Easy fix for wolf problems (janobonano)

You generally don't need to be too concerned with running into a black bear.  I used to live in Whistler, B.C. and saw black bears all the time.  They live quite well alongside people there.  Every once in awhile one will seemily become too used to people and they will relocate it, but for the most part, humans and black bears live quite well together.  The house I lived in had a large pond at the side of it and every single day, a black bear would walk up our driveway, through our carport/under our deck to go swimming in the pond.  We never had a problem with him.  In another place I lived there, I was walking to work one morning, rounded a corner and almost walked smack into bear (ok, the bear probably like 30-40 feet from me, but it was certainly close enough!)  The bear glanced at me, then went back to eating his berries.  I slowly backed away and took a different way to work!

I have friends in Alaska, who will not go hiking in the woods/mountains without guns in case they encounter a grizzly.  I am much more concerned, or would be if there were any around here, about them.  In Ontario, where I am now, I am certain there are black bears around, but no one ever sees them.  They are far too timid.  

DumDog

 that's gonna suck.... sounds like maybe they need to let up on the hunting for a while... that would be a death sentence to the people down here if that ever happened....

i always heard Wisconsin had insane deer herds. my brother in law lives up there and hates deer with a passion. one jumped in front of his car at night. he and his wife were both knocked unconscious. thankfully they had just dropped off their 1 yr old son at his grandparents.

They used to be. But the last few years the numbers have really gone down. There are a lot of automobile/deer collisions, though. DH hit one on his motorcycle once! Luckily he saw it at the last second, and actually leaned into it. He maintained control and was able to pull over, just as a van going in the other direction hit the poor deer. A truck that was right behind DH and saw the whole thing, drove around him and kept going! DH had a box strapped to the passenger seat. It had a huge puncture in it from the deer's antlers. He was probably six inches from being gored in the side. Ow!

janobonano

DumDog

 that's gonna suck.... sounds like maybe they need to let up on the hunting for a while... that would be a death sentence to the people down here if that ever happened....

i always heard Wisconsin had insane deer herds. my brother in law lives up there and hates deer with a passion. one jumped in front of his car at night. he and his wife were both knocked unconscious. thankfully they had just dropped off their 1 yr old son at his grandparents.

 

They used to be. But the last few years the numbers have really gone down. There are a lot of automobile/deer collisions, though. DH hit one on his motorcycle once! Luckily he saw it at the last second, and actually leaned into it. He maintained control and was able to pull over, just as a van going in the other direction hit the poor deer. A truck that was right behind DH and saw the whole thing, drove around him and kept going! DH had a box strapped to the passenger seat. It had a huge puncture in it from the deer's antlers. He was probably six inches from being gored in the side. Ow!

thats what was so scary about my BIL's incident... the deer went head first through the windshield and his antlers were embedded in the area where the car seat would have been. Your DH was lucky though!! deer or not, most bike accidents are pretty horrific!

Off topic .... my husband(long before i met him) t-boned a car while riding his bike at night... the woman turned on her right turn signal and pulled onto the shoulder of the road... being the young impatient man that he was.. he proceeded to  go around her thinking she was just pulling onto the shoulder. Nope! she did a fast U-turn (right signal still blinking away) and he went airborne over the hood of her car and skidded down the middle of the road. and again... being the kind of guy that he was he didnt care that he had road rash from his armpit to his knee....((in shock perhaps?)) he was picking up the pieces of his bike while this woman was having a fit begging him to let her drive him to the ER.... 

 Ow! I would have been freaking out if I was that lady, too.

I don't know about the PYR fending off the yotes much based on a story here or elsewhere. I'll just say this the PYR got 2-3 yotes but lost its life near the barn. One of anything isn't going to fair well with against of pack of carnivores! Including bear!

Bears are tolerate to a point, especially black bear. You keep pushing and they'll switch. Around here,  some hunters try using their dogs to scare off the bear and when the hunter doesn't call of his dog(s) after a certain period.. the black bear has had enough and takes out your dogs. 

