Welcome to EVEN WOLVES DREAM IV. Thanks for stopping by! Please be patient. Load time is a little slow. The wait Will be worth it. Enjoy the music "Dances with Wolves".

The sense of place that draws me back and haunts my dreams, isn't really here in the camp,
It's somewhere out there.

The water is so clear that I can see sizable greyling darting away from my mule's hoofs, as they become blurs past, a few short feet beneath me.

Hours later, in the fading scarlet light of the aurora borealis, I sit on a high ridge above the lake. The mountains sweep up on all sides, cradling the ever darkening canyons in its hands. Except for an occasional cool wind falling from the north, the silence is absolute.

Between soft and short melodies played on my end-blown maple flute, I whisper to the mountains, "I've come home". They don't even glance away. Home, I say to the mountains. There is no reply, just absolute silence.

As I sit alone, starring at the star studded sky far above, waiting for the welcome that will never be offered, knowing that I haven't been missed, I remain just another harvester of natures treasures.

Graeme Stevenson Print

On many occassions predator math is easy for the normal average adult but it seems to be quite difficult for game department biologists. Here is a prime example:

Conversation between Game Biologist "A" and Environmental Biologist "B".

Game Biologist "A" verbally indicates to Environmental Biologist "B" that the average adult wolf kills one deer per week.

Biologist "B" says, "Yeah, right around there."

Game Biologist "A" replies that the average adult wolf kills about fifty (50) deer per year.

Biologist "B" acknowledges and agrees.

Then Game Biologist "A" asks how many wolves are in the borough/provience?

Our Environmental Biologist "B" replies that there are several thousand within the borough.

So our Game Biologist "A" states that mathmatically speaking (lets make the arithmetic easy and call it 2000 wolves). So at 50 deer per wolf, 2000 wolves eat 100,000 deer per year.

The Environmental Biologist "B" replies, "Oh no, it can't be that many".

These days, the politically correct line of thinking is that predators don't affect the game populations much.

This is indeed a product of obsolete teaching and scientific wildland studies within the realm of the Canis lupus. Current research is showing that deer poplations have drastically dropped across the northern sector of the United Sates, vast areas of Canada and some sections of Alaska this past decade.

Our noted biologists are quick to point out several factors that can contibuted to the success and/or failure of a specific species within a certain geographical area.

The factors are as follows but not limited to:
1.) Loss of Habitat
2.) Competition from domestic cattle & elk
3.) Hard winters & dry summers in exteme

The official line appears to be that wolves eat deer and elk in proportionate numbers while leaving plenty for human harvesters. It has been widely published, given good habitat, our natural deer population will take care of any predator loss. But more recent studies suggest otherwise.

Since 1972 when then President of the United States Richard M. Nixon signed legislation which banned poisioning of predators on public lands and with the construction and impletation of the flawed 1973 Endangered Species Act, the wolf, the mountain lion and even the coyote populations have risen to levels of concern for other directly related food chain species.

Numerous present day biologists and environmental activists inconjunction with a majority of the American public believe that the "benevolent" carnivores only kill as much as they can eat (the old, the weak, the sick, and genetically defective), leaving ample healthy young to reproduce. This is their "Balance of Nature", but in reality we are in the midst of an "Imbalance of Nature."

With no intension of passing judgement, I have personally viewed many "Circles of kill" in the northern circumference of the Alaskan Brooks Mountain Range of which the resident wolf pack never returned to the partially eaten kill although the carcaes provided hearty meals for a splattering of fur and feathered species.

L. David Mech is without question the most famous and noted wolf research biologist on the continent states within his book, The Wolf: the ecology and behavior of an enangered species:
Mech wrote, "During two decades of wolf research, I have learned that, far from always being balaced, ratios of wolves and prey can fluctuate wildly. Wolves may actually starve after killing off almost all of he moose and deer in an area. This explains why wolf control programs may sometimes ensure greater and more stable numbers of both wolves and the animals they hunt".

It is my opinion that within the North American continent game departments are having a hard time balancing wolves and human wants. Wolves are a true part of our hertitage as is the bald eagle but the wolf is also a huge political headache within the ever changing world of today.

It has been lectured to me on several occassions within the bush and out that more and more biologists suspect that we need at least some natuaral predators in conjuction with human harvesters, to prevent some species from eating their own habitat down to the dirt.

One example might possibly be that of the whitetail deer. Hunters have long claimed that we need to hunt deer and elk to relpace the vanished predators of wilderness America. Often, we haven't shown that we can do that. Even with extremely liberal hunting seasons, whitetail deer are becoming a plague of sorts over much of the eastern half of the United States.

The whitetail deer are in the midst of browsing the ground cover so severely that birds like the ruffed grouse and the bobwhite quail have become rare over much of their former range. Elk are becoming a problem, despite record hunting sucess. It is being documented that Minnesota's reintroduction of the wolf are in the midst of eating themselves out of much of the northern half of the state. The northern half of the state was supposedly to support the wolves in balance with whitetail deer, but the most recent count of wolves within this sector is in the neighborhood of 3,000 wolves. For "Official Recovery" the wolves in Minnesota needeed to reach a population of 1200 to 1500, not 3000.

