not like to go into these area's either. They also do not poison the carcass. They poison couple pound chunks and burry them in the snow away from the carcass or main bait. This allows ravens and eagles to feed on the main bait to attract wolves and not kill the birds. When the wolves come in and clean up what is left they then dig up the drop baits and gulp them up leaving nothing behind. I have helped recover some of these wolves in the past. The only non target species I have seen was a coyote and a raven. None of the recovered wolves I saw had been fed on. Take a wolf that has been shot and has a bullet hole and blood on it. Throw it out and it will get eaten up fast. Then take one that has been snared and died fast with no struggle and has no wounds or blood on it. It will lay there for weeks most of the time and nothing will touch it. I bet it is very rare that anything feeds on a poisoned wolf. And try this, take a road kill out to where you know the wolves travel through. Cut the hind quarters off and then cut them into 2-3 pound chunks. Then take a shovel any burry them in the snow all different directions 50 to 100 yards from the carcass. Leave a good 2 foot mound of snow over each one. Then go check it every week. When the wolves come in they will dig up and eat every one. The odd one will get dug up by a coyote but 9 times out of 10 the wolves will get it. I believe they are doing this in the most responsible way possible with very minimal non target kills. That is just my opinion.
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  #125  
Old 02-04-2015, 11:37 PM
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Fair enough and I respect your opinion. I know they are using experts that have a great deal of experience. They have developed strategies over the years to keep non target kills to a minimum. Placement of bait sites are very important. By placing baits on a lake or in a large open area greatly reduces the risk of killing most members of the weasel family as marten, fisher, and weasels do not like to venture too far out from cover. Most cougars do not like to go into these area's either. They also do not poison the carcass. They poison couple pound chunks and burry them in the snow away from the carcass or main bait. This allows ravens and eagles to feed on the main bait to attract wolves and not kill the birds. When the wolves come in and clean up what is left they then dig up the drop baits and gulp them up leaving nothing behind. I have helped recover some of these wolves in the past. The only non target species I have seen was a coyote and a raven. None of the recovered wolves I saw had been fed on. Take a wolf that has been shot and has a bullet hole and blood on it. Throw it out and it will get eaten up fast. Then take one that has been snared and died fast with no struggle and has no wounds or blood on it. It will lay there for weeks most of the time and nothing will touch it. I bet it is very rare that anything feeds on a poisoned wolf. And try this, take a road kill out to where you know the wolves travel through. Cut the hind quarters off and then cut them into 2-3 pound chunks. Then take a shovel any burry them in the snow all different directions 50 to 100 yards from the carcass. Leave a good 2 foot mound of snow over each one. Then go check it every week. When the wolves come in they will dig up and eat every one. The odd one will get dug up by a coyote but 9 times out of 10 the wolves will get it. I believe they are doing this in the most responsible way possible with very minimal non target kills. That is just my opinion.
I've read about this theory as well, and I'm sure it does help with lowering the number of by-catch. But all these areas have populations of wolverine, and I've yet to see a wolverine that couldn't find a chunk of burried anything.
Alas it doesn't matter what I think anyway, the government will continue what it thinks is best.
The clear cutting will continue and access will continue to improve as our ungulate populations fluctuate along with the predators behind them. A bullet is the only sure fire way other then depending on trappers and hunters. I try to do my part, but it is only a drop in the bucket.
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  #126  
Old 02-05-2015, 08:18 AM
RockyMountainMusic RockyMountainMusic is offline
 
