Hello - This is an alert I received from environmentalist Ralph Maughan yesterday, just in case some of you didn't see it...
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Hi folks,
Ron Gillette has been ratcheting up his rhetoric. "Gillett drew a dark picture of the future: an Idaho wolf population of 2,500 to 3,000 in 10 years, capable of even being a threat to children boarding school buses in rural areas."
I'd say the only threat to children boarding school buses is the Idaho legislature and its disgusting underfunding of education.
As for his prediction of 2500 to 3000 wolves in Idaho in ten years, 300-350 is more like it .
Note: Gillett owns the Triangle C guest ranch in Stanley
Ralph Maughan
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Coalition: Remove wolves from Idaho
Anti-wolf group buys ad space, petitions President Bush for wolf removal
http://www.magicvalley.com/tn/news/index.asp?StoryID=429
By Pat Murphy - Magic Valley Times-News
KETCHUM -- The smoldering dispute over reintroduction of Canadian gray wolves into Idaho has erupted again in a fiery advertising campaign by one of the project's chief critics who alleges big game will be destroyed if wolves aren't removed or eliminated.
Not so, say others in official and unofficial positions.
Ron Gillett, a Stanley sports outfitter and chairman of the Central Idaho Wolf Coalition, resumed his litany of charges in one-quarter-page newspaper ads appearing throughout Idaho.
"The Coalition," the advertisement reads, "is tired of the lies and misinformation by the pro-wolf groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"The wolf advocacy groups show documentaries and coffee table books of fuzzy wolf pups, misleading the general public of this number one predator of our big game herds."
Continuing, the ad reads, "The Central Idaho Wolf Coalition's sole objective is the immediate removal of the Canadian gray wolf from Idaho because of the catastrophic slaughter of our big game herds, serious livestock predation, loss of wildlife viewing -- causing unnecessary and extreme hardship to 'mom and pop' businesses."
In a separate interview, Gillett, 60, an outfitter for 32 years and whose grandfather herded sheep in the area, asked: "If these wolves were such a great addition to this ecosystem, those of us who live here -- wouldn't we be the first to say this is a wonderful thing?
"That's not the situation. These (wolves) are cruel, vicious, land piranhas, wildlife terrorists."
Some wolf supporters, Gillett seethed, are "kooks who want to hear wolf howls. Let them buy a tape."
In pursuit of his goal, Gillett has written President Bush asking for a meeting during the president's visit to Idaho for the National Governor's Association conference to discuss removing the wolves. He said he plans to put ads in newspapers around the state, and the group also might try for a billboard.
Gillett said the coalition now has 1,500 members. Dues listed in the coalition's newspaper ad range from $25 for an individual to $10,000. He declined to discuss how much has been raised since the group's first meeting in February 2000, near the east fork of the Salmon River.
Gillett drew a dark picture of the future: an Idaho wolf population of 2,500 to 3,000 in 10 years, capable of even being a threat to children boarding school buses in rural areas. The current Idaho wolf population is 261 in about 17 packs, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
But Gillett's assertions are dismissed by others. Carter Niemeyer, Fish and Wildlife's wolf coordinator for the Idaho area, concedes that, "Wolves eat elk -- there's no dispute there."
But he said Idaho elk are subject to vastly more threats than just wolves --drought, harsh winters, fire suppression, changing habitat.
"In general, elk herds are doing very well in Idaho," he said. "Elk were in decline (in some areas) before introduction of the wolf," which occurred in 1995.
Niemeyer says, "I don't believe they (Gillett's organization) have any scientific evidence whether wolves are impacting" the elk population.
Another expert on elk and other game, Steve Nadeau, wildlife staff biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said the issue "is much more complex." Nadeau says that extremists on the issue -- those who fear annihilation of wildlife because of wolves and those who insist wolves are harmless to wildlife -- are both incorrect.
He agreed with Niemeyer that a number of conditions, including predation by lions and bears, are involved.
He said that statistically Idaho's elk herds are averaging about 30 calves per 100 cow elk. He estimated lows of about 15 calves per 100 in some places, to highs of 40 per 100.
Karen McCall of Ketchum, assistant producer of the film, "Wolves At Our Door" and now completing a book about her experiences with wolves, has a slightly different view.
McCall says that a better approach might've been to allow wolves to naturally return to Idaho, rather than through forced reintroduction. She believes that the natural ebb-and-flow life cycles of big game as well as wolves would've evolved and all species would flourish.
>From a sheep rancher's viewpoint, third-generation rancher John Peavey of Bellevue said that "they (wolves) are here and livestock people are resigned to coexisting with them. There's going to be conflicts."
Peavey added, "I feel sorry for the wolves. They were safe and happy in Canada, and here they're netted from a helicopter and tranquilized and imprisoned for a year, tested, put in cages, turned loose."
But, Peavey said, "The people who're really suffering are big game hunters" who rely on elk that're being killed by wolves.
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