U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel plan to kill three or four wolves that have brazenly approached homes in neighborhoods in and south of Jackson. Wildlife managers most likely will track the wolves to a remote part of their territory with a helicopter and use tranquilizer darts to subdue them, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf manager Mike Jimenez said. Once the animals are captured, they’ll likely be given a lethal injection, he said. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials had considered relocating the animals, but decided against it, Jimenez said. A video posted on YouTube Feb. 23 is said to show two wolves crossing a homeowner’s yard in west Jackson. The two wolves, one black and one white, come within a few dozen feet of the home. The recent wolf activity comes after an incident in January when a Jackson resident photographed three wolves near his home in the Indian Trails subdivision. The two incidents are among numerous sightings, beginning in late December, that show the wolves have made residential areas part of their territory, Jimenez said. The wolves likely are attracted to the area by elk in the nearby Snake River bottom, he said. So far, the wolves have not killed pets or livestock, but Jimenez said he’s received “many, many calls,” most from people who are worried about wolves in their neighborhood. “We don’t think it’s appropriate for healthy wolf management to have wolves expanding into housing developments,” Jimenez said. “We’ve been watching it for a month and what we see is that it’s progressing in the wrong direction...more
One of the wolves had a collar that was working. They set back and watched for a month as the wolves got within 10 feet of homes. Thankfully no children or pets were harmed. But they watched for a month...
6 comments:
Oh no! Wolves in Jackson, WY! Stop the press!
Sounds like the, um, "Westerner" (hard not to laugh when I think of this blogger calling him self a westerner) would rather have Jackson, WY look more like Paris, France than what it really is--a valley in the heart of one of the most wildlife-rich regions in North America. John Colter and pals would laugh at your comments ("oh no, these big bad wolves might, ah, eat some chihuahuas!"). Wolves were here long before cows, wannabe cowboys, or bloggers. Fear must be an awfully lonely bubble to live in.
Jackson, or Jackson Hole as it is properly known, has long since become a haven for rich progressives that love to look at the country but don't really like it that much. They certainly have no clue who John Colter was.
I do not think anonymous posters are in any position to lecture anyone on the concept of fear.
I am a rosinjaw, not a Cowboy. Competitiveness has always been part of Cowboy life in the West, but I have limited respect for this real cowboys vs wannabes business. Actually, I have none. It strikes me as the domain of vain, ignorant people who are very frequently short on still and long on bullshit. They are all in a fight to the death to be the Last True Cowboy, at which point you usually get a sales pitch for a book, a piece or real estate, or some junk you know they got out of some feed store somewhere. The man and the mission have changed greatly over the last 500 years, and it's been declared dead and gone with more times than you've changed a light bulb. The vaqueros didn't think the Texas Cowboys were real cowboys. The drovers did not think the "modern" ranch were "real cowboys." It isn't hard to find a Nevada Buckaroo that'll run down a Texan. You have sites like the Buckaroo Guide who have parlayed the Cowboy equivalent of fashionista into what appears to be a bona-fide career. I am not sure if that passes the ever-changing test for a "real cowboy" career, but we all know that You Cannot Hide From The Buckaroo Guide. I'll tip my hat and kind of slip by. In all fairness, though, I have a really hard time believing that a lot of these supposed defenders of Real Cowboydom are the next Bill Kane or whoever. I certainly do not need an idiot lesson on the ecology of the West, either, and neither does my friend Frank here. We've done our time with that subject.
As to wolves in Jackson Hole, I am less than sympathetic to the folks there. I am sure that there are some people who did not start all this and will suffer, but that is old hat in the present way our country runs. The traditionalist rural have been taking it in the shorts for as long as I have been alive to the benefit of everyone else. I say let them sleep in the bed they made. Just like nobody cared when it was factory workers that got outsourced but got all hepped up when the white collar jobs started to go, I find it hard to get all uppity over the big bad wolf now. I see that things are different now that rich suburbanites are losing their pets or whatever. It is a balancing act, and no matter who gets riled up and what the laws say, it will ultimately balance.
I can assure you that Frank is very real and is far more than a keyboard superhero. He was most certainly born in the West, though I was not and came here when I was young.
The really funny part is that some of these urban folks seem to feel they are entitled to be safer than those who have to live with wolves in their rural areas. Seems to me that if the agencies feel this is a danger, then there are thousands of other incidents that could and should also be considered dangerous and worth lethal control measures.
Did a reread here from the original source. Is this all across the Hole or just the town? And why can we scrag wolves in upper end residential developments while prohibiting same activity in rural areas, but we cannot have different dust rules in Phoenix than we do in Portland?
A lot of people that move into places like Jackson ultimately leave. Sadly, it is not before doing a lot of sometimes unintentional damage. The myth does not square with reality in the West, but nobody ever listens. You really have to make your peace with it. If you can do it, there really is no place better to live.
Colter had the right idea, stretch their hides and then sell them!
Where is the proof in the form of video showing the actual attacks?
Post a Comment