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Originally Posted by Running Bear View Post
Fair enough and I respect your opinion. I know they are using experts that have a great deal of experience. They have developed strategies over the years to keep non target kills to a minimum. Placement of bait sites are very important. By placing baits on a lake or in a large open area greatly reduces the risk of killing most members of the weasel family as marten, fisher, and weasels do not like to venture too far out from cover. Most cougars do not like to go into these area's either. They also do not poison the carcass. They poison couple pound chunks and burry them in the snow away from the carcass or main bait. This allows ravens and eagles to feed on the main bait to attract wolves and not kill the birds. When the wolves come in and clean up what is left they then dig up the drop baits and gulp them up leaving nothing behind. I have helped recover some of these wolves in the past. The only non target species I have seen was a coyote and a raven. None of the recovered wolves I saw had been fed on. Take a wolf that has been shot and has a bullet hole and blood on it. Throw it out and it will get eaten up fast. Then take one that has been snared and died fast with no struggle and has no wounds or blood on it. It will lay there for weeks most of the time and nothing will touch it. I bet it is very rare that anything feeds on a poisoned wolf. And try this, take a road kill out to where you know the wolves travel through. Cut the hind quarters off and then cut them into 2-3 pound chunks. Then take a shovel any burry them in the snow all different directions 50 to 100 yards from the carcass. Leave a good 2 foot mound of snow over each one. Then go check it every week. When the wolves come in they will dig up and eat every one. The odd one will get dug up by a coyote but 9 times out of 10 the wolves will get it. I believe they are doing this in the most responsible way possible with very minimal non target kills. That is just my opinion.
While everyone is entilted to their opinion ill respect yours but i disagree, i would like to know who this professional experts is you are referring to? Any names? I agree there are ways to be more reponsible ways if using poison but clearly they are not.

91 ravens, 36 coyotes, 31 foxes, 8 marten, 6 lynx, 4 weasels and 4 fishers tells me they are not choosing areas where fur bearers aviod and i can tell you an 8 day check is not even close to being responsible with poision, but you said you have been involved so maybe thats why you have these opinions. I know of a poison in farm country where they are checking everyday. So my opinion is they are absolutely NOT doing this in a responsible way and have way too many non target kills even with only the ones they claim let alone the ones that are not!
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  #127  
Old 02-05-2015, 02:23 PM
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Originally Posted by RockyMountainMusic View Post
While everyone is entilted to their opinion ill respect yours but i disagree, i would like to know who this professional experts is you are referring to? Any names? I agree there are ways to be more reponsible ways if using poison but clearly they are not.

91 ravens, 36 coyotes, 31 foxes, 8 marten, 6 lynx, 4 weasels and 4 fishers tells me they are not choosing areas where fur bearers aviod and i can tell you an 8 day check is not even close to being responsible with poision, but you said you have been involved so maybe thats why you have these opinions. I know of a poison in farm country where they are checking everyday. So my opinion is they are absolutely NOT doing this in a responsible way and have way too many non target kills even with only the ones they claim let alone the ones that are not!
How many bait sites are your numbers from? How big of an area? If that is all the non target kills over several WMU's and say over 40 plus bait stations those are very low numbers. If those numbers are from 2 or 3 townships and maybe a dozen bait stations then I would have to say they are high.
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  #128  
Old 02-05-2015, 09:14 PM
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It is possible to achieve near zero by-catch with strychnine.

Just how expert are these people?

I knew one expert very well. He was my dad. He told me, "Never place strychnine in or close to a bait carcass. You'll kill a few wolves, educate several more and you'll kill a lot of innocent creatures you didn't intend to."

He knew what he was talking about because he had done a lot of poison work in his lifetime.
First when it was legal to use as a trapping tool and later for the government as part of the 1950s rabies plague response.

The people using it today have no such experience. They are younger fellows, nothing wrong with that, but they grew up in an era when the use of poison was rare and strictly controlled. The old timers like my dad were already gone and there never was any manual on how to use the stuff properly.
There are guidelines written by the manufacturer. Guidelines developed in a laboratory, not in the wilds of northern Alberta.

There are tricks of the trade that these people clearly don't know.
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  #129  
Old 02-05-2015, 10:04 PM
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How many bait sites are your numbers from? How big of an area? If that is all the non target kills over several WMU's and say over 40 plus bait stations those are very low numbers. If those numbers are from 2 or 3 townships and maybe a dozen bait stations then I would have to say they are high.
From what I know, it's very possible that those numbers are from one bait station only.

