May 1, 2012 -- 5:48PM, vra wrote:

May 1, 2012 -- 5:27PM, mytmouse57 wrote:

Getting too close to wildlife is never a good idea. Not just because of human safety, but because it can habituate the animals to easy hand-outs. Habituated animals can lose thier ability to survive on their own. Or, they can lose their fear of people, and eventually attack somebody. When that happens, the animal is almost always destroyed. 

I know your intentions were good -- but it's not a good practice to get into.

That said, hope you get to make more trips to Yellowstone. I cruise through there sometimes during the summer too. Just look for the scruffy guy with a passle of kids and a wife who is too cute for him in a beat-up rig with Wyoming plates on it.  

Normally I would never feed wildlife as such, but the hands that worked where we stayed would feed the fox as well.  I actually got the fox, btw, to actually put his front paws on my lap as I fed him, and that certainly was a rush.  Fortunately, I have a way with animals, which is probably due to the fact that they know they're smarter than I.  However, I would never rely fully on that, and I always think defensively.  As a life-long camper, I've been around many wild critters over the years, and I love both it and them-- except no-see-ums and mosquitoes.

I've been in Yellowstone three times with the last being about 5 years ago, and we always stayed at Pahaska just outside of the East Gate.  My daughter's in-laws lived in Billings, so we typically would come down through Red Lodge, which is a neat drive.  I also have spent some time on the Shoshone/Arapaho Res-- gotta get my fix of fry-bread.  Actually, I'm a retired anthropologist who is a Me'tis, although I wasn't brought up in the tradition of the elders.

Anyhow, I wish we could get out there again, and it would be great if we could meet, but I have my doubts we'll make it there as my wife has a lot of health problems.

Take care. 

Hey, Mosquitos feed many critters, starting with birds. I love all sorts of wildlife too. Nothing I've seen yet beats the rush of seeing a wolf in the wild. I was literally on a buzz for hours the last time I saw one. I don't know -- there's just something about them.

The only thing I think that might beat it would be seeing a wolverine. We have them around here, but they are extremely elusive. Even a "dense" population of wolverines is about one per every 50 square miles or so. I know guys -- including my late father -- who literally spent most of their lives in the outdoors, and never got to lay eyes on a wolverine. 

Pahaska is still there, and doing okay, from what I hear.

Since Billings is the "big city" in these parts, we go there to do our big-box, Cosco and Wal-Mart shopping from time to time. I also have a couple of good friends I went to college with living in Billings. I spent some of my childhood and early adult years farther West in Montana -- Butte, Bozeman, Missoula and Dillon. 

Sorry to hear about your wife's health, hope things get better.

May 1, 2012 -- 5:32PM, vra wrote:

May 1, 2012 -- 4:20PM, rabello wrote:

As an aside, it was in Michigan -- a Great Lakes state -- where my friend's dog (maybe my friend, himself) was almost shot dead by a "shoot-anything-that-moves-Dick Cheney" kind of hunter, who it turns out, was also drunk.  A real "Ted Nugent" kind of guy...Nugent being from Detroit, btw.   With guys like that out there, you wonder why "city slickers" are suspicious of hunters' ethics and behaviors?

 

Better watch what you say there, Bud, as our motto is "Michigan: Where the Weak Are Killed and Eaten".  ;)

BTW, we are now celebrating the fact that Nugent has left and is now living in Texas-- our gain is their loss.

I'm not sure about Ole' Nuge. I've read he's been up on hunting violations more than once. 

There's no doubt, hunters can be their own worst enemies. I had my step-daughter out on one of her first deer hunts last year, and some pea-brains showed up and started blazing away, from behind us, at a deer that was way out of range.

It took me a while to pinpoint where they were, but I finally figured out they were shooting from the road, from inside a pickup, right next to a house.  I was livid, but was not able to get the license plate number. Believe me, I would have turned them in, I know the game wardens around here personally. 

Well, I'll tell ya, mouse, that we did make a trip to Colorado awhile back to visit friends, and we got to see Rocky Mountain National Park.  I was very pleased to be able to get up close and personal for a brief time (along with a lot of other excited tourists) with a herd of elk before they slipped off into the forest.

Seeing the Rocky Mountains wasn't as big a thrill as it might have been had we not lived in a country known for its mountains which are everyday sights to us, but the mountains were awesome just the same.

So, yes, I know where you're coming from when you talk about the wonders of nature.

