Wolves as far south as Lake Tahoe now?

Hell yeah bruuuther, SSS, kill em' all, yeeeehaww!

 

When you have a completely unregulated cougar population, an under regulated black bear population, and an introduction of wolves... The thought that the introduction of Grizzlies as well would not be negative to deer and elk is ignorant.

 

Cougars haven't been hunted in CA in about 25 years. Their population is WAY out of control.

Not saying to shoot them all. I am saying 5 is a good start.

 

Science has shown elk and deer mortality related to bears has been completely compensatory. It only reaches excessive levels when deer populations exceed carrying capacity and at that point there are too many deer already. The fear of our predator reintroductions getting to the point where they are out of control and removing deer populations seems pretty irrational to me. There is so much scrutiny on these reintroductions that they will be managed once available, Grizzlies in the north are a perfect example. So I do agree we could hunt more black bear and a hell of a lot more cougar but I don't think there is much to support that grizzly bears would be the end for deer or elk in North America.

 

Who said Grizzlies would be the end of deer? I said it would be stupid to reintroduce Grizzlies with an already hurting deer / elk population.

Lol... What scrutiny do you see in predator populations? Those decisions aren't left to the people who actually do the research. Talk to Game Wardens, and honest wildlife biologists and you will understand CA hasn't made one of these decisions on actual science in around 3 decades.

The end of Mt Lion hunting was stupid, and motivated by things other than science.
The end of hound hunting was stupid and motivated by things other than science.
The re-introduction of wolves was stupid and motivated by things other than science.

And so (eventually) will go the decision to re-introduction Grizzlies.

 

exactly...

Re-introducing predators is NEVER a good Idea...if they feed on the young how do you get them to repopulate?? and how can you say it wouldnt affect the population?? We used to have a good any elk season and then when they introduced wolves it pretty much ended that, last year we just got back some days where we could hunt cows. The grizzlies are creeping in to Idaho from Montana, we really dont need grizzlies here just like we dont need wolves. Sure we messed it up but trying to fix it by bringing them back wont help either.

 

thats it right there...whoever thinks its good to reintroduce a predator only taking away future hunting from US humans. Or similar like in MD they (people) almost destroyed the deer population then they restricted it for a number of years and now its got out of control and they are overrun with whitetail deer.

 

There is more at stake here than deer hunting guys... If your position is that predators should be completely extirpated from their natural environments to improve your hunting, then you aren't really in this conversation at any meaningful level, sorry to break it to you.

 

I mean boar grizzlies routinely stalk, hunt, and kill sows with 1 and 2 year old "cubs" that are many hundreds of pounds and plenty mean and tough to take down. But no, they definitely couldn't kill an adult deer, elk, moose, or caribou

Thank god the idiots up here haven't stopped us from properly participating in the management of both predator and prey species. Hunters and humans in general can have a massive effect on prey populations if we aren't actively managing the population of predators too. It's a shame that the people making the decisions in many other states want so badly to keep the nice soft fuzzy bears and wolves away from any hunting or management.

 

The issue isn't the presence of predators in general, its the presence and reintroduction of predators and then not managing them in the same ways that the prey populations are. If you're going to let people participate in the ecosystem through hunting, you need to do it in a balanced way across all the species.

 

I agree with you, but that isn't what these guys are saying. They are saying that predators should never be reintroduced because they eat deer/elk. That mentality hasn't been taken seriously in about 70 years, and it's why basically every western state has reintroduced previously eradicated predators despite opposition from these folks.

AK is a little different than the lower 48 though. They don't have the habitat degradation and human encroachment problems impacting their wildlife that most western states have. AK has the most pristine/untouched wildlife habitat of almost anywhere in the world. Deer in CA are suffering from habitat loss and drought more than any other factor, and predators are a red herring for those issues. They might be A problem, but they aren't THE problem. Also, wolves and grizzlies in several states in the lower 48 were intentionally and completely eradicated, which to my knowledge, has never happened in AK. They were reintroduced because they no longer existed, there was no population left to manage. Could you imagine an AK without grizzlies or wolves? In the middle of the 20th century that's essentially what we had everywhere in the lower 48.