Wolves Gone Wild

Another posting from WolfCrossing.org showing how dangerious these habituated Mexican gray wolves are.  The environMental extreme claim the wolves are not dangerous and will run away.   Another unsafe wolf encounter.  When will the public be told the truth instead of the Disney G rated version of wolves.  Wolves are dangerous predators.  Habituated wolves are even more dangerous.  

This is the same Luna wolf pack noted for encircling a boy a little less than a year ago.

On Monday night November 5th at 10:00 PM our deer hunting camp on the West Fork of the Gila River, was terrorized by a pack of wolves estimated to be 4 to 6 in number. They came right into our camp howling right between our hunters tent and the cook tent and then just on the other side of the guide’s tent. We had our horses and mules high lined at the camp and when we started hearing the wolves growl right next to the horses, we got up and tried to run them out. We walked down to the end of the highlines, with several thousands of dollars worth of horse and mule fllesh tied up and it probably looked like a smorgage board or shish kabob to the wolves, and it became quiet for a little while. We went back to the tent, and then the wolves moved back in and started howling again.

My son Brian went back down to protect the animals by getting between them and the wolves, and then the wolves really set up a racket of a combination of howling, yap barking, growling and snapping their teeth. They were really intimidated by him being there. It sounded like 4 to 6 wolves and my son held his ground in the pitch black of night and had to stay there for probably 30 minutes before he was satisfied they had maybe left. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep the rest of the night. Brian said it litterally scared the hell out of him!

Our three hunters from the San Antonio, TX area were really scared, so much so they stayed real quiet through the whole ordeal in fear that the wolves might hear them and come to their tent, which is where the first howls came from. They literally can not believe what the Government is doing to the people here by putting the wolves back. The old timers got rid of them for good reason.
Over the last several years we have had wolves howling out side of our camp but never had them come right through camp and absolutely have no fear of humans or human scent. They acted very aggressive and especially so when my son confronted them the last time. They really became excited. These wolves are absolutely a danger to humans and livestock as they seemed to not even care about human scent like most wild animals.

We think Nick Smith used to camp where we were camped, when he was packing elk meat and dog food in a few years ago to feed the wolves. We had heard the wolfer airplane circling in the TurkeyFeather Mountain area earlier that day and the tracks confirmed they had come up out of Cooper Canyon and Iron Creek on the trail and over Turkey Feather Pass and down to the West Fork of the Gila and returned out the same way. There were wolf tracks on the trail for about 5 miles.

When we came out yesterday on Thursday November 8th, we met a group of male back packers who were camped on the confluence of Cooper Canyon and Iron Creek and they related a story to my hunters who were on the back of our packstring, and I didn’t get to talk to, as I had passed by them, or I would have gotten a name and info from them. They said that on Wednesday evening that they were above camp gathering firewood when they noticed movement and the saw the wolves and evidently the wolves made a move toward them and they ran back to camp and one of them climbed up in a tree and waited until the wolves left. They were terrified!

full posting from WolfCrossing.org

Interesting post from another blog on the 3 Strikes Rule for Wolves.  The author makes a good point about the three strikes rule. 

I wanted to make sure a few points were added to the information and common assumptions about the 3 strikes rule and how things are implemented here in the Southwest.

• A few things you should know are that to get a strike against a wolf 100% of the evidence must be there not just a overwhelming amount of evidence.  You better document everything including preserving tracks with tarps etc.  Some counties have a wolf investigator.   It is best to call them to do the investigation.
• The strikes are to go against all wolves in the pack involved but here on the ground it is usually only given to one wolf (usually with the fewest strikes).  Measurements are taken on all the wolf bites so they know which pack members were involved but this does not matter to the welfare US Fish and Wildlife Service as they do their job to protect the wolves reputation and their jobs.
• Strikes roll off in a year so if US Fish and Wildlife service picks up a wolf and takes them to wolfie spa for a few months to find a mate many of the strikes roll off and they have a free bill to kill again when released.
• Some three strike wolves that were picked up have been re-released near communities, farms and ranches only to kill again and be legally killed themselves. 
• If a wolf kills your whole flock of sheep or heard of horses in a 24 hour period regardless of the number of animals killed that is only one strike.
• Strikes do not count for dogs killed, chickens and other pets.  These are a free kill for the wolves.
• Human encounters even dangerious ones do not count as a strike
• The people getting to decide the strikes are also the people running the program.  You and your animals loose. 

