Comments about ‘Yellowstone wolf visits Colorado’

They are most welcome in Colorado. They might as well think out the overpopulation of elk rather than having the elk being shot. The wolves most often cull the weakest--I doubt the hunters do.

Too bad they don't thin out the weakest links of the other species in Colorado also. Please, go camping.

Cool. We need more wildlife and natural conservation in Colorado. WE need more wolves to clear out some of these stinking huge packs of coyotes that are killing dogs and attacking people.

I just have to say that Wolves are a very important thing to our life.Serveral year's back I took my family to Kents Lake on the Beaver Mountain on a thanksgiving weekend.As we four wheeled around a bend and had the frozen lake in sight we all saw a pair of wolves on the ice.Soon as they heard the loud noise of my 97'powerstroke they bolted for the tree line on far side of the lake.It was a totally gratifying experience to see and witness such a beautiful thing so close to home here in Utah.
So beware of your surroundings as you may never know when you might have this kind of experience happen to you.And I truly hope that more people have had the chance to view them also.WOLVES ARE COOL.Have a gr8 day all.

You are wrong. So many people forget that we as humans are part of the ecosystem. We are and have always been hunters. If you think it is natural for the wolf to hunt remember it is also natural for the human to hunt. The economic pitfall that is happening in Idaho Wyoming and Montana is huge to these states because of the destruction the wolf has caused. The article starts off with a lie it says the wolf is an "endangered species" it is not, not even close. The wolf that was introduced to Yellowstone is also a non native species. The introduced wolf is the larger Canadian wolf. This wolf is now destroying prey that it has an advantage over. The number of total wolves that were already in existence combined with the non native wolves that were introduced is almost 10 times past the objective that the government wanted and needs to be managed. The economic cost to introduce these non native wolves is costing millions and millions to the American public. It will cost millions to fix the problem that has now been created.

Someone informed

@To Bart@12:46. No, you are wrong. While humans may have and always will be hunters, humans started out that way as a means to survive, and used practically every scrap of the animal for other uses. The difference now is that humans hunt for the mere pleasure and "sport," if you can call it that. I am quite confident that this earth could take care of itself and would be much better off, in so many ways, had humans not come along and interfered. And, yes, humans are part of the ecosystem, and quite possibly the dumbest species on earth.

To Bart | 12:46 p.m. Studies of early human cultures as proven hunting was a guy thing. Women gathering provided the most their food. It was gathering that evolved into agriculture. Agriculture lead to the specialization of labor and cities.

Think again Colorado, yes, the wolves do get to the weakest of the elk, which means, they kill the cows and new offspring, which in turn devastates the herds. Ask Idaho what has happened to their Lolo herds and the Bitterroot and Selway herds. Now we have packs in our front and back yards.

Packs do more than kill the weakest, they joy kill. This is substantiated by several researchers that have been tracking them.

Also, once the wolf packs start to multiply, there is no stopping them, the females having two litters a year.

Colorado, if you want your elk herds decimated, let the wolves in, otherwise, do everything within your legal power to keep them out.

To; Dave Montgomery. Where do you get this stuff? How do you think elk and wolves coexisted before humans showed up? Why do you ascribe the "killing for joy" emotion to an animal? If the elk herds have been reduced in Idaho, is it possible that their numbers were unsustainably high, damaging the forage and changing the ecosystems?
As top predators, they exert a powerful influence over their ecosystems. It is well-documented that they have restored populations of many species in the Yellowstone area - species that were dwindling and failing due to the lack of a top predator to cull elk and move them around.
Expect the usual hysterics as people start crying wolf.

"I am quite confident that this earth could take care of itself and would be much better off, in so many ways, had humans not come along and interfered."

Stupid me, I thought God made the earth, plants and animals FOR man; not in spite of man.

Congratulations Colorado, you are about to get a real lesson in wolf biology! Here in Idaho,we too were fed the usual baloney by test book biologists (those that never did any real biology) about wolf predation not harming moose, elk or deer, that wolves only take out the weak. Local wildlife experts have learned differently. Now we have learned that our elk herds are in serious trouble in some areas. Calf recruitment is dangerously low (2-3 calves/100 cows)and unstainable and research has shown wolf predation is the cause; not habitat, not disease, not changing ecosystms. Wolves will multiply until they eat themselves out of food, then they will move to another area and do the same in that area leaving a biological phenominon called the predator pit. Now they have gone to Colorado. After they waste your wild ungulates, where next?

RE:Aldo, biggest problem with your stupid theroy. How much room do the Elk have to roam, Just look at the encroachment of the foothills,etc. You probably live up by the Draper Temple.they can turn to the wild horses and burros after they elk become endangered. Oh what will the Feds and tree huggers do then. start cullying the wolf.

Explain why there are still deer, elk and bison in Yellowstone? They all were eaten by wolves? Why does Alaska have Moose and caribou? Look at the UP in Michigan. Wolves and deer live there.

Fact: Since wolves arrived in Yellowstone, the northern Yellowstone elk herd population has dropped over 70% and still dropping while wolf populations have increased dramtically. Moose are hard to find in Yellowstone now and the Park Service, not willing to admit over predation,(political correctness) is wasting money studying willow nutrients to see if that is why the moose population crashed. No one said wolves will cause prey to become extinct, but they have drastically reduced the prey population everywhere they have been, including Alaska and Michigan. I did a research report on the Isle Royal moose population drop while in college-yes it was wolves that caused the moose population to level at a low equilibrium). When the prey numbers cannot support the number of predators,predators usually move to seek other game to sustain themselves-(Colorado). Left behind is an equilibrium of prey versus predator balance. That means the prey population will always be limited by the predators. In the lower 48, the areas left for habitat for ungulates gives predators (particularly wolves) even more advantage in that it concentrates them too much, which didn't happen 200 years ago. No charge for this biology lesson!

Re;anonymous. Thanks for the biology lesson. It's worth every penny I paid for it. Anyone who thinks that prey populations are threatened by the predator populations they have evolved with, needs to return to school. What is much, much more evident is that plant populations, on which ALL life depends, are routinely threated by herbivore populations that have expanded due to human removal of predators. Which is precisely what we have done with the wolf-free mountains of the West.

The simple fact that nobody ever brings up is that the wolves that were reintroduced to Yellowstone and the surronding area ARE NOT A NATIVE SPECIES. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME WOLVES THAT WERE EXTERMINATED. THESE WOLVES DO NOT BELONG. The wolf population in the Greater Yellowstone Area including Wyoming, Idaho, Montana is currently 300% higher then what the area was said could sustain in the orginal plan to reintroduce non native wolves. The delisting of wolves is a required step. There needs to be a culling of the Wolves to bring them back with in the stated goals for reintroduction. The wolves have destroyed Elk heards in many areas of Idaho, Montana, even inside of Yellowstone. They do not just kill for food but can and do kill for fun. You can see video of wolves chasing Elk and Deer into rivers and then staying on both sides of the banks to keep them in the freezing water until the drown. And then leaving the majority of the dead there with out touching them.

where is the wolf now