Wolf Chat

Discuss wolves. (News, sightings, conservation, status, etc.)

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Conservation Status of the Gray Wolf in the United States

Post by xXWolfFangsXx » Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:36 pm

When my mom was a kid she had an encounter with a big wolf in Washington when she went for a walk. it was growling and snarling at her till she backed up slowly
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Re: Conservation Status of the Gray Wolf in the United States

Post by paperpaws » Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:41 am

xXWolfFangsXx wrote:
Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:36 pm
When my mom was a kid she had an encounter with a big wolf in Washington when she went for a walk. it was growling and snarling at her till she backed up slowly
I've split your post from the conservation status topic and merged it with this wolf chat topic, as this is a more suitable place to share wolf anecdotes like yours. Sounds like your mother had a scary experience!

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Re: Wolf Chat

Post by elkhunter123456 » Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:28 pm

I like wolves because of their intelligence and ability to hunt large prey like elk, moose, and bison with or without a pack. There lifestyle is unique and fun to read about.

Here are some facts:
competitors include cougars, bears, coyotes, wolverines and much more

The largest wolf ever recorded was 230 pounds!

There primary prey is elk but in winter they will sometimes hunt bison due to lack of elk. other prey includes moose, sheep, goat, beavers, hares and rodents

The smallest species of wolf is the Arabian wolf
prey:
hare
beaver
mule deer
elk
moose
competitors:
raven
eagle
fox
coyote
wolf
cougar
bear

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Re: Wolf Chat

Post by Koa » Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:01 am

elkhunter123456 wrote:
Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:28 pm
I like wolves because of their intelligence and ability to hunt large prey like elk, moose, and bison with or without a pack. There lifestyle is unique and fun to read about.

Here are some facts:
competitors include cougars, bears, coyotes, wolverines and much more

The largest wolf ever recorded was 230 pounds!

There primary prey is elk but in winter they will sometimes hunt bison due to lack of elk. other prey includes moose, sheep, goat, beavers, hares and rodents

The smallest species of wolf is the Arabian wolf
It's actually a common misconception that wolves have to go after prey other than elk in the winter.
CLBaileyi wrote:
Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:56 pm
Snowmuzzle wrote:It also depends how hungry they are. For example, in summer there may be enough hares and young fawns to feed the wolves without much larger prey. In the winter, however, they are more desperate so will take more risks to get food, like hunting bison.
Actually, wolves kill a variety of prey throughout the year (i.e. they will eat elk/bison throughout the year) and not just in winter. Also, they are not "desparate" for food to go after bison. There are also plenty of large prey available in the spring and summer and wolves, along with other predators, take adult elk and the like. It also has nothing to do with "how hungry" they are in the summer vs. winter. There are alot of articles written about wolves and prey in the journals on line-you might find more specific information there. Also, the IWC has a great section on their website about wolves and prey. I highly recommend it.
https://www.wolfquest.org/bb/viewtopic. ... 42#p601542

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Re: Wolf Chat

Post by Kryptowolfy » Tue Mar 26, 2019 11:19 am

duskypack wrote:
Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:29 pm
That scratch reflex sounds adorable!

Was doing some research in my copy of Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation by L. David Mech and found out that sometimes wolves can travel for huge distances for seemingly no reason (OR7, anyone?), displaying a focus similar to their 'homing' behavior if they're taken within something like 75 miles of their territory. So they travel far, fast and focused. They also can pair up with other loners and travel with them for a distance outside of courtship. There was an anecdote about a male wolf who, in six years, was a part of three different packs, traveled with two females for a distance before splitting off, traveling alone and then traveling with another female for a while. It didn't imply they bred - just formed a pair bond and traveled. He was hit by a car when he was 8 after a fascinating life. Some of the unexplained behaviors of wolves are so interesting! (if anyone's interested in the excerpt, I can type it out and post it here - I read it a few days ago so I may have some inaccuracy in my paraphrase)
I want to thank you for posting this book on the forum. I have seen some shows on Netflix regarding wolves but they are all pretty meh with the narration. I will definitely check out this book and hope it's more centered on the wolves than the humans.

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Re: Wolf Chat

Post by DaniBeez » Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:15 pm

Kryptowolfy wrote:
Tue Mar 26, 2019 11:19 am
duskypack wrote:
Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:29 pm
That scratch reflex sounds adorable!

