tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post8527275646421634579..comments2023-10-26T03:19:41.569-07:00Comments on Stephen Bodio's Querencia: Cat's Yellowstone Wolves, and othersSteve Bodiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14434597061701369867noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-24397076212005241852008-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:002008-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:00Excellent and informative. Thanks, Steve.Excellent and informative. Thanks, Steve.mdmnmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00191436711956580423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-13006407045797283612008-11-30T08:35:00.000-08:002008-11-30T08:35:00.000-08:00Anyone with any real wolf experience knows that as...Anyone with any real wolf experience knows that as soon as you make up some rule about wolf behaviour, some wolf(or wolves) will come along and contradict it! They are just too intelligent and too individualistic to cram into our narrow human stereotypes. I have read the "Wolves In Russia" book, and although I think SOME of the information is sensationalized(based on newspaper accounts and hearsay), there is just TOO MUCH evidence to the contrary to discount ALL wolf attacks on humans. I also agree that based on the evidence, the recent incident at the Canadian dump is purty cut-and-dry; no older person just having a heart attack out in the woods and being scavenged by wolves, but a healthy young guy hunted and killed and eaten. And the problem IS habituation. And we are going to see more and more of this with wolves, cougars, and bears in the future. Not only is it because animals lose their fear of humans, but often the humans are urbanites with NO CLUE how to act around wild animals, unlike the original Natives and pioneers and farmers who settled this country. People are inadvertantly acting like prey animals, or not respecting a wild animal's personal space, and in ignorance, just asking for it. And it only takes a time or two for clever predators to learn. I'm all for wolf and other predator reintroductions, but as much as I dislike predator control, you MUST allow ranchers to protect their stock and/or families on their own land, if these predators leave the protected areas and attack people or domestic stock. Otherwise you eventually doom any tolerance for those animals, and the only place they will be allowed is in zoos. I was actually on a wolf reintroduction study in Montana years ago, just before the Yellowstone program got under way, as a field course offered to college students by the University of Montana in Missoula. Our professor, Bob Ream, also in the state legislature, commented THEN how some wolves were ALREADY in Yellowstone(someone had actually video-taped one there), and slowly but surely repopulating the Northern Rockies on their own, and people should just leave well enough alone and let them do it naturally--no political turmoil, no expenditure of enormous amounts of money, no alienating the ranchers and other residents(at least not as much as what followed did). But alas, no one listened to him--everyone was in too big of a hurry......L.B.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com