RMEF Warns of Colorado Wolf Reintroduction Ballot Initiative

[Gman]

This was in the news in the past week - was up in Canada.
A family on a camping trip woke up to a wolf attacking them.

A New Jersey woman said her family's camping trip in Canada turned into a scene "out of a horror movie" when a wolf ripped apart their tent as they slept and tried to drag her husband away — before a man at a nearby campsite heard their screams for help and came to their rescue.

Elisa Rispoli, her husband, Matthew Rispoli, and their two young boys were at Rampart Creek Campground in Banff National Park in Alberta when she said they were attacked.

"Matt literally threw his body in front of me and the boys, and fought the Wolf as it ripped apart our tent and his arms and hands," she wrote in an August 9 Facebook post.

Elisa Rispoli said her husband tried to pin the wolf on the ground, but the animal started to drag him away.

"I was pulling on his legs trying to get him back," the post read. "I cannot and don't think I'll ever be able to properly describe the terror."

A man, identified by local media as Russ Fee, was at a nearby campsite and ran over to help after hearing the family screaming for help, Elisa Rispoli wrote.

Fee, who is from Calgary and was camping with his family, told the Calgary Eyeopener that when he arrived at the Rispoli's site "their entire tent had mostly collapsed" and he could see the wolf trying to pull Matthew Rispoli away.

Fee told the outlet that he ran toward the animal and kicked it as hard as he could.

"It startled it enough that it let Matt go," he said. "Matt came flying out. His whole half side was just covered in blood."

Matthew Rispoli and Fee started screaming at the wolf and throwing rocks at it to scare it away as everyone ran to Fee's campsite.

Elisa Rispoli said incident "was something out of a horror movie." It lasted only a couple of minutes, but "felt like an eternity," she wrote.

"It could have been so so much worse, and we are just feeling so thankful that we are all still sitting here as a complete family," her Facebook post read.

Matthew Rispoli was treated at the hospital for injuries to his hands and arms and is doing fine, she said.

Rampart Creek Campground was temporarily closed following the attack, a spokesperson for Parks Canada said in a press release. It reopened on Monday following an investigation into the incident.

The wolf believed to have attacked the family was tracked down and killed "to ensure public safety," spokesperson Lesley Matheson said.

"Veterinary tests have confirmed that the wolf was in poor condition and likely nearing the end of its natural life span. The wolf’s condition was likely a contributing factor for its unusual behavior and this remains a very rare incident," Matheson said.

[Irving]

Dave posted that 11 posts ago in this thread.

[Gman]

I guess it wasn't any better the 2nd time around?

[Irving]

This wolf story is similar to the mountain lion attacks recently. Old, emaciated wolf with worn down teeth. Good thing it wasn't in good health, but if it were, would it have done this? We'll never know.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/wolf-i...tion-1.4548695

Stuart-Smith said a wildlife officer found the wolf about a kilometre away from the campground and killed it after he got out of his vehicle and it started to approach him.

"It's very unusual behaviour," he said.

The results of a necropsy confirmed that the wolf was the same one involved in the attack.

"The animal was in very poor health -- it was very emaciated, it was only 78 pounds (35 kgs), whereas an adult male wolf could be 150 pounds (68 kgs) or more," said Stuart-Smith. "Its teeth were very worn."

A rabies test on the animal was negative, he added.

He said the condition of the wolf could explain why it was aggressive, but stressed that wolf attacks are extremely rare.

Stuart-Smith said the family did everything right.

"They had no attractants in their tent. They were very bear aware so they were very careful to manage their campsite properly," he said.

"They did follow what our recommendations would be in a ... rare situation where someone is attacked by a wolf: to fight back."

The campground, which was closed immediately following the attack, reopened Monday.

[Gman]

Was picking out our new pup down in Florissant today. He was mentioning how high their mountain lion population is right now. The cats are typically solitary, but they've been seen hunting in groups on residential security cameras. That could make things entertaining.