I just don't go along with killing some of those wonders to keep people in hamburgers.  Goes against my basic thinking that our fellow animals should have the same rights as we do.

And I really don't think humans should try to control what happens in the natural world.

Do you still shoo insects out of your house instead of killing them?  Well, if you do, then you're admitting that they have lives to live that have nothing to do with you, and you're willing to let them do that.

Do you still rescue unwanted dogs?  Well, when you did that, you were showing that you cared about the welfare of another living being.  I just think that that should include deer and wolves, too.  You don't have to adopt them, of course, but why not just let them live their lives however nature intended? 

May 1, 2012 -- 6:39PM, solfeggio wrote:

Well, I'll tell ya, mouse, that we did make a trip to Colorado awhile back to visit friends, and we got to see Rocky Mountain National Park.  I was very pleased to be able to get up close and personal for a brief time (along with a lot of other excited tourists) with a herd of elk before they slipped off into the forest.

Seeing the Rocky Mountains wasn't as big a thrill as it might have been had we not lived in a country known for its mountains which are everyday sights to us, but the mountains were awesome just the same.

So, yes, I know where you're coming from when you talk about the wonders of nature.

I just don't go along with killing some of those wonders to keep people in hamburgers.  Goes against my basic thinking that our fellow animals should have the same rights as we do.

And I really don't think humans should try to control what happens in the natural world.

Do you still shoo insects out of your house instead of killing them?  Well, if you do, then you're admitting that they have lives to live that have nothing to do with you, and you're willing to let them do that.

Do you still rescue unwanted dogs?  Well, when you did that, you were showing that you cared about the welfare of another living being.  I just think that that should include deer and wolves, too.  You don't have to adopt them, of course, but why not just let them live their lives however nature intended? 

Solf, I would love to see the New Zealand Mountains and Countryside. About the nearest I've come to that is watching Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movies -- which were filmed there.

Solf, I see no essential difference between shooing an insect out, adopting a dog, and hunting a deer on its own turf. All are respectful to animals. Plus, in the case of dogs, they are helpless and unable to care for themselves. Deer are wild, and have always been hunted, either by humans or other animals. I'm not making the deer do anything unnatural by hunting them.

As far as "managment," Solf, you need to understand -- it's not a matter of micro-managing everything that does, or does not happen in nature. That would be impossible anyway, given the vast size of the ecosystem out here.

You live in a big city, that's the most altered, human controled environment on Earth. And the place where your city is built was once wild country. So, how can you be upset at others "managing" wildlife, to a degree -- when your enviroment is "managed," down to the last detail, for the benifit of humans? Would grizzly bears and wovles be allowed there? I would think not!

Vast areas of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are still essentially untouched. Wolves, elk, grizzly and numerous other species have millions upon millions of acres to do their thing, without humans trying to mess with or alter any of it. These places include Yellowstone National Park, wilderness areas and National Forests. As one moves further away from the inner core of the wild lands, and closer to human habitation, the degree of human interference, in the name of human interests, gets gradually more intense. This begins with the most remote ranches, into more settled farms and subdivisions... Until, the downtown area of my little town is essentially not all that different from the heart of your big city. Both are "managed" for humans to the highest degree possible.

May 1, 2012 -- 9:11PM, mytmouse57 wrote:

May 1, 2012 -- 7:21PM, arielg wrote:

As I mentioned in an earlier post (to which nobody responded), Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu long ago observed that it is unnatural for humans to think they can control what happens in the natural world and that it is wrong to try.

Solfeggio:

That was a beautiful quote that I did not even respond to because  it is so foreign to the hunter's mentality which prevails in these pages that it would be a waste of time to attempt to include it in the discussion.  It would just go over their heads  and  simply be ignored, like it was.

 

You have no idea how ignorant that statement is.

I'm a hunter, and I'm all for wilderness areas, National Forests, and other areas that are essentially left untouched by human structures, dwellings or roads. So, speak for yourself.

The very concept of National Parks, wilderness areas and National Forests was concived largely by people who were hunter/conservationists?

Every hear of Aldo Leopold? Here's a tip, watch the biographical film on him "The Green Fire," and get back to me.

 

This is the quote Solfeggio was referring to.

It is the complete opposite of your position and philosophy.

 Finally, there is a quote by the founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu:

The world is ruled by letting

things take their course

It cannot be ruled by interferring