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MT: In the field with a Montana couple hunting wolves
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chatnoir
May 14, 2013, 5:34:43 PM5/14/13
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http://www.timberwolfinformation.org/?p=17038
headline:
MT: In the field with a Montana couple hunting wolves
Posted on May 13, 2013 by TWIN Observer
by Neil LaRubbio
We’re hunting wolves on an Arctic December morning in Montana, just
north of Yellowstone National Park. Ryan Counts and Becky Frey lead me
along a hillside above a shelf of open grass and sage known as Decker
Flats. The local hunter gossip pinpointed a pack in this area the
final day of elk hunting season, one week ago, and since wolves
circuitously patrol their territory, they will return soon.
Counts and Frey, a couple who live on a nearby cattle ranch, are
dressed in battered layers of wool. We shuffle down a snow-packed
trail into a sagebrush coulee. Airborne icy particles melt on our
faces. Their little cow dog, Minnie, scares up a pod of mule deer, as
the cobalt sky gently empties into dawn. Suddenly, wild barking erupts
from a steep draw ahead. Frey and Counts lean their rifles against a
boulder and pull out binoculars. Two coyotes yap about 600 yards
below, among fallen ponderosas. Then a new form shoulders through the
trees: an adult male mountain lion. It briefly confronts the coyotes,
then slinks back uphill like a furry commando.
“That right there makes this whole trip worth it,” says Counts. We
chuckle like penguins. Most people never see predators in the wild,
and witnessing the faceoff of two species is extraordinary.
He and Frey refocus their attention on a 75-head elk herd on the edge
of Decker Flats, a quarter-mile in the opposite direction. This is how
they hunt wolves: Find the elk herd and glass the fringes for the
lurking pack.
Congress authorized this hunt when it removed wolves from endangered
species protection in 2011, after more than a decade of court battles.
Environmentalist lawyers had delayed hunting long enough for the total
wolf population in the U.S. Northern Rockies to grow to 1,500 or so —
five times larger than the original goal of the federal wolf-
restoration program.
A previous government program extirpated local wolves in the 1920s,
paying Counts’ grandfather and other hunters a bounty for each wolf
killed. These days, Counts — who’s a hunting guide when he’s not
working on the ranch — accepts the presence of wolves as long as he
can hunt them. He believes in maintaining population control and
relishes the satisfaction of problem-solving the hunt for a smart and
able predator.
While some environmentalists still work to spare wolves from death by
bullet, a new era is already unfolding. State wildlife agencies in
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are taking the lead, controlling the
population by hunting and trapping, but stopping short of
extirpation. .... (cont)
headline:
MT: In the field with a Montana couple hunting wolves
Posted on May 13, 2013 by TWIN Observer
by Neil LaRubbio
We’re hunting wolves on an Arctic December morning in Montana, just
north of Yellowstone National Park. Ryan Counts and Becky Frey lead me
along a hillside above a shelf of open grass and sage known as Decker
Flats. The local hunter gossip pinpointed a pack in this area the
final day of elk hunting season, one week ago, and since wolves
circuitously patrol their territory, they will return soon.
Counts and Frey, a couple who live on a nearby cattle ranch, are
dressed in battered layers of wool. We shuffle down a snow-packed
trail into a sagebrush coulee. Airborne icy particles melt on our
faces. Their little cow dog, Minnie, scares up a pod of mule deer, as
the cobalt sky gently empties into dawn. Suddenly, wild barking erupts
from a steep draw ahead. Frey and Counts lean their rifles against a
boulder and pull out binoculars. Two coyotes yap about 600 yards
below, among fallen ponderosas. Then a new form shoulders through the
trees: an adult male mountain lion. It briefly confronts the coyotes,
then slinks back uphill like a furry commando.
“That right there makes this whole trip worth it,” says Counts. We
chuckle like penguins. Most people never see predators in the wild,
and witnessing the faceoff of two species is extraordinary.
He and Frey refocus their attention on a 75-head elk herd on the edge
of Decker Flats, a quarter-mile in the opposite direction. This is how
they hunt wolves: Find the elk herd and glass the fringes for the
lurking pack.
Congress authorized this hunt when it removed wolves from endangered
species protection in 2011, after more than a decade of court battles.
Environmentalist lawyers had delayed hunting long enough for the total
wolf population in the U.S. Northern Rockies to grow to 1,500 or so —
five times larger than the original goal of the federal wolf-
restoration program.
A previous government program extirpated local wolves in the 1920s,
paying Counts’ grandfather and other hunters a bounty for each wolf
killed. These days, Counts — who’s a hunting guide when he’s not
working on the ranch — accepts the presence of wolves as long as he
can hunt them. He believes in maintaining population control and
relishes the satisfaction of problem-solving the hunt for a smart and
able predator.
While some environmentalists still work to spare wolves from death by
bullet, a new era is already unfolding. State wildlife agencies in
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are taking the lead, controlling the
population by hunting and trapping, but stopping short of
extirpation. .... (cont)
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