Who knows how much the people here in the Southwest have had to pay out to the program in emotional and financial expences.  Do you want to watch your lovely horse get skinned out by strangers all to tell you later oh it must have only been one wolf (when you saw 4 on your horse). How many dead animals do you want to pick up in one day?  How many foals, calves, puppies, and other pets need to be ripped apart before people understand the tragey of this Mexian Gray Wolf program?   Are kids next?

Habituated predators that can kill and prey on humans are not safe.  Today’s story is from Southern California where some dogs were attacked and one killed by a lion in an urban area.  First of all lions are generally scared of dogs and will run from them only attacking dogs if they feel safe.   So I am told by the local hunters here.   I have even seen lions run from jack russels; not that a lion will not get a dog but this is a bold lion indeed.  The issue is this lion has learned to prey in back yards. 

Add to that the dogs were in their own back yard.  Now the environMental do not even feel we can have our pets on our own property or yards as it is the lions right to kill our pets.

What if this had been a child playing in their own back yard?  The environMental does not care about your safety.

Dangerous predators in and around our homes need to be removed.  This is a public safety issue.  From the news reports it sounds like nothing is being done only the stay indoors and be a prisoner in your own home.

Mountain Lion Attack in Duarte
LOS ANGELES (KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO)  — Two dogs were attacked by a mountain lion in a Duarte backyard. A German shepherd was killed, and the other dog was injured.

The lion struck before dawn at a house on Cedarwood Avenue at the top of Las Lomas Road, according to Duarte city hall.

Animal Control and the Sheriff’s department were called to the scene.

The state Department of Fish and Game is recommending all pets be put inside at night. They also say children should not be left outside unsupervised in homes located near the foothills.
Orginal Story

This story gets covered in the nations capital but not here in the southwest.  I find it intresting the Apathetic Press could not find time to cover this important story here in the southwest.   National security is important to all including us that live close to the boarders. 

I applaud the Washington Times for running with this story.  The editors here in the southwest that did not cover the story should be outsourced.

By Sara A. Carter
November 26, 2007
Fort Huachuca, the nation’s largest intelligence-training center, changed security measures in May after being warned that Islamist terrorists, with the aid of Mexican drug cartels, were planning an attack on the facility.

Fort officials changed security measures after sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, according to multiple confidential law enforcement documents obtained by The Washington Times.

“A portion of the operatives were in the United States, with the remainder not yet in the United States,” according to one of the documents, an FBI advisory that was distributed to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, Customs and Border Protection and the Justice Department, among several other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. “The Afghanis and Iraqis shaved their beards so as not to appear to be Middle Easterners.”

According to the FBI advisory, each Middle Easterner paid Mexican drug lords $20,000 “or the equivalent in weapons” for the cartel’s assistance in smuggling them and their weapons through tunnels along the border into the U.S. The weapons would be sent through tunnels that supposedly ended in Arizona and New Mexico, but the Islamist terrorists would be smuggled through Laredo, Texas, and reclaim the weapons later.

A number of the Afghans and Iraqis are already in a safe house in Texas, the FBI advisory said.

Fort Huachuca, which lies about 20 miles from the Mexican border, has members of all four service branches training in intelligence and secret operations. About 12,000 persons work at the fort and many have their families on base.

Lt. Col. Matthew Garner, spokesman for Fort Huachuca, said details about the current phase of the investigation or security changes on the post “will not be disclosed.”