Was doing some research in my copy of Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation by L. David Mech and found out that sometimes wolves can travel for huge distances for seemingly no reason (OR7, anyone?), displaying a focus similar to their 'homing' behavior if they're taken within something like 75 miles of their territory. So they travel far, fast and focused. They also can pair up with other loners and travel with them for a distance outside of courtship. There was an anecdote about a male wolf who, in six years, was a part of three different packs, traveled with two females for a distance before splitting off, traveling alone and then traveling with another female for a while. It didn't imply they bred - just formed a pair bond and traveled. He was hit by a car when he was 8 after a fascinating life. Some of the unexplained behaviors of wolves are so interesting! (if anyone's interested in the excerpt, I can type it out and post it here - I read it a few days ago so I may have some inaccuracy in my paraphrase)
I want to thank you for posting this book on the forum. I have seen some shows on Netflix regarding wolves but they are all pretty meh with the narration. I will definitely check out this book and hope it's more centered on the wolves than the humans.
This book has a lot of information on wolves, but it can be dry as a casual read. It's essentially a summary/review of wolf research, compiled in book form. But still a great resource :D! People reference it often on the forums.
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Re: Wolf Chat

Post by -Wolfdog- » Sat Feb 26, 2022 7:43 am

I've read through this thread quite a bit. In regards to the whole "misunderstood wolf" thing, I think wolves are misunderstood, but most people don't actually hate wolves nowadays

First off I do not support killing wolves. Wolves impact the livestock industry very little, rather, they are more likely to impact smaller farmers in the immediate area.
In 2015 the USDA inventoried 112.2 million cattle in the U.S.4 Of that number, 4.5 million died from all unwanted causes. Most of those deaths, 3.6 million (3.2 percent of U.S. cattle inventory) stemmed from health-related maladies, weather, and theft. Mortalities from all predators amounted to 280,570 cattle deaths, representing a mere 0.3 percent of U.S. cattle inventory—with wolves taking 0.009 percent of the U.S. cattle inventory. Figs. 1 and 2
Source: https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/def ... 9Final.pdf
If that's the case then more preventive measures should be encouraged, the kind that won't hurt anyone. It stops wolf predation before it happens, or at least significantly minimizes it. It is also relatively affordable and may deterrents can be made at home (or sometimes all you need is human presence).
To demonstrate that nonlethal techniques can be effective at large scales, we report a 7-year case study where we strategically applied nonlethal predator deterrents and animal husbandry techniques on an adaptive basis (i.e., based on terrain, proximity to den or rendezvous sites, avoiding overexposure to techniques such as certain lights or sound devices that could result in wolves losing their fear of that device, etc.) to protect sheep (Ovis aries) and wolves on public grazing lands in Idaho. We collected data on sheep depredation mortalities in the protected demonstration study area and compared these data to an adjacent wolf-occupied area where sheep were grazed without the added nonlethal protection measures. Over the 7-year period, sheep depredation losses to wolves were 3.5 times higher in the Nonprotected Area (NPA) than in the Protected Area (PA). Furthermore, no wolves were lethally controlled within the PA and sheep depredation losses to wolves were just 0.02% of the total number of sheep present, the lowest loss rate among sheep-grazing areas in wolf range statewide, whereas wolves were lethally controlled in the NPA.
Source: https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/articl ... ogin=false

I think all ranchers would greatly appreciate it, but most importantly why wouldn't we want to strive for better animal welfare? Wolves in the lower 48 still have a vulnerable population in many areas. For example the total wolf population is 6,000 in the lower 48 (https://www.fws.gov/home/feature/2007/g ... egion2.pdf). Their ENTIRE population is smaller than the majority of towns in the US and wolves in the lower 48 are once again listed as endangered in some regions, so wolves are still very vulnerable and at this point in time I don't think population control is necessary (in the lower 48) unless there is concrete evidence that wolves are an actual threat to people and livestock. Which so far there isn't...

In 2021 wolves were threatened with 90% eradication in the state of Idaho.
It will allow hunters and private contractors to kill 90 percent or more of the state’s wolves, which number around 1,500 at last count. The decision comes just months after the species was removed from the U.S. Endangered Species Act...


And they were eradicated from the lower 48 altogether; so the threat of complete extinction within the region is still real. There is no reason to assume why it won't happen again with the current political battle wolves are in.
While it is true that many people might use the term 'misunderstood' in excess, and wolves in Canada and Eurasia have stable numbers, that statement didn't just come out of thin air. I believe wolves are misunderstood, or at least misinformation is deliberately spread if that makes sense.


Dogs are statistically more dangerous to people and livestock, and have a much higher population. Does this mean we should kill dogs en masse?

Aside from plain statistics and evidence, I do not support trophy hunting, or "Judas wolves", the killing of nursing wolves, or mass killing wolves via helicopter all in the name of "trophy hunting." This is purely based on my morals and that it's just inhumane and unfair to an animal... I own two Siberian huskies so of course I feel this way about trophy hunting. Wolf or not, no animal should in that position. As a wolf-lover it's my duty to love and defend wolves, that is the entire point of being a wolf lover.

(Oops, sorry for making such a long and winding post).
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