Wolf Kill Coverup
Guest post by Shane McAfee
I have been an outfitter in Salmon, ID for over 30 years and I have seen the changes!
In 1996 our Unit 28 opening week saw ten hunters harvest nine bull elk (1-7×7, 6-6×6’s and 2- 5×5’s). All mature bulls, all happy hunters! Eleven years later, after the wolves multiplied here, this season (2007) we harvested only one spike bull and four deer out of twenty total hunters. On my first three hunts last year I went 15 days horseback guiding and never saw an elk! Almost all of the hunters never wanted to see Idaho again; and yes, they were very upset!
I wonder what this is doing to the economy of our small towns in Idaho. I hear the same worries from my friends, locals, and pretty much everyone I talk to. I have yet to run into anyone on the trails, dirt roads, paved roads, or on Main street in Salmon that came into our county to see a wolf!
I guess most of the wolf lovers are in New York City watching them on TV, as I have yet to meet one here, much less seen them spend one dollar in our community. I know for a fact that there are hundreds, or possibly thousands, of elk hunters that will not return.
Wow, wolves really do impact the economy of small Idaho towns!
I have talked and pleaded with our Fish & Game Dept. in Salmon, Region 7, to no avail. They say basically nothing can be done. A few wolves have been taken out by the Feds only because of beef kills. Not one wolf that I know of has been taken out because of elk kills.
About 5 years ago, while lion hunting in my area in winter on snowmobile, I found nine dead elk (8 cow elk and 1-6×6 bull) on Silver Creek Road (a 14-mile stretch) all killed within the previous week. All were killed by a pack of about eight wolves, basing my judgment on the tracks around the kills, the way the elk were killed, and the fact I seen plenty of sign that the pack was in the area. Wolf tracks were everywhere, some of the elk were eaten, some not, and most had intestines pulled out. All typical wolf kills that I have seen plenty of.
Not one killed elk was covered by snow or brush as lions tend to do. Almost all had their nose’s pulled off, as usual for wolf kills I have seen. A lion had never pulled a nose off an elk that I had ever found. Lions had never killed over 2 to 3 deer ( hardly ever an elk ) on that 14-mile stretch of Silver Creek Road ever in a course of a winter the 20+ years I have been there! Also, no lion tracks were found by me and my lion hunters over a 2 week period in the area when the elk were found. It was obviously a case of binge killing by the wolf pack that was in there. I would swear to this on a stack of Bibles; the elk were killed by the wolf pack in the area!
On my way out on snowmachines with my hunter/client that day, I ran into Jason H., now the Idaho Fish & Game Wolf biologist in the Salmon office but then a guy doing a “wolf study” under Gary P. (now Idaho Fish & Game Commissioner, Salmon area). I told Jason about the nine dead elk on Silver Creek Road and that in my opinion, they were all killed by the pack of eight wolves in the area. He said he would check the kills, as he was doing the study on the impact of wolves on big game in the area.
A few days later I ran into him on snowmachines again. I asked him if he had seen the elk kills on Silver Creek? He said that he had. I asked him what he had written down in his study reports. He said that he had determined that all nine elk were killed by lions! And that he wrote it down as such in his reports on the wolf study he was doing. I was floored, to say the least, and asked him if he was for the wolves or against them. He told me he was for the introduction of wolves and wanted them in Idaho.
The important thing to note is that if the nine wolf killed elk on Silver Creek Road that week were reported as lion kills, what about the rest of the study in the whole Salmon area that winter?
Today both these guys are pulling good wages and have been working for the Idaho Fish and Game Dept. for years. I hope that they are proud of their study. I just wanted them to know I didn’t forget about that special moment. Believe me I never will.
Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story. Feel free to send it to anyone you please.
http://westinstenv.org/wildpeop/2008/02/26/wolf-kill-coverup/http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2008/02/29/where-have-all-the-elk-gone-long-time-passing/