“We are always taking precautions to ensure that soldiers, family members and civilians that work and live on Fort Huachuca are safe,” Col. Garner said. “With this specific threat, we did change some aspects of our security that we did have in place.”
Orginal Story

CALIFORNIA BURNIN’

It was all over the newspapers and on the radio and television news as I traveled around the 4-Corners area of CO, NM, AZ, & UT. “Two-hundred thousand”, a “million” evacuated; “800” homes, “2,000” residences destroyed; 7 dead; suspected arsonist shot dead; looters arrested; “governments cooperate”; “not like Katrina”; interviews with those who lost “everything”; pet and horse stories; and tales of heroic firefighters and ordinary people: all the while blaming the wind and dry conditions.

As I followed the story for days I thought of Katrina and of New Jersey black bears and of California mountain lions. I was bemused by the coverage of tearful animal rights advocates and the twaddle of environmental activists as they spoke of the need for more government control of animals and the “fact” that people were living where they shouldn’t be (i.e. the animals habitat). I say “bemused” not out of any animosity for Southern Californians (I served on a Navy ship “home-ported” out of San Diego) or out of any desire to be sarcastic about the terrible misfortune of thousands of fellow Americans: rather I say “bemused” because so many of the environmental and animal rights harms of the past four decades (from Nixon’s environmental/animal rights laws and the morphing of Federal and state agencies and Universities from public benefactors to environmental and animal rights behemoths, etc.) are the products of urban constituencies just like the Los Angeles/San Diego metropolitan area. I was “bemused” because they were reaping a whirlwind that they have imposed on their rural cousins for decades: “bemused” because I knew that if I waited to see it all played out that NO ONE, not the media or the bureaucrats (state of federal or UN) or the professors or the politicians or the conservation NGO’s or the radical’s NGO’s or anyone responsible for this situation, would even mention the “cause” of the problem or the “solution” that should be pursued. Well “pat yourself on the back James” because you were right.

I am back in Virginia now and the news coverage is subsiding to be replaced by coverage of the World Series’ “sweep” and Halloween costumes to make female children appear to be prostitutes. In case it crosses your mind to take umbrage at what I am about to say please remember that MY insurance premiums will go up just like after Katrina because of all the fully justified claims: MY taxes will go up because of all the federal “assistance: and most important, unless we all wake up to all this internal rot being caused by these environmental/animal rights radical agendas, OUR nation and society will deteriorate right before our eyes.

Southern California fire analogies are visible all around us.
- Take black bears in New Jersey. Black bears are breaking into homes, killing pets, attacking children, and generally endangering selected residents of the Garden State. There is only “room” for 1200 to 1600 black bears in New Jersey: today there are more than 6,000 and increasing. Their numbers should be dramatically reduced AND KEPT BELOW 1500. So what does New Jersey do? The Governor cancels bear hunting and appoints an animal rights zealot in charge of New Jersey’s wildlife. The result? A very bad problem gets worse and worse.
- Take California mountain lions. Naïve and emotional Californians swallowed the animal rights lies about the benevolence of mountain lions and the “need” to protect them. In the late ‘70’s lions were “protected” in California and human attacks began increasing resulting in deaths and serious injuries; pets were killed at increased rates; bighorn sheep were almost annihilated (until federal trappers quietly killed the lions in the spring in the mountains at great cost to ALL AMERICANS). Animal rights/environmental advocates everywhere used this last situation to justify wolves and grizzly bears that are killing and maiming people as well as destroying western rural economies, and to incrementally shut down lion hunting as was done in “California-North” otherwise called Oregon.
- Take Katrina. MY federal income taxes are going by the billions to rebuild lowlands that are sinking and are increasingly vulnerable to some guy in an Arabian nights costume with a stick of dynamite at 2 AM. MY federal excise taxes collected for sport fishing programs have given an EXTRA $1Billion + to Louisiana for “wetlands” that disappear anyway and none of this money has ever even been audited since it was just passed out to County governments as “walking around money”. These Billions that we all have and are sending to Louisiana are also reinforcing very unsound and harmful public policies such as re-citing a city where it is increasingly vulnerable to the sea and the use of taxes as graft.

All of these examples are worthy lessons to remember as we watch the “rebuilding of Southern California” unfold.

