Who's The Bigger Threat?

Check this out; ivories on a whitetail. I talked to the taxidermist at Trails West in Helena and he said he sees maybe one in 500 deer that have these. Elk hunters be jealous.

I had heard about this happening opening weekend south of Helena and it just confirmed what I think about a lot of hunters out there. I hear all the time how wolves and other predators are such a threat to our elk herds and then you see this. Read this article and then let's discuss who's the bigger threat and who should have more rights to hunt in this state.

 

http://m.missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/wardens-elk-hunters-near-helena-were-unethical/article_e11c12d6-30f1-5434-9cda-28dd2894b6bd.html?mobile_touch=true

 

Here's the deal. We've all been there - we've finally gotten that opportunity to make a shot on an elk and we get so jacked up that we start losing our minds. Sometimes that leads to making bad decisions but this goes way beyond that. This isn't someone making a bad decision. This is a group of people gone crazy with the taste of blood and a consorted effort to just kill something. And from what I heard that didn't get written is that a warden actually drove out into this heard of elk to try to disperse them to give them a fair chance and the "hunters" just kept firing. And then they made the wardens out to be the bad guys. Are you fricken serious?

 

And it's not like this is the first time this has happened or the only place it happens. It's an annual event and it occurs all over the state. The last two years I heard of the exact same scenario playing out on the Sieben and Chevallier Ranches where a bunch of elk got cornered in a box canyon and a few guys called their buddies and then a few more called their buddies and eventually dozens of "hunters" showed up to way-lay on them. The elk had nowhere to go and it was a complete slaughter with more animals being shot and wounded than people had tags for. 

 

What this does is it ruins it for those of us that do hunt ethically. Land owners see this and shut down their Block Management Land contracts. FWP puts out fewer tags and may even impose heavier restrictions limiting opportunities and it just gives activists more fuel against hunting. It's the actions of a few that ruin it for the rest of us.

 

Now I get it. For many people out here, hunting is more about harvesting because the meat is used for sustenance but this is ridiculous. There are ethical ways to harvest elk and plenty of opportunities to do so working with ranches and FWP during management hunts. This isn't harvesting. This is just a slaughter and half the people shooting don't even know what they're shooting at or even whether or not they hit something before taking another shot. Please. When you look at these kinds of behaviors versus predators that actually do hunt for sustenance, which is the bigger threat to the wildlife?

 

What happens with these discussions, and I'm sure I'm going to get some kick-back for writing this, is that we as humans, tend to justify everything we do as being put on this earth by God and that we are the superior beings and that the animals have been put here for our use. If you truly believe that then there is no point to the discussion because then you are right; we should be the one's deciding who lives and who dies. When people think that way, wildlife becomes stock and we have the right to kill anything and everything that threatens that stock except other humans...we can villainize the predators and we can call for every one of them to be eradicated because they are killing all of "our" animals but we never look at how our unethical actions impact wildlife or how we create the imbalances in nature that ultimately leads to the degradation.

I actually heard a story from a guy in Idaho who thought all the wolves should be killed because of how viscous they were and how they were killing all the elk just to kill. Supposedly, there was a pack that had a herd of elk trapped in a draw. He talked about how these wolves kept them in there all winter and picked them off one by one as they needed until they killed them all. They didn't stand a chance, he said. This guy actually told me that he got close to that herd once and the wolves ran him off. Are you fricken kidding me? This story seems suspiciously familiar minus the killing just for killing part. 

 

Keep 'em where they live...