Wolves: “The Sad Story of Idaho and Montana”

Ungulate Herds at the Hand of Wolves

Editor’s Note: The following file was written and assembled by Lynn M Stuter, March 24, 2010. The photographs contained in this file are used by permission and the publication of this file on this web site was granted by the author. I have made only a portion of the entire file available here. The entire piece is contained in a pdf including the photographs. I encourage all readers to read the facts and view the photographs.

The pictures you will see in this notebook have been taken in the Lolo Zone in Idaho, Units 10 and 12, except for the first section of pictures of the 6 x 8 bull elk, which were taken 30 miles outside Libby, Montana in the Winter of 2008. None of the pictures are easy to look at; they are actually quite gruesome, quite horrible, but tell a tale of what deer and elk have endured at the hand of wolves in Idaho and Montana.

The people who took the pictures you are about to see of the slaughter in the Lolo Zone of Idaho, showed them to Idaho Fish and Game officials who refused to listen, refused to acknowledge what was obviously rapidly becoming a crisis situation with regard to the health of the Lolo Zone elk herds.

Had Idaho Fish and Game officials been traveling the Lolo Zone as these sportsman were; had they been checking on the health of the herds, as they should have been; they could not have helped but see what these sportsmen saw, they could not have helped but be as alarmed as the sportsmen were and are.

Following are the approximate number of elk in Lolo Zone, Units 10 and 12 —1994 versus 2010. These numbers tell a tale of an already declining herd on which wolves were set and allowed to prey, uncontrolled.

As you look at the following pictures, it is obvious that these elk were not hard to find, that there were many more, just like them, scattered throughout the Lolo Zone, Units 10 and 12; that these are but a representative sampling of the damage that has been done by wolves to the elk herds in this zone.

It is inconceivable, looking at these pictures, that anyone could believe that wolves only prey on the sick, the old, the injured. It is inconceivable that a political agenda could so blind people to the reality of what wolves, in uncontrolled numbers, do to ungulate herds, that they could stand by and watch this happen with no compunction to stop it.

Following are the words of Steve Nadeau, Idaho Fish and Game large predator manager. On May 22, 2008, Nadeau was given the employee of the year award for outstanding management/leadership and coordination by IDFG director Cal Groen.

To finish reading this information and to view the photographs, click this link to view a pdf.