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Are Hunters Good Wildlife Stewards When It Comes To Wolves? Not According To This Study

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A new study likely to be controversial in some quarters suggests that hunters are not especially good wildlife stewards when the wildlife in question are wolves.

While hunters long have been seen as conservation advocates for a wide range of species, when it comes to wolves the study by two University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers would seem to indicate that the only good wolf is a dead wolf in the hunter's mind.

“Hunters were some of the least tolerant of wolves among our respondents, and the closer you got to wolf range the less tolerant they were,” said Adrian Treves, a professor in the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Professor Treves and a colleague, Kerry Martin, took up a research project beginning in 2001 to survey hunters and non-hunters on attitudes toward wolves. Over the course of six years they interviewed 2,320 residents of Wisconsin, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and were able to draw a picture of perceptions when it came to wolves. (Their findings appear in the August issue of the peer-reviewed journal Society and Natural Resources.)

That portrait is timely now as gray wolves were removed from the Endangered Species List in some Western states earlier this year, and are poised for delisting in parts of Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and other Midwest areas.

Questions the two professors asked the respondents touched a number of issues, ranging from acceptance of management policy and tolerance of the carnivores to willingness to kill a wolf illegally, adherence to hunt regulations, and expected financial support of conservation.

One issue the two noted in trying to explain the perceived intolerance of hunters was that hunters often view wolves as competition for deer and other game. And they added that opening a wolf hunt may not immediately shift that perception to viewing wolves as another game species to be conserved.

Another conclusion Professors Treves and Martin reached was that "the evidence simply isn’t there to indicate that hunting wolves would affect depredations of domestic animals."

"No depredation data were reported following a hunt in Idaho and Montana conducted during a window of time in 2009 when the animals were not federally protected. And though wolves have been hunted legally in Alaska for decades, the scarcity of domestic animals and difference in landscape make it nearly impossible to draw conclusions that would apply to the lower 48," said a press release that accompanied news of their study.

Another finding, which Professor Treves found surprising, was the "level of support expressed for a regulated wolf hunt among non-hunters and those living outside wolf range. In Wisconsin, for example, he said, “You find a surprising amount of support for a public regulated harvest of wolves even in places like Madison, Fond du Lac, or Sister Bay.”

But these endorsements tend to be conditional, he cautioned, and the conditions vary. For example, many people support the idea of a “sustainable” hunt – though “sustainable” was undefined in this context – or hunting as a way to reduce attacks on livestock and other conflicts between wolves and humans.

“To me that says that people see hunting as a tool for enabling coexistence,” Professor Treves said.

A "risk map" Professor Treves and others published in June shows that wolf attacks on livestock in Wisconsin are highly localized and attributable to a relatively small number of packs. The majority of packs do not cause problems despite living in close proximity to humans, which raises significant questions about the efficacy of a general hunt to alleviate perceived problems.

“The assumption that hunting and reducing the number of animals will reduce livestock losses would be proven false if hunters are targeting the wrong animals, such as animals in wilderness areas,” he said, adding that it will be important to understand hunter motivations. “Wolves in wilderness areas don’t kill livestock, it’s the wolves on the edge in agricultural areas. Do hunters want to hunt in farmland? I’m not sure.”

The uncertainty of how hunting would affect wolf populations could also become a legal issue, says UW-Madison law professor Stephanie Tai, citing a precedent of legal challenges of federal delisting decisions.

“People have challenged delistings for a number of reasons, and some of those have been successful,” she said. “Often, successful lawsuits bring up factors the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service may not have considered, which could include the effect of allowing hunting.”

The challenge, according to Professor Treves, is to balance human needs with the need to conserve wolves as an essential component of ecosystems.

In a viewpoint piece published in the August issue of the journal BioScience, Professor Treves and Jeremy Bruskotter, an environment and natural resources professor at Ohio State University, presented some possible scenarios for the future of wolf management in the United States. Those scenarios include reclassifying the wolves as threatened, which would permit lethal control under certain circumstances, or enacting specific federal protections outside the Endangered Species Act, such as those currently in place for bald eagles, wild horses, and migratory birds.

The two advocate geographically tailored approaches that will permit local-level control within a federal framework to strike a balance between wolves and humans. Sound long-term management can include a public regulated hunt, they say, but it will unquestionably require compromise.

“A public regulated harvest is a collaboration between hunters and the state, which requires give and take. I think the next few years in Wisconsin will reveal how well that collaboration works,” said Professor Treves.

Comments

Lee,
Didn't you know Youtube is peer-reviewed now?


Michele and Danika are obviously proof that there are conservation-minded hunters out there but they also unfortuantly prove how small and unheard their voices are compared to the majority. So JLA and Boogra  you may be correct about it being an inaccurate generalization but unfortuanly that is what happens when the majority of hunters is allowed to speak their misinformed minds at the contrary of what ethical hunters consider good stewardship. Too few of you "good" hunters are standing up to the rest who are making a mockery of your tradition. I have spoken with hunting organizations who do value what predators (including wolves) bring to the ecosystem but at the same time are reluctant to go against those who think otherwise.  Who wants to stand up to a gun-happy nut job who wants to shoot anything that gets in his path? Apparently gunless liberals are the only ones with the guts to take that stand.


