DISQUS

I believe the date mentioned ,1996, should be 2006:"State wildlife managers unsuccessfully requested permission in 1996 to allow federal trappers to kill more than 40 wolves in the region and now they want to allow hunters to take care of the predators." Wolves were reintroduced into the Frank Church Wilderness in 1995 and 1996. In 1996 where would have been very few or no wolves in the Lolo. The study which Idaho F&G used to make the request was printed in April 2006.
http://fwcb.cfans.umn.edu/courses/FW5603/Idaho_...
USFW found the study did not meet their requirements, for one the sample was very small (the number of cow elk killed was 9) and therefore denied the request.

To katw: you stated "Do you even know what a valid signature is in the state of Idaho? " Yes I do and did. "They could have had 35,000 signatures, doesn’t mean they were all valid. " Obviously they were not. "For a signature to be valid the person has to be a registered voter in the state of Idaho. " These signatures were collected in order to get a ballot measure before the citizens of Idaho. Why collect invalid signatures? " Do you always just blindly read stuff without asking yourself these kinds of questions?" Apparently better than you do.
"So wolves only kill cow elk?" There you go jumping to conclusions again. I said nothing about them eating only cow elk. And no, it is you that missed the point. If killing one old cow is hurting the population then how about the 20,000 that hunters kill.

If a wolf kills an elk it is hurting the population. A hunter's killing an elk doesn't hurt the population? About 20,000 elk killed per year by hunters in Idaho. Oops, forgot the word is harvested not killed.
Elk are fed in Wyoming to appease the cattle industry since they have foreign cows on the former winter range of native elk. CWD is coming to these crowded places.

To Kill All the Wolves
With reference to having about 35,000 signatures on the ballot - not even close.
Quote from 7-29-08 Idaho Statesman
(Headline): "Anti-wolf drive only had quarter of names needed to get on ballot."
"But Mayer has not used the bombastic rhetoric and “angry man” approach that was Gillett’s style. He told me last April that the group missed getting enough signatures by only about 10,000 names."
"However, officials at the Idaho Secretary of State’s office report that only 11,640 valid signatures were submitted to all 44 counties. With 45,893 signatures required, Mayer’s estimate was way off."
If one wolf kills one non-productive cow elk that is not going to survive the winter it is not harming the population. Probably helping by leaving more food for the healthy elk. More is not necessarily better. Why not have 1,000,000 elk in Idaho? Would that be helping the population? I think not.
One positive effect has been the improvement in habitat by keeping elk from hanging out near streams. I sugggest you read some of the findings of William Ripple and Robert Beschta at Oregon State College of Forestry.
Wolves have shaped elk into the great animals they are. Without the wolf elk will become like catle. Wyoming already treats them as such in the winter.