Wolf(es) in Missouri

legn4

I heard on the news couple of days ago.That a bow hunter a month ago shot a 80 lb.wolf near Trenton Mo.(northwest). He mistook it for a coyote, no charges press. Also conservation department has confirmed bear sighting's in Clark,Marion, & Knox Co. (northeast).

---

Work'n like a dog all nite

fredneck

legndid they confirm that it was a wolf or a coydog cross?

Redleg

The confirmed it was a grey wolf with a defunct radio collar. It could be traced to where it was last "seen" in Minnesota. They say that it was sick and dying so it just sort of wandered 600 miles. Wolves are neat.

218Beekeep

What type of bear are we talkin`?.218

He Dog

Black Bear

218Beekeep

Well,....so ya got black bear....doesn`t everybody??.218

guns-n-painthorses

Big Deal.... We have been telling the press and the DNR around here (Logan, Iowa)that we have seen a mountain lion. They acted like we were full of *, untill a lady ran it over and killed it by Harlan Iowa. DNR now says it was a full grown male, and was not a pet. Now we are supposed to keep a eye out for more! No *!

He Dog

Actually .218 no not everybody does have black bear. Haven't been any in Missouri (or very very few) for some years.

Rembrandt

Guns-n-painthorses, my son saw a mountain lion while out deer hunting near Winterset around Pammel Park 3 weeks ago. Officially the Iowa DNR is denying they exist, unofficially they privately acknowledge they're here. Guess some hunter or hiker will have to be killed before they go public and warn people of the dangers. The kids found half a dozen dead coyote carcasses they think were from these mountain lions.BeeKeeper, no bears in Iowa, but we have some mean snarley bad tempered bulls that are just as bad.Then there is the reported sightings of Sasquascth......ooohhhhhhh, sends shivers down my spine! Many a hunter has gone to the woods....never to return again.....

sandman2234

Before I moved from the old residential neighborhood, where there was eleven feet to the property line from each side of the house, and the neighbor's was that much further, we had a fully grown kitty kat in the neighbor's back yard. Seem's it wandered up from Ocala National Forest, tagged and released a little over a hundred miles away. Nothing like a Panther on a tree limb in your back yard to keep the dogs on their toes. Fish and Game commission came out, darted it, and watched it fall and break it's back on the chainlink fence. Living in Jacksonville, Fl, you wouldn't think we would have quite the natural animal attraction of some of the more remote areas.

---

Have Gun, will travel

218Beekeep

Rem.,I was in line at the grocery store again the other day,and as a ritual I like to catch up on my reading while in line.One of the papers was reporting a Bigfoot had abducted a lumberjack,and kept him as a love slave...his wife reports that he is no longer the same man that she married.I was going to inform all of our lumberjack friends on the board...and ask them to please be very careful while in the deep timber!!.218

susie

My folks live in Ripley County, MO, on the state line between Northeast Arksansas and Southeast, MO. We have had black bears there for close to 20 years. My husband and I caught a glimpse of one around Easter on our way to their house. One of the guys who works here in the office said they had a black bear digging out the tee boxes on the golf course where he plays in Cabot, AR, just north of Little Rock. They are all around the area.

Mojorisin

Lots of black bears in southwest corner of MO. near the ARK. line, the conservation dept. has been doing population studies with bait stations for years.The last I read most of the bait station visits occured in Barry county in the Piney wilderness area of the Mark Twain National Forrest.