Either way I'd bet it's just a small part of the whole picture. If those numbers were that total for the whole province for entire life of this program you can bet that would be made very clear in the report. As you say, spread over a large area and several dozen bait stations and several years, those numbers would be acceptable to many people who don't understand how devistating this poison can be.
You can bet your butt that the government is well aware of the potentual for a public relations disaster when using this poison and they will absolutly put the best spin on it that they can.
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  #130  
Old 04-22-2015, 10:04 PM
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I seriously wonder if Alberta has not developed tunnel vision in their approach to their caribou conservation program. Good grief Bob Stuart is a very experienced and successful biologist. Being a retired biologist myself, I remember Bob Stuart and his very successful program.
Our Alberta bios should sit down with Bob and his crew and hear him out.
My personal question is whether we can justify continuously killing the huge number of moose and other ungulates for poison bait besides the non targeted species, to save a small tethering herd of caribou. This herd has been tottering on the brink for decades now. We have to ask ourselves seriously if this little herd is viable. Predator control can be effective short term help if a viable population goes down due to say a couple of bad winters, then gets heavily hit by predators. Short term removal of predators then can be very helpful for that population to recover.
Can this caribou population survive without continuous help? I remember this question went already around in the late eighties. At that time factors of decline were human activity like road kills, habitat removal by clear cutting or fire, building roads, oil and industrial activity, shooting because of mistaken identity, poaching and predation. It probably is still is a combination of the same old factors combined.
Seems Alberta is continuing to prop this little herd up no matter what the cost to other wildlife resources, while they may even be targeting the wrong predator!
A caribou herd in Alberta would be very nice, but it should be one that is viable, that can survive the above onslaught.
If not, may be............we should let it be and let it slide into extinction.
Sounds hard and uncaring, but after decades of trying to save the population is not producing the desired results, it never may and our resources should be put to work where they will do good, rather then a well meant but misguided government effort, saving that what can not be saved. It does supply some bios and techs with an ongoing job, but that is not the purpose of the exercise.
When it comes to terms like endangered and at risk Often a tremendous zeal develops to save it and that is admirable. Asking if it is worth the cost is unfortunate frequently regarded as heresy.
In the mean time I fully agree with Bob. Online hand wringing accomplishes nothing, while letters to the Minister do get attention.

Last edited by Shrike; 04-22-2015 at 10:30 PM.
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  #131  
Old 04-23-2015, 12:46 AM
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I seriously wonder if Alberta has not developed tunnel vision in their approach to their caribou conservation program. Good grief Bob Stuart is a very experienced and successful biologist. Being a retired biologist myself, I remember Bob Stuart and his very successful program.
Our Alberta bios should sit down with Bob and his crew and hear him out.
My personal question is whether we can justify continuously killing the huge number of moose and other ungulates for poison bait besides the non targeted species, to save a small tethering herd of caribou. This herd has been tottering on the brink for decades now. We have to ask ourselves seriously if this little herd is viable. Predator control can be effective short term help if a viable population goes down due to say a couple of bad winters, then gets heavily hit by predators. Short term removal of predators then can be very helpful for that population to recover.
Can this caribou population survive without continuous help? I remember this question went already around in the late eighties. At that time factors of decline were human activity like road kills, habitat removal by clear cutting or fire, building roads, oil and industrial activity, shooting because of mistaken identity, poaching and predation. It probably is still is a combination of the same old factors combined.
Seems Alberta is continuing to prop this little herd up no matter what the cost to other wildlife resources, while they may even be targeting the wrong predator!
A caribou herd in Alberta would be very nice, but it should be one that is viable, that can survive the above onslaught.
If not, may be............we should let it be and let it slide into extinction.
Sounds hard and uncaring, but after decades of trying to save the population is not producing the desired results, it never may and our resources should be put to work where they will do good, rather then a well meant but misguided government effort, saving that what can not be saved. It does supply some bios and techs with an ongoing job, but that is not the purpose of the exercise.
When it comes to terms like endangered and at risk Often a tremendous zeal develops to save it and that is admirable. Asking if it is worth the cost is unfortunate frequently regarded as heresy.
In the mean time I fully agree with Bob. Online hand wringing accomplishes nothing, while letters to the Minister do get attention.
Well said. That is a very good question you raise. I agree, at some point we need to ask, where do we draw the line?
At what point does spending more time, money and other resources no longer make sense?

Clearly there has to be a limit. I can't believe that any reasonable individual would agree with spending the entire provincial budget on any one project.
So where is that line?

