Study finds Montanans are increasingly OK with wolves | Hacker News Reader

Study finds Montanans are increasingly OK with wolves

montanafreepress.org

26 pointsJun815 comments

I was talking with some local Montana hunters and they did not like the wolf presence. Not only do wolves tend to skip out on the ample deer population and focus on elk and moose (thus reducing the availability of the prized game meat), but also that the introduction of the wolves also introduced wasting disease.

Wasting disease is awful and you do not want to eat affected animals. The disease requires both ungulates and the wolves as the parasite lives out part of its life in each.

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/people-predators...

I think it would be expected that any group with increased contact would support additional wolf hunting. The general population dropping in support is likely due to the large population growth and not being familiar with the issue and simply not liking the idea of majestic wolves being killed.

Edit: Looks like I was mixing CWD with the tapeworm parasites and CWD is related to prions

> the introduction of the wolves also introduced wasting disease.

Doesn't look like it, from the CDC:

> CWD was first identified in captive deer in a Colorado research facility in the late 1960s, and in wild deer in 1981.

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/occurrence.html

I should rephrase: introduced to Montana. When there were no wolves in Montana, there was no waiting disease in the local deer, moose, and elk population; at least not enough to matter. Now many hunters wont touch meat with their bare skin until it has been tested.

It's simply false that wasting disease "requires wolves" to propagate. This has been known and studied for many years [0][1]. It's been a large problem here in Colorado for decades despite no wolf population (up until the last few months).

If you would like to learn more, I'd encourage you to read Colorado Parks & Wildlife's management report [2] which includes a lot of good sources and background about its history, epidemiology, and current mitigation plans.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2691594/

[1] https://meridian.allenpress.com/jwd/article/34/3/532/122239/...

[2] https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Hunting/BigGame/CWD/PDF/Co...

Thanks for the info. Looks like I was mixing CWD with the tapeworm parasites and CWD is related to prions

CWD is not a parasite and wolves don't carry it. You might have it mixed up with worms.

Local Montana hunter - I'm a big fan of wolves. They help stop wasting disease by killing and eating sick animals, preventing them from spreading it. They also reduce elk herd sizes that helps prevent overcrowding of water sources and further disease.

Most hunters that complain about wolves are uninformed and/or bad hunters.

EDIT: Or they're hunting private land and are upset they now have competition that might chase the elk herd off.

Being backwards hunters is def a possibility. But hard to argue against wolves as the source since that is how the parasite works. The other effects like preventing overcrowding should be beneficial and especially help waterways as their vegetation on the banks is allowed to grow and mature .

I've still yet to see any in Montana, despite lots of traipsing around. Grizzly bears are still a more common site, here. They've definitely had an impact on the deer and elk populations, though, and one great thing about wolves is that they can pressure herds even when they're on private land.

From Montana, and the bumper sticker has a picture of a wolf and the words "Shoot, Shovel, Shut Up". Perhaps the study was done exclusively in Missoula.

"Increasingly OK with" does not mean absence of wolf shooting truck nut hanging bumper sticker politics.

> Perhaps the study was ...

    Three-quarters of surveyed residents now self-describe as tolerant, up from half in 2017.

    ... researchers sent a survey to 10,000 Montana residents who were separated into four categories:

    * the general population, 

    * landowners with more than 160 acres of land,

    * wolf hunting license holders, and

    * deer and elk license holders.

> done exclusively in Missoula.

No. It was not.

The eight page study summary has the responses over three years broken down by the four groups in Figure 1, Page 2: https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/conservation/...

The only group that didn't change their stance of the years were wolf hunting licence holders; land owners and deer|elk hunters became increasingly in favour of wolves, the general population concurred.

My "perhaps ..." comment was a joking nod to the fact Missoula is described as "the Berkeley of the West". I do appreciate you spending so much time on your Internet comments though.

> so much time on your Internet comments though.

How much time do you think that comment took?

I type fast and I research fast - decades ago I spun up a mineral intelligence company that condensed tens of thousands of (power law distro) terse to quite dense documents per diem.

Extracting the guts from a primary source and countering a bit of lazy snark took seconds.

Again, I am impressed by your magnificent intellect. Thank you for sharing a little history of how your acquired it.

Just wait till politician loses a pony https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/a-wolf-k... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39154949

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