Mojorisin

Here is a copy of the story as it was released by The MO. Dept of Conservation on their website Michigan wolf finds its way to Missouri This lone wolf made a 600-mile trek, crossing the Mississippi River and countless highways before running afoul of a sheep owner.TRENTON, Mo. -- Call him Ishmael. Or perhaps Marco Polo or Columbus. Whatever you call him, the lone wolf whose wanderlust drove it from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to north-central Missouri was a pioneering sort. Unfortunately for the wolf, the lower Midwest no longer has room for such large carnivores.A Grundy County man was returning from a bowhunt on his land Oct. 23 when he said he saw the 80-pound canine peering into his sheep pen. Taking the predator for a coyote, he nocked an arrow and shot it. He realized his error when he discovered that the animal wore a numbered ear tag and a radio-tracking collar.The hunter could have disposed of the wolf with little fear of discovery. Instead, he correctly took the carcass to Conservation Agent Jeff Berti. Conservation Department officials verified that it was a gray wolf and traced it back to its original capture site near Ironwood, Mich.Records of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources show that the wolf killed here last month was a juvenile weighing 22 pounds when it was caught in July 1999. It was captured in a single foot-hold trap with a litter mate. Each animal was fitted with an ear tag and a radio collar.Michigan DNR officials followed the movements of Wolf No. 18 for nine months, then lost track of it. They had a hard time believing the news when informed of the animal's death here."One of our wolves?" asked Michigan DNR Photographer Dave Kenyon. "No! How far is that?"As the crow flies, the distance from Wolf No. 18's capture site to Grundy County is roughly 450 miles. By highway, or the way a wolf travels, crossing the Mississippi River and countless highways, it's more like 600 miles. That ranks among the longest wolf journeys documented by the Michigan DNR.Young wolves, especially males, are prone to leave their birth places to carve out their own territories. Wolf No. 18 was exceptionally footloose."You have to wonder how many people saw this animal along the way and either kept it to themselves or told people and weren't believed," said Michigan DNR Biologist Dean Beyer.Gray wolves, also known as timber wolves, once lived in Missouri. They were extirpated here and throughout most of the eastern United States by the end of the 19th century. Minnesota retained a wild population, which grew gradually after the species was granted protection. In recent years, Minnesota's gray wolf population has grown rapidly to a current total of 2,445. This led to the species being reclassified from endangered to threatened in Minnesota. The new classification allows more flexibility in dealing with wolves that cause problems for people.Wolves from Minnesota have dispersed into Michigan and Wisconsin, where they have established independent populations and are classified as endangered.Michigan's current wolf population is estimated at about 200. The Michigan DNR hopes to maintain the population at about that level. Wisconsin has an estimated 250 gray wolves, and hopes to develop a stable population of at least 350.The Michigan wolf killed in Missouri is the first gray wolf documented here in modern times. Large coyotes and domestic dogs can resemble wolves, so Conservation Department investigators look for concrete evidence - photos, video, tracks, DNA or other physical evidence - before verifying a wolf sighting.An animal killed by coyote hunters near Hartsburg, Mo., in 2000 at first was believed to be a wolf, but turned out to be a cross between a wolf and a dog. Though such hybrids can look very much like wolves, they lack the fear of humans that purebred wolves have.The gray wolf is classified as federally endangered in the Midwest. However, the species has grown numerous enough in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin that federal officials are considering downgrading its listing to threatened. This would allow more flexibility in managing gray wolves when they cause problems for people. The man who shot the wolf won't be prosecuted, since he was protecting his livestock and reasonably believed the animal was a coyote."For years, we have believed and told people that there were no wild wolves in Missouri," said Conservation Department Wildlife Research Biologist Dave Hamilton. "We can't say that anymore, though the likelihood of seeing a genuine gray wolf here still is extremely small." Hamilton said the Conservation Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have never stocked wolves and have no plans to restore them to Missouri. He said the state lacks wilderness areas large enough to sustain wolves without unacceptable human conflicts.

will270win

Reminds me of that pilot that hit the Navy E-3C, what was his name? Oh yeah, Wong Wei.(wong way)

---

When it absolutely, positively,has to be destroyed overnight.....U.S. MARINES. will270win@aol.com ~Secret Select Society Of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~

legn4

Mojorisin, thanks for the rest of the story. I didn't catch it all on the news.

---

Work'n like a dog all nite