Nothing in the North 40

[petemi]

I just came in from running the feist on the north 40.  It hasn't been logged in at least 25 years and there is a lot of good habitat there.  We found no small game.  We did find deer bones, two live and running deer, and little Charlie, the dog ran off a bear.  It is absolutely astounding that you can hunt an area that large and not even have a squirrel chatter at you.  Let's kill moose instead of wolves......sure, that makes a lot of sense.  All I can think is that the food supply will disappear and the predators will go with it....and so will the hunting.

Pete

[spruce]

And when the hunting goes, the hunters go - and that's the real agenda of the animal rights groups.

They know the most effective way to stop hunting is through depletion of game animals thereby depleting hunter numbers and weakening the force they have to fight.

You don't see any of them marching in the streets to protest the hunting of squirrels, rabbits, birds (doves being the exception), deer, bear, etc, BUT they will stop at no length to protect ANY of the predators.
They don't really care how many animals are killed, they just don't want us to have the right to hunt.

[ihookem]

Honestly Petemi, I don't know what is doing it. I was up in Price co. Wis. last weekend looking for sheds. We saw 2 deer, in 5 mi. of walking slow through the woods. No sheds, no squirrels, no snowshoes or cotton tails, nothing! It's an ecoligical desert. Oh wait we kicked up one grouse. We walked 5 miles. Very little deer droppings, no bear sign and no fresh wolf sign. I found the remains of an old deer. We found his jaw bone and part of it's upper nose. It looked like the wolves eat everything, even the bones for it's marrow. Nothing but hide and the teeth. Does this sound like the wolf kills you find where you are?

[petemi]

ihookem, it is exactly the same.  The deer bones I found were crushed for the marrow and the hide was long gone.  The small game being gone is not from predation from hawks and owls.  We've always had that.  We have wolves, coyotes and fox all coexisting on my place.  People who tell you they won't don't know what they are talking about.

Pete

[Winter Hawk]

Wait until they start coming into town to eat dogs.  That should set off a howl to your congressmen!

In the early 1970s the snowshoe hares peaked in the Fairbanks (AK) area.  They were everywhere, then the following year they were gone.  The wolf population had risen with all the food available for them, when it was gone the stray dog and cat population disappeared.  A friend had a dog team, 9 dogs.  They were staked out on a 3 x 3 grid in his dog lot.  He heard a bit of a commotion but then it died down one night so he didn't bother to go check it out.  The next morning he found 8 of his dogs clear in the backs of their houses, while the only thing left of the ninth (who was the center position on the grid) was some blood and a chewed up collar.

About ten years ago there was a very aggressive pack in the Ketchikan area.  The newspaper had several articles about people taking their dogs for walks and returning without them.  One was on one of those extendable leashes.  The owner let it go off into the bushes to do its thing.  He felt some jerks on the leash and reeled it in to find half a dog left....

Good luck with coping!
-Kees-