Part of the traveling show of anti-wolf organizers is pictures of half eaten elk and sometimes cattle. Ron Gilett of the Idaho anti-wolf coalition recently passed around a large portfolio of dead animals at the Idaho Press Club convention at which we both spoke.Do these pictures prove that wolves kill for fun and leave the meat?
If you are already convinced that they do, then I suppose the photos will be "proof." However, as a teenager I learned that when you go into the woods and find a half-eaten dead animal, the prudent thing to think is that the kill belongs to an animal or animals that are nearby. You should be cautious. That it is abandoned is probably wrong.
Does anyone suppose a pack wolves is not going to hide when a bunch of people show up? A grizzly might not, but wolves unaccustomed to people at close range, are not going to hang around. Their skittishness might even cause them to abandon their kill. This is especially true in Idaho and Montana where wolf packs are smaller. They can't eat their kill in one meal. They eat until they are full. Then they sleep and socialize. Then they return, often 3 or 4 times. This is especially true in the winter, because the cold weather keeps the meat fresh.
The prime example of "surplus" killing often cited was several winters ago on the Gros Ventre River elk feedgrounds in Wyoming. The wolves would kill an elk at night and feed a bit. The next morning irritated employees of Wyoming Game and Fish would drag off the elk carcass, and eventually a pile of them accumulated next the snowmobile road. The message, intentional or not, was "look at the wasted meat." Of course, the wolves were not likely to retrieve their kills in an area that smelled so of people and machines.
The next winter Wyoming Game and Fish ended the practice, and no more "surplus" kills were detected.
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Copyright ©2004 Ralph Maughan
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