[Irving]

Story about wolves killing hunting dogs in Wisconsin. I've heard stories of cats killing hunting dogs. I also wonder what the rate of attrition to bears is.

http://m.startribune.com/anderson-so...ogs/562085952/

[zulu01]

Wolf pack confirmed in CO.

https://www.outtherecolorado.com/wol...ecent-history/

[rondog]

Fuck a buncha wolves, smoke a pack a day!

JMHO.....

[Gman]

We'll get to vote on the subject this year:
What to know about the gray wolf, whose fate in Colorado could be decided by voters

Colorado voters soon will have the unique opportunity to help decide the fate of an entire species.

A question on whether to reintroduce the gray wolf, a species widely eradicated in the western United States in the 1940s, has been added to the ballot.

The gray wolf, or Canis lupis, once roamed freely throughout much of the U.S. but was extirpated from most of the lower 48 states by the 20th century, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The last gray wolf native to Colorado was killed in 1945, at the end of a 70-year campaign spearheaded by the federal government on behalf of the livestock industry, said Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, the leading campaign in support of reintroducing the species to the state. Prior to that period, the gray wolf was a "keystone species" in the West, according to the organization.

[Shooter45]

Colorado Wildlife Officials: ?We Have No Doubt that (Wolves) are Here?
8th January 2020

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) confirms an active wolf pack is now living in the northwest corner of the state. The verification flies in the face of extreme environmentalists behind a ballot initiative seeking to forcibly introduce wolves onto the Colorado landscape.

?It is inevitable, based on known wolf behavior, that they would travel here from states where their populations are well-established,? said JT Romatzke, CPW northwest regional manager. ?We have no doubt that they are here, and the most recent sighting of what appears to be wolves traveling together in what can be best described as a pack is further evidence of the presence of wolves in Colorado.?



In late December 2019, hunters came across a bull elk carcass (see photo) in Irish Canyon, located in Game Management Units 201-202, ?ripped to pieces.?

?At the site, CPW officers observed several large canid tracks (see photo) from multiple animals surrounding the carcass,? Mike Porras, CPW public information officer, told the Craig Daily Press. ?The tracks are consistent with those made by wolves. In addition, the condition of the carcass is consistent with known wolf predation.?



Porras believes there are least six wolves in the pack.

In October 2019, an eyewitness reported seeing six wolves in the same general area near the Utah and Wyoming borders and even captured two of them on video (see above).

?The sighting marks the first time in recent history CPW has received a report of multiple wolves traveling together,? said Romatzke. ??In addition, in the days prior, the eyewitness says he heard distinct howls coming from different animals. In my opinion, this is a very credible report.?

Additionally, in July 2019, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department confirmed a collared animal spotted in northern Colorado as a wolf.

?The latest sightings add to other credible reports of wolf activity in Colorado over the past several years,? said Romatzke. ?In addition to tracks, howls, photos and videos, the presence of one wolf was confirmed by DNA testing a few years ago, and in a recent case, we have photos and continue to track a wolf with a collar from Wyoming?s Snake River pack.?

?To be clear, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation strongly opposes the forced introduction of gray wolves to Colorado,? said Kyle Weaver, RMEF president and CEO.

Among other things, the ballot initiative circumvents the authority of CPW, Colorado?s wildlife management professionals, which is already on the record several times over the years as ?opposing the intentional release of any wolves into Colorado.? CPW currently has a management plan in place for naturally migrating wolves.

?We will not take direct action and we want to remind the public that wolves are federally endangered species and fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As wolves move into the state on their own, we will work with our federal partners to manage the species,? Romatzke added.

RMEF maintains that state agencies should manage wolves just as they manage elk, bears, deer, mountain lions and other wildlife.

Ballot initiative proponents submitted 215,000 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State?s office, which later verified enough signatures to place the issue on the 2020 ballot even though it declared an estimated 76,000 (or 35.3 percent) of them as invalid.

If the initiative passes, a legislative report indicates a forced wolf introduction would cost Colorado taxpayers a cumulative amount of approximately $6 million eight years into the effort.


https://elknetwork.com/colorado-wild...8AEeTjWFNNQ_Cc