There are two sides to every issue. In this case, there are hunters out there who do care about wildlife. They only want
to add variety to their dinner. Those type of hunters aren't out to get a
trophy, just dinner. They also know that hunters have to take place of predators in areas where there aren't natural predators. Trophy hunting/sportfishing are only interested in
"records" and not interested in wildlife conservation. Those "trophy" animals tend to be older or prime breeding animals with the best genes. Otherwise they wouldn't be "trophies". Taking these animals out of the picture reduces the healthy gene pool, allowing for more sickly, weaker animals to breed. This in turn produces more weak animals that can't survive adverse conditions. A hunter who is pro-wildlife conservation understands the workings of an eco-system and that life forms are interdependant in that eco-system.
Hatred of wolves by hunters can be explained as simply as compition for food, or as complex as a deep seated fear of a predator by prey. The history of European wolves and humans explains a lot as well. The irony of wolf haters however is that those who dogs have domesticated wolves. That dogs evolved from wolves is a genetic fact, though some wolf haters deny this statement.

There are anti-wolf groups out there who fit the profile in this article.
I have nothing against hunting or fishing. My brother hunts. He doesn't think wolves should be hunted but he does say that wolves shouldn't be introduced into much of their former range because of the increase in human population and loss of natural habitat. I agree with him.


My father in law is an avid hunter but highly responsible.  He loves to hunt and loves the hunt but when he kills something he makes sure he uses as much of it as possible.  Meat, pelt, bones, hooves, and what he can't use he donates to a local university for study.  He's met hundreds of hunters (if not thousands) and he's met more "shoot anything that moves" style hunters than ones like him.  He's met many who would admit to him that they'll kill as many deer as they can but only take what their lisences will allow, leaving the rest to rot.  When wolf trophy hunting begins you can rest assured that there will be some that will have this mentality and with the numbers so low even killing an extra 1%-5% can be devistating for the future of the wolf.  It's sad, luckily his hunting friends are like him and he really promotes responsible hunting.
To be a good hunter you need to respect the land and nature.  You need to understand that mass killing only makes it harder down the road and only killing what you need is the best for the hunters and the hunted.


Too bad I agree with all
the  negative comment about
hunters. Of the hunters I have observed the majority hunt so they can have:

1.  A live target
to shoot at

2. Something to kill

 

A minority of hunters
hunt as a way to understand the natural world and to procure food.
 Hunting resident geese that are in the sight and sound of subdivisions or
hiring a guide that puts you in deer stands with corn feeders are examples of
the status quo for many hunters.

 

Sharing game you
killed and processed with friends and family is different than dropping off the
animal you shot at the local food bank.  All hunters should be required to
personally clean and process what they shoot.

 

Hunting
wolves IMO is a dumb idea anywhere.


Wolves occupy an iconic---and highly negative---place in European society.  They are uniformly portrayed as both intelligent---almost as intelligent as humans---and dangerous to Europeans and Euro-Americans and the animals we domesticated and tend.  This "iconic" position likely originates in the late Paleolithic to early Neolithic, when proto-Celts and other central Europeans domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats.  Wolves were and are seen as a threat to the "core" of European (and Euro-American) wealth and stability.  Many Euro-american hunters likely see wolf hunting from the perspective of wolves being an "ancient enemy," regardless of their real role and function in an ecosystem.
By contrast, American Indian tribes---without an extensive reliance on domesticated game---never developed the concept of wolves as an "enemy."  They killed them, but never developed the extermination urge that clearly motivated---and still motivates---many Euro-Americans.  When Americans of european decent argue for wolf eradication or "severe" control, they are simultaneously arguing that they are not as smart as the tribal peoples who co-existed with wolves for at least 12,000 years AND that they can not envision a way to do so, EVER.  This is really sad, given wolves' demonstrated roles in ecosystems.  We should not be giving up like this.  
America was---and can be---a place with both wild places and functioning ecosystems, and a place with cities and farms.  The real question is:  ARE WE UP TO THE CHALLENGE?


Then there are the folks that are neither hunters nor ranchers that are for wolf management. We are not "anti wolf" - we see the need to manage this predator to keep it wild. We are seeing habituated wolves hanging around our communities, losing their fear of humans. Hunting puts the wild back in the wolves - but I don't exepect folks that don't live with wolves to understand that. You are not the ones paying for extra fencing, vet bills and the heartbreak of finding a maimed or dead pet. Our critters are part of our family and we have lived for a long time in harmony with nature. Good dogs keep smaller predators away - but now they are targets for wolves.


Yurok Tribe Educates Hunters on Effects of Lead Bullets
Dangers to humans and wildlife from spreading lead throughout our environment.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_18727668


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