More news from Wyoming where wolves have killed all the big game. Not!

Of course, wolves haven’t and these recent articles indicate. This new info is just short of incredible given all the ranting and raving by Wyoming politicians and some hunting organizations over the last ten years about how the wolf had decimated the elk.
April 26. Wyoming Game and Fish proposes additional hunting licenses to offset forage shortage. By Brodie Farquhar. Jackson Hole Star-Tribune correspondent.

The drought has greatly reduced the forage and so the number of animals needs to be reduced, but the elk and most other ungulate populations are well over objectives. Of course, the drought is not a happy situation because it will reduce the number of elk and deer, and pronghorn, but the point here is the problem is not wolves. We can imagine, however, that once drought and hunting have reduced the numbers, wolves will be blamed for the reduced numbers.

May 12. Wyoming Game and Fish predicts good hunting. By Ben Neary. Casper Star Tribune. “”Elk are probably at an all-time high historically,” said Bill Rudd, assistant chief for of the wildlife division for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in Cheyenne.”

New. May 17. Elk numbers soar as hunting seasons set. Wyo. population grows to 99,867 animals, 17 percent above objectives. By By Angus M. Thuermer Jr. Jackson Hole News and Guide.

Rural Electrification Administration is an old, New Deal program that has become little more than program for polluters

The REA was created during the New Deal to bring electricity, light and hope to poor rural areas that private utilities did not find it worthwhile to electrify.

Many years later the agency is still around and uses your taxpayer money to subsidize the construction of polluting coal-fired power plants to areas that are now neither poor nor rural.

The REA should be abolished.

Story. U.S. loaning billions for carbon-spewing plants. By Steven Mufson.The Washington Post

Bush presents a minimal climate change plan

The President announced a plan to reduce reliance on foreign oil and reduce emissions, but almost all of it would take place after he has left office, and it is very modest.

In fact, one part of his plan might seek to reverse what states have already done on their own to tackle the climate change problem.

Critics aren’t convinced by Bush’s carbon plan. MSNBC.

Cutthroat rapidly losing out to lake trout in Yellowstone Lake

Cutthroat losing out to lake trout in Yellowstone Lake. Native trout numbers lowest since counting began. By Mike Stark. Of The Billings Gazette Staff.

The situation is more dire than I thought possible. It is a catastrophe for Yellowstone wildlife and all those who enjoyed fishing the tributaries to the lake. Those is in boats, who fish deep, may not be as unhappy.

It appears to me from what I have read, that the introduction of the voracious lake trout, which does not make itself available to surface predators because it lives deep, was an accident resulting from fighting the 1988 Yellowstone Park forest fires. That’s about the date (1988) nailed down for the oldest Yellowstone Lake, lake trout.

The firefighting involved large helicopters dipping huge buckets into the lakes and pouring them on the fires. Nearby Lewis and Heart Lakes had no trout before the Park was established. Lake trout were stocked in them.

Because Lewis Lake is close to Yellowstone Lake and fires were raging the in subtle topography around and between the two lakes, I think a helicopter dipped water from Lewis Lake (with lake trout) included, and dumped it in on a fire in a tributary of Yellowstone Lake. A few lake trout survived and took up residence in West Thumb, the part of Yellowstone Lake closest to Lewis Lake. This is also the place where high lake trout numbers were first observed.

I had thought the Park’s deep net fishing for the lake trout in Yellowstone Lake was making progress, but apparently not, despite pulling in thousands of lake trout.

The lake trout eat the cutthroat trout. The cutts feed at or near the surface, and make spawning runs up creeks to lay their eggs. This used to be of great importance of many kinds of Yellowstone wildlife. The lake trout are born, live and die in the deep.

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