Photos of “wolf killed” game?

Mike-S sent me a number of photos of killed elk, also a deer buck, and a bighorn ram. There were several other photos of the same event, taken from different angles and some others too small I thought to tell much at all. I didn’t put these up.

I created a special web page for the photos.

Note several “Mikes” post to this blog, and I hope they will all use a last name initial or something to distinguish themselves.

So what do folks think?

Pombo’s political demise will likely mean Wild Sky Wilderness bill in Washington State will become law

The benefit’s of Pombo’s loss keep coming in . . .

Wild Sky Wilderness area back in Congress’ sights. Protection may pass by summer. By Charles Pope. Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

This is a very important bill because it includes lowland forests. Most designated Wilderness in Washington State is “rocks and ice,” meaning high elevation or otherwise unproductive forest, tundra, severely steep slopes, and rocks and ice.

Delisting wolves won’t change much in the West . . . Rocky Barker

In this Writers on the Range piece, Rocky Barker, well known author and reporter at the Idaho Statesman opines that despite Governor Otter’s strong anti-wolf statement and all the anti-wolf talk among officials, not all that much will happen to the Idaho wolves.

Delisting wolves won’t change much in the West.

I should add that one promient former wolf manager has indirectly offered a somewhat different opinion, and speculated that he could probably kill 90% of the wolves in Idaho by himself if he had an airplane, pilot, and radio receiver (not that he wanted to do this–indeed, quite the opposite).

Barker is correct that much of the anti-wolf sentiment is not realy sentiment against the animal. It is based on dislike of various groups of each other, and as Barker says, dislike of the federal government. That these things are true should be very obvious from reading the anti-wolf (and pro-wolf too) comments on this blog.

Update: it seems that almost as soon as I posted this about group conflict, folks from all kinds of social groups who don’t like each other weighed to pretty much confirm the paragraph above.

BLM gets an acting director

“Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced James M. Hughes’ appointment Wednesday to replace Kathleen Clarke, who resigned as director in December to return to her home state of Utah.” From New acting BLM director has ties to West. AP (what an informative headline!)

The BLM is the largest of the federal land management agencies, and historically the least competent or professional , bullied by livestock, mineral and energy interests. Matters will not change under this acting director who may serve out the Bush Administration (it may be hard to get a replacement of Kathleen Clarke through the U.S. Senate confirmation).