How so, you ask? Well consider the use of FEMA and other such Federal assistance to restore a Southern California situation that everyone says will recur in 4 or 5 years (shades of Katrina). Consider all the twaddle about us (you and me) living in “their” habitat (shades of New Jersey bears and California lions, and unmanaged wolves and grizzly bears and even coyotes). Consider all the silence from the professors and bureaucrats and politicians that convinced us to establish these deadly situations and who have grown rich and fat warbling about “Nay-churr” and “Native Ecosystems” and “Biological Controls” and “Too Many People” and other government/NGO propaganda like “Invasive Species” (not harmful but only “non-native”) and “Wildlands” and public land closures, etc. intended to grow government and shrink our rights and freedoms.

Well, before you just dismiss this old wildlife biologist as a “black helicopter” crank I should address the heart of this matter. What is the “problem” and what is the “answer”.

THE PROBLEM

Pull out your Southern California maps and follow along. Per my map, all of those fires started in and spread from the green areas butting up against the urban areas. These lands are identified as “Santa Monica Mountains Natural Recreation Area”, “Angeles National Forest”, “San Gabriel Wilderness”, “Angeles National Forest”, “Sheep Mountain Wilderness”, “Cucamonga Wilderness” (so help me I am NOT making this one up), “San Bernardino National Forest”, “Cleveland National Forest”, “San Mateo Canyon Wilderness”, “San Dimas Experimental Forest”, “Santa Rosa” and “Santa Margarita” “Ecological Reserves”, and a host of smaller “green” areas identified as “Wilderness Parks” and “Regional Parks” and “State Parks” and “Sanctuaries”. The problem isn’t dryness or winds or “too many” people or “people living where they shouldn’t”: THE PROBLEM is lots of people living surrounded by and infiltrated by fire tinder and enormous supplies of fire fuel.

If I lived on a rural home site amidst lumber piles interspersed with cans filled with gasoline; would local government allow it, much less pay me to replace it if it burns up? Would national and state government acknowledge an obligation to “help me rebuild”? Would anyone accept my rationale for living thus or listen to some professor I gave money to for helping me justify it? We are doing all these things when we maintain certain sections of New Orleans at government expense or continue the Southern California “ecosystem” as currently constituted.

THE ANSWER

Note: I am basing this on the perfectly legitimate desire of Southern Californians to live near and in sight of mountains and canyons as well as to enjoy such areas for recreation. I am further basing it on the advantages of living in such areas and my thirty-plus years of studying and working with wildlife and wildlife habitats for all manner of “needs”.

1. Reclassify ALL the public lands in the LA/San Diego corridor. Bring them all under State or preferably Local authority. Having federal lands transferred from unresponsive and unanswerable federal bureaucracies that are infested with environmental/animal rights zealots with no management training or proclivities to State or Local authority that are vulnerable to the wrath of local citizens when such a disaster strikes is first and foremost what is needed.
2. Cleanse the staffs of State Universities and either replace or add to them in order to begin a State effort to scour the world (N. Chile, W. Australia, W. So. Africa, etc.) for plants that would (coexist with?, replace?, minimize?, reduce the fire hazard of?) the current public plant communities on the edge of or interspersed with urban spaces. A similar effort in the 1950’s to bring game birds from foreign lands to US habitats for hunting brought us, much to our delight, chukars and snow partridge and capercaille to add to other introduced game birds like pheasants and Hungarian Partridge and the native game birds like bobwhites and sharptails and prairie chickens. Transplanting between states other birds like certain races of turkeys has likewise resulted in a wide variety of birds in a wide variety of habitats across the nation. I said “cleanse” or “replace” State University staffs because the kind of scientists that would honestly look for and bring back suitable fire-resistant plants have been marginalized (like the author of this piece) and denigrated in the rush for justifying-propaganda paid for by government and NGO’s that control politicians. Restoring such studies and scientists will be only slightly less daunting than step #1.
3. Zone new construction and landscaping and plant communities on private property to minimize fire fuel. Duh!
4. Produce management plans for all public lands that include firebreaks and roads. Replace plants on the edges of public lands with fire-resistant species as they become known. Construct firebreaks (grasses?, gravel?, etc.) that are sufficiently wide (1/4 mile?, ½ mile?, etc.) at right angles to threatening winds and sculpted to ridges and contours regarding their fire capacity. Establish a system of roads (yes even through those precious “Wilderness” et al sacred lands) that anticipate fire-fighting use of equipment and personnel in safe and effective ways. Trails should also be vehicle-accessible where needed.
5. Develop ways to finance management. This means considering grazing (sheep?, goats?, cattle?, etc.), mowing for hay or straw, logging, harvesting plants for fuel creation, hunting, camping, hiking, etc. wherein permits and licenses and use taxes help to finance the maintenance and use of an enjoyable and fire-resistant urban environment.
6. Eliminate and keep out as much as possible large predators such as cougars and wolves that harm wild and domestic animal resources; endanger recreationists; and threaten urban residents and their property like their pets. Regularly control coyotes (they are not susceptible to complete elimination) to minimize the harm they likewise create. This maintains the uses of public lands that finances the management of plant communities THAT WOULD OTHERWISE THREATEN A REGULAR FIRE RECURRENCE EVERY FEW YEARS.