The numerous wolf recovery programs throught the United States, Canada & Mexico is an honorable one and essential to the reestablishment of the wolf. The agreements to reestablish wolves with proven breeding pairs appears to be working quite well from all published reports and that extra wolves can be controlled...but will the American public in the lower 48 states allow any wolves to be harvested?

SOME PREDATOR? Any human interference in the wise ways of nature will never be acceptable to the fringe of the new "environmentalist," but Homo sapiens live here too, along with the wolves, the mountain lion, the coyote, the deer and the elk.

The hardest part lies in finding ways for all of us to live together.

It is my belief that here in the north sub-arctic and arctic regions of Alaska, escape speed coupled with endurance against wolf pursuit, rather than making a fighting stand, is the primary defense of the barren ground caribou against wolf predation.

It is beyond my belief based on my own personal research coupled with my field observations over a span of seven years in the Arctic bush that wolves primarily take the sick and injured, the aged and immature, and those animals that have severe infestations of parasites.

Wolves have the strength, stamina, speed and killing equipment to bring down the fit and strong, as they often do on a rather regular basis. However, attacking a fit and powerful ungulate, such as a prime moose of either sex presents a considerably greater hazard factor that wolves under most conditions, are unwilling to accept.

I am informed by noted in-field biologists that the general belief that the wolf preys only on the "unfit" holds more truth on the rolling barren grounds of the far north than it does within the lower Canadian Rockies.

Just because one animal kills and eats another doesn't necessarily make it a villian. The Wolf, the Caribou, the Wolverine, the Fox, the Moose and even the Ravens and Magpies do the best they can with the equipment that nature has given them, to survive in a sometimes bitterly harsh wilderness environment. The wilderness plays no favorites.

On a couple of occassions and strictly by chance, I have observed singular juvenile two-year old pups dead in the immediate area of wolf kills. I suspect that the juvenile pups were killed by the sweep of antlers and deadly hoofs. These unfortunate juveniles become only carrion in the frozen snow within mother natures unforgiving wilderness.

I further suspect that wolf hunting accidents result in the major cause of mortality during the first two years of a wolf's life.

With the decline of the Russian ruble to less than a third of its value a year or so ago it resulted in the sale of wild furs at a loss.

U.S. fur dealers held with over-stocked goods were forced to sell at a loss. Ironically Canadian fur trappers have quotas and are required to harvest a minimum of fur bearing animals.

Wild Fur Prices as of January, 1999 were as follows:

Beaver: $20 to a high of $30 dollars tops.
Otter: $50.00 (Far-East demand high)
Muskrat: $1.50 to $2.00
Nutria: $7.50 to a high of $10.00
Raccoon: $15.00 (Minn, Wisconsin & Dakotas)
Raccoon: $10.00 (Eastern U.S.)
Lynx: $75.00 to $100.00 (Rocky Mts)
Lynx: $50 to $60 (Southwest)
Lynx: $25 to $40.00 (Northern)
Canadian Lynx: $50 to a high of $75.00
Grey Fox: $5.00 to a high of $7.00
Red Fox: $10.00
Kit/Swift Fox: $25 to a high of $30 (Montana & Alberta)
Coyote: $20.00 tops..$15.00 (northeastern)
Fisher: $25 to $30.00 tops
Marten: $15 to $20.00 (AK & Canada)
Badger: $25.00 tops
Stripped Skunk: $4.00 to $6.00 tops
Opossum: $1.00 to $2.00 tops
Weasel: $2.00 to $3.00
Red Squirrel: $0.75 tops
Arctic Wolf: $300 to $400 tops
Grey Wolf: $200.00 tops
Timber Wolf: $100.00 tops
Wolverine: $200 to $250 tops

Prices given are current as of 01/01/99. These prices reflect what a fur trapper might receive from a government licensed fur buyer for properly spread and dried pelts.

Fur prices fluctuate throughout the season and vary by geographical areas and pelt quality. This listing is provided for the purposes of education and should not be consulted.

This hasn't anything to do with the great Amagug but it is just to good to pass up:

A beaver pond that dates back more than 3.5 million years has been uncovered on Ellesmere Island, some 1,900 kilometers north of Canada's tree line. The pond is locked in permafrost and so well preserved by the cold and acidfree soil conditions that wood bearing the cuts of beaver teeth from 3.5 million years ago is still fresh enough to burn.

Paleo-biologist Richard Harrigton, of the Canadian Museum of Nature calculated the size of the beaver from the tooth marks and estimates that the ancient Castor Canadensis grew to the size of a modern day bear before becoming extinct about 10,000 years ago.

The Wyoming Fish & Game Department is currently polling the states registered trappers to gather information on the distribution and abundance of wildlife.

"They probably know more about some of the species like the wolf, the lynx and the black-footed ferrets than anyone else in the state." A release quoted Jay Lawson, chief game warden. "It would be a shame for this knowledge to disappear."

"These oldtimers lived closer to the wildlife than almost any other group and the nature of their work forced them to pay close attention to population trends. "Many of the old trappers kept journals and most have some indepth records showing annual fur sales".

It is hoped that the states trappers will take the time to complete the survey, and makes any written comments they believe will help wildlife.

State Fish & Game surveys went to 400 of the states estimated 1,500 trappers. Information gathered from the returned surveys will be used to promote trapping in Wyoming and also to improve wildlife management. None of the survey comments or specific trapper information will be attributed to a particular trapper.

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