Why the lens restrictions?
Colorado wildlife officials release 5 Oregon wolves in Grand County
- Thread starter RugersGR8
- Start Date
They were afraid that if people got photos that were closer than they wanted, the photographers would be making money from the pictures and the center would get nothing. They did have a program where one was not limited, but I think it cost the photographer something like $500 for something like 1 hour of access.
They still have rules against photographers profiting off of pictures of the various critters.
Yeah, that’s wrong. Elk vary by season and have 10-20K in summer, 4K in winter Elk - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
And Moose are down due to various reasons including hunting and forest fires Moose - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
They hunt moose in Yellowstone?
Typical articles by the feds to justify the reintroduction of wolves. We were in Yellowstone two summers ago. The burned areas are lush with new growth that provides food for wildlife vs the old growth forests.
Do moose stay in Yellowstone? Just because you disagree with what the park service reports doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I believe that could work both ways here.....
You posted an image that had no cited sources and I provided a source of information concerning the numbers of elk and moose in Yellowstone.
Look at any source for the wolf population in Yellowstone, they all say the same as the pic I posted. One doesn't have to be Marlin Perkins or Jim Folwer to understand predator/prey cycles. Predators increase and prey decreases.
Interesting how Yellowstone themselves report differently than the National Park Service does.........
"Wolves vs. Elk Findings
Wolves are altering the abundance, distribution, group sizes, movements and vigilance of elk. There are some indications that these interactions may be causing new growth in willows as elk are kept on the move by wolves and don’t stay to browse in any one area very long.
Elk are the primary prey for wolves, comprising 92 percent of kills during the winter.
In the early stages of wolf recovery (1995-2000) predation effects were not detected because the elk count was similar to 1980-1994.
Counts of elk decreased significantly from 16,791 in winter 1995 to 8,335 in winter 2004 as the number of wolves on the northern range increased from 21 to 106. Factors contributing to this decrease include bear and wolf predation, increased human harvests, winter-kill (1997), and drought’s impact.
Wolves have not reduced mule deer or bison populations. Mule deer remain within 1 percent of a 17-year average of 2,014 deer, while the bison population grew 15 percent. There are no reliable estimates of moose populations following wolf restoration. Moose represent less than 4 percent of wolf diets in winter and only 26 instances of wolf predation on moose were recorded in Yellowstone during 1995-2003.
Kill rates by wolves in winter are 22 ungulates per wolf per year – higher than the 12 ungulates per wolf rate predicted in the ESA.
Since 2000, wolves have caused 45 percent of known deaths and 75 percent of predation deaths (not including human harvests) of radio-collared female elk on the northern range. By comparison, human harvest and winter-kill accounted for 30 percent and 8 percent respectively of the known deaths.
The average annual harvest of 1,372 elk during the Gardiner late elk hunts from 1995 to 2004 was higher than the long-term average of 1,014 elk during 1976-1994. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has reduced antlerless permits by 51 percent from 2,882 to 1,400 during 2000-2004 and recently proposed 100 permits for 2006 – a 96 percent decrease from the 2,660 permits issued in 1995."
https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/gray-wolves-impact-elk/
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