Now of course this means that all the ladies and some gents can’t go into a swoon when some radical professor and graduate student yell, “INVASIVE SPECIES!” It also means standing up to federal bureaucrats and politicians that our state and local politicians and bureaucrats have made a habit of cohabiting with more and more frequently recently. It means common folks like you and me taking back control of our surroundings and our welfare from the “authorities” and “scientists” like University professors and bureaucrats that make careers out of swindling us out of our rights. It means recognizing that the primary goal of environmental management is to guarantee each of us and our descendants the BEST possible world in which to work, worship, and raise our families in the freedoms and traditions we were given: PERIOD.

Southern Californians can have lots of interspersed spaces AND a relative freedom from the threat of “losing everything”. They can maintain historic vistas and nearby recreation with sensible natural resource management that pays for itself. If they are reluctant to solve this problem, largely of their own making, I recommend that I not have to pay higher taxes and insurance premiums to maintain someone else’s imaginings as I have done by paying for federal control (killing) of cougars that Californians are so “proud to protect”. They, just like you and me, should not be permitted to have it “both ways”.

So there you have it: the problem and the solution (nothing to it).

Jim Beers
29 October 2007
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- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net

- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.

WolfCrossing.org do a great job in posting a question for the YouTube.com CNN debates.  It will be intresting to see if their ESA question gets selected and how the canidates answer the question.  For their excellent effort and wonderful education on the wolf program they get my Wolf Award.

Please make sure to check out the video and post comments on WolfCrossing.org.

Another post by One Still Free shows the author, unlike the environMental extreme, understands balance.  This is why letting the wolves hang around and harass us is not only unsafe but bad for the wolf recovery.  Every predator needs a predator to keep them in balance.

One issue with looking at environmental issues is that people use selective vision. For instance, humans are actually the highest order in the food chain of all known life on earth, yet humans are  routinely not included as part of the natural environment, as if humans were somehow unnatural, had been introduced here by aliens  from another galaxy. I personally can’t go with such things as “seeding” by aliens (to that I say, show me the science); humans are necessarily a species which has survived and evolved on this planet *just like every other species*.

To consider the wolf program without consideration of *all* other species is faulty. Wolves have evolved in areas with humans in them, humans have evolved in areas with wolves. Wolves have had, probably as long as they have existed, one major natural enemy: mankind. Humans have always been a factor in most wolves lives - consider how true wild wolves (as opposed to habituated ones) are shy of humans. This is a sign of a wolf’s understanding of the risk humans present, a healthy, natural thing for all predators and potential prey.

Read the full blog post

Poaching on private land but claming his GPS gave him faulty information.  Yeah Right.  I wonder if that excuse works for other hunters. 

Oh and that is alleged poacher and Director of New Mexico Game and Fish Bruce Thompson. There is no mention of this investigation on the NM Game and Fish website.