We have bloodlust kills for Coyotes around here and hunters ask if you think you have a dog that can hunt them, he'll take them and tell you if the dog has it. "Keep'em!" or "That's a pet." Hunters around here take 20-50 at a time and yet, we have a deer population problem. GO FIGURE. At my hunting cabin, we have a nice sized pack here that take down deer and this past Xmas, there were sightings of a female cougar and her cub a quarter mile away. We have been looking for tracks of it and this past outing, we saw a partially eaten GSD - not by the cougar by Coyotes. We think there were 3 of them. 

rwbeagles

I wouldn't put anything less than a Kangal or Caucasian Ovcharka out for wolves. IMO a Pyr, today's Pyr's, would not stand a chance.

The wolves where Pyrs were developed were more like jackals or coyotes in size...no where near the size of a full grown Timber wolf. The breeds above also have a dog fighting history right up to now (vs their own breed whcih are about the size of Timbers) so they could probably handle the wolves a lot better...as much as that is distasteful to say.

 It's a heretical thought, but the deer herd may be getting back to a sustainable size.  The presence of large carnivores has been missing for a long time, and farm produce supplied a new food source.  I know that there are more deer in MN now than there were a hundred years ago.  Eventually, if left alone, the deer and the predators will reach some kind of balance.  It might be below the populations that the hunter like, but part of the reason deer get hunted is to control the population size.

 true i have to agree with you Doug, about things probably going back to normal sizes, but the other reasons, here at least in Florida, the reason people hunt the deer is for sport or food. though lately the females have been outnumbering the males it seems. we get a lot of trophy hunters from down south, and a week ago i actually saw an add in CL with someone selling deer (northern hybrid varieties bred in captivity to have larger antlers)

i dunno but thats too much tampering for my taste.... i love to hunt ... but i hunt for food. if i have a deer in the freezer then i have no need to go out and buy beef or pork and all the chemicals involved. Hunting practices might change if they ever release their red wolves into the national forests around(though not sure how.. Reds are more like coyotes i think.. small packs or solitary hunters) but i worry about deer farmers and importing deer.... FL deer are small for a reason....

Problem is in PA, there aren't enough hunters to control the deer population. Mind you, in Allegheny County, there are more deer concentrated in there than Texas' deer population. The Jr. hunter program has failed... miserably here. I hunt for food not for trophy.

DougB

 It's a heretical thought, but the deer herd may be getting back to a sustainable size.  The presence of large carnivores has been missing for a long time, and farm produce supplied a new food source.  I know that there are more deer in MN now than there were a hundred years ago.  Eventually, if left alone, the deer and the predators will reach some kind of balance.  It might be below the populations that the hunter like, but part of the reason deer get hunted is to control the population size.

janobonano

denise m

Nature has a way of balancing out wildlife population so they don't become a problem. I think someone should be looking into why the wolves are now attacking the livestock and try to remedy that situation.  JMHO

 

That's exactly another reason why people around here are groaning about the DNR. This year's deer hunting numbers were way down. Many hunters have cameras by their stands (some have feed/bait piles) and a lot of them said they saw more bears and wolves than deer.

Well, did it ever occur to anyone that wolves and bears probably have enough smarts to figure out that the deer go to the feed stations?  Maybe if the hunters played fair and gave the deer a sporting chance, there'd be enough deer for everyone...just sayin'

I saw a show the other week called "Wolf Man" about a guy named Shaun Ellis who actually stayed with and slept with a pack of wolves.  I don't htink these wolves were totally wild but it was pretty cool what he was doing.  Anyhow, he ended up leaving the pack to go on an assignment to the USA to help farmers who were being terrorized by wolves.  I was skipping back and forth doing other things (my nephew was the one watching it actually) so I didn't see the whole thing but what they did was played howling noises on big speakers near the farms in an attempt to scare the wolves away.  Apparently the howling they had on tape was of a pack of wolves that must have sounded more dominating tothe nearby wolves.  I'm not sure if this worked or not. 

Do a search on this guy and hte show and you'll get all kinds of hits.  Interesting stuff!  Sure as hell beats shooting them!

spiritdogs

Well, did it ever occur to anyone that wolves and bears probably have enough smarts to figure out that the deer go to the feed stations?  Maybe if the hunters played fair and gave the deer a sporting chance, there'd be enough deer for everyone...just sayin'