But I have deeper concerns with this issue. First I don't believe it is about preserving the Caribou herd, not from the politicians prospective.
Oh I'm sure that the people in the field see it that way, but the people behind this project, the politicians dance to a different drummer.

The only thing that motivates them is their political hides. So one has to ask, what is in it for them.

I think one clue lies in the protests we see here on these threads.
Protests about Wolves killing the Moose and Deer.

Another clue is what has been happening with the fenced hunts and domesticated wildlife issues.

Look at it from a politicians prospective. You could figuratively kill two birds with one stone on this issue.
You could appease the environmentalists by appearing to care about a dwindling herd of Caribou while at the same time appease the anti Wolf crowd by appearing to be doing something about the high Wolf population.

That's a win win for a politician. Of course you wouldn't want to end the program no matter if it made sense economically or not, if this were the motivation.

I doubt we will ever know what the true motivation behind this program is. We may guess correctly at some of it. Some of it may even be what they claim the motivation is. Certainly for those with boots in the flied I believe that is their motivation. I believe they really care about the Caribou.

But for the people at the decision making level, I doubt they care about anything more then their political carriers.

I've had a peek behind the scenes and I can tell you it's ugly back there.
Really really ugly.

If people only knew what goes on behind the scene they would be outraged. And that's putting it mildly in the extreme.

I can tell you this, the corruption in this government goes right to the very top. Those in the know dare say nothing. It is that bad.

I'm just one little guy and no one is going to listen to me. I know that and they know that. Nothing I do or say is going to change anything.
But you younger people, if you don't start asking the hard questions, one of these days you will wake up to discover that it is too late.

Frankly, I think we are well past that point already.

This Wolf poisoning program is just one small indication of what lies beyond.

In my opinion, our only hope is to get rid of all the old crew and start all over again.

Make your vote count this time. Vote anything but PC.
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  #132  
Old 04-23-2015, 09:31 AM
Big Grey Wolf Big Grey Wolf is offline
 
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Keg, you "hit the nail on the head" on this issue. A previous major study on caribou stated that habitat and preditation were main causes of caribou decline. Thus they did not want to stop cutting trees, making lumber/pulp and providing access for the oil companies. Thus the polititions deceided to implement part of the master plan and appear to be doing something without getting forestry and oil companies mad and providing less money for reelection.
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  #133  
Old 04-29-2015, 03:29 PM
Rabbit Snarer Rabbit Snarer is offline
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Originally Posted by Torkdiesel View Post
I don't mind the arial shooting to help keep the numbers in check but in my opinion they should do away with the poisoning. If it was possible to contain the poison to wolves it would be somewhat better but the bykill is hard to swallow. Birds of prey, wolverines, marten, fisher, weasel, coyote, Cougars and fox are just collateral damage.
Keep the numbers in check with aerial gunning! Are you serious? But then trappers can manage wolves too can't they? Some things never change.
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  #134  
Old 04-29-2015, 03:53 PM
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Keep the numbers in check with aerial gunning! Are you serious? But then trappers can manage wolves too can't they? Some things never change.
I don't understand your question ? If that was intact what you meant it to be

Last edited by Torkdiesel; 04-29-2015 at 04:05 PM.
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  #135  
Old 04-29-2015, 09:51 PM
Rabbit Snarer Rabbit Snarer is offline
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I hope this is true. I am all for it. They are doing a great job and I hope they continue. A wolf cull like this is well proven. Wether they use poison or arial shoot them it is an effective method. Yes it is expensive but it gets the job done. What ever it takes to bring the numbers down. If they have to shoot a few moose or elk for bait to get this done fine. For every moose they kill and load up with poison they are saving 100 more. Good job to all involved.
Please tell us how the cull is well proven since they are killing as many wolves every year and year after year and we are still going to lose the caribou? This is a senseless killing rampage that is accomplishing nothing and only supported by people who know nothing about the population dynamic of wolves. Hunters and trappers may as well be swatting mosquito s as killing wolves for all the impact they are having as well, bounties or not.

Wolves are going to teach people a lot over the next few years: like it or not.
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