"Greenpeace, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and other green lovers use photos just like this one to guilt good liberals just like you into giving them money ALL THE TIME."
Actually, that's called "being a sucker". Perhaps now it would be called "wrong choiced". Whatever, feel good about yourselves. That's all that matters.
Also, Nevermind the fact that the full grown version would eat you under natural circumstances 
Just as long as we don't get ANY DAMN OIL. Enjoy the fruits of your egocentricity.
Morons.
Ever been in a snow bound scene, and cornered by wolves?
They lose their charm real fast.
You are food. THEIR FOOD.
You gotta do much better about appealing for real shit to generate a revenue stream in here, Doc.
The others, have.
Harumph.
Generally, wolves main diet staple is field mice. They eat weakened caraboo and other animals -- you know, cull the herd etc. Humans are not their natural prey, though if you threaten them or their habitat, they may take a bite back....
They are, after all, the ancestor of dogs. It's built in to us to think they're cute.
And it has nothing to do with oil -- ruining ANWAR wouldn't bring the price down at the pump at all. There's no free market here: it's a monopoly and they therefore have no motivation whatsoever to lower the price. They would just make more profit.
Why do you suppose that diesel, which is cheaper to make than gasoline, and was always a fraction of the price of gas because of it, is now more expensive than gasoline? What sets the price is not production cost, but "What the market will bear."
Kim, weakened animals it is . . . . be it human or any other kind.
Wolves, they WILL survive, if not shot.
Predators. Period.
But unlike big cats, like mountain lions, or puma's or what EVER ya wanna call them, wolves don't have a real predatory place other than scavengers, in the food of mama nature's chain . . .
And they WILL surround, and take out, humans, in the wilderness . . .
There's no reason, other than some jive ass emotive response to species protection, to protect them, much less save them.
They are not essential in the food chain, other than scavengers. The rest is folk lore, and hyperbole.
The wolves and coyotes can die, and I doubt we'll lose much in the chain of things that the buzzards can't handle . . . but I'm not a wildlife biologist . . . if one wades in here, and schools me different, I'm open to the change . . .*G*
Harumph.
Wolf cub fricasse, a recipe would be a good thing to have for those times when you are lost in ANWAR and pack is closing in.
Wolf cubs? Love the little things, baked boiled or in a stew. ( apologies to Chester Fields' father.)
The check is in the mail.
I'm glad I have a supply of insulin handy - that much Cute this early in the morning can bring on hyperglycemia.
Human beings sometimes fail to realize fully that when they go traipsing into the woods or into the jungles or into the sea they re-enter the food chain as an entry-level position.
What The Wanderer said.
There was a point many years ago when I was hiking around Mt. Rainer. (Obviously, before I was injured; I could still walk.)
I still believed I was twenty to twenty-five, and over-packed with roughly one-third my body weight. Hell... I used to hike with half my body weight back in the fucking day; one third couldn't be that bad, could it? Oh yeah baby, it sure as hell could.
When I'd put on the extra mass and had to oxygenate as well as carry it up 10-15% grades, the extra weight which was nothing at eighteen or twenty-six nearly fucking killed me.
In addition like a fool, I was pretty much trying to sprint around the Wonderland Trail in only eight day, instead of a more reasonable two weeks. I was an idiot.
Second day in (with Sunrise as my goal -- a twenty mile day when I shouldn't have been trying for more than ten) I had blisters the size of my hand all over (we're talking blisters on top of blisters which were broken and oozing and then broken and fucking bleeding and oozing some more) on both feet and in between my toes and heels and on the top of my feet (everywhere my boots touched my foot; every-fucking-where) and my groin was raw as in an open wound from mid thigh to my unmentionables. I suppressed screaming with each step.
How that relates to the comments in this thread about being out in the wilderness and being eaten, and so on, is simple.
There was a point where a) I realized I was going to have to get out of there on my own. The world's worst case of chaffing and massive blisters to the point you can't fucking walk, was NOT an excuse to call a fucking dustoff. (I mean, yeah, some people would.)
Seriously, some people would do that. I know, because I've dusted off people for less than that. *laughs* But I'd be god dammed if I was going to be one of them. Those people.
I walked in and I was walking out, even if walking out was defined as dragging my body out on two bleeding stumps of my hands with the remains of what used to be my feet behind me. Oh Gods, sweat in open wounds... *shudders*
Anyway, I kept going.
b) I looked up at Rainer and noticed something. The fucking mountain did not give a shit. It didn't even notice me. I was a bug crawling across its face, not even a bug. I was something way too small and with way too short a lifespan for a mountain which lives a million plus years to pay attention to. I could live or die right there on the side of the mountain that day/night, and THE MOUNTAIN WOULD NOT CARE or even notice. I was at best, fertilizer.
Surprisingly this gave me enormous relief.
I didn't matter. I didn't have to worry about protecting "me." All I had to do was get my body out alive and the "me" part would take care of itself. I mean shit, it always does. But for that day, till I could stop walking, I didn't have to worry about "me." I just had to put one foot down, then another, then another and not stop. Also, not be eaten by the black bears or mountain lions.
So that's what I did.
Took twelve-fourteen freaking hours more. Came off the mountain at two-thirty am, one step at a time. It was another mile to the camp ground outside of Sunrise. Said "fuck this" and laid my pad and sack down in the far corner of the men's bathroom, a long row of toilet's with a door that closed outward -- no bear could get in.
Next morning found the pay phone, called home collect and got someone to drive up and get me. Wasn't able to walk normal for near ten days.
The wilderness is not ours. If we're not prepared we can die very quickly. I walked into the wilderness living in my head, ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter. Fail.
The mountain didn't care about me at ALL.
that wolf ain't that cute
this is cute
http://icanhascheezburger.com/20...s-i-tink-i-can/
George Whosane Carlin, you are the moron if you are as unaware as you appear to be of the fact that wolves DON'T eat people. Fool!
Oh and WolfHaven ROCKS!
larue, find me 10 documented cases of wolves attacking humans! Have fun in your search for that!!!
Jesse, great anecdote, and you pointed a very strong moral. The Universe has no regard whatsoever for us as individuals (unless you're a pantheist, which I am on occasions), and even as a species once we're gone the Universe will still swan about "in maiden meditation, fancy free."
Jesse...
You need to work that comment into a front page post.
Seriously.
Seriously.
If Jesse hadn't told that story, this daughter of the High Sierra might have. I did the same kind of shit when I was in my teens and twenties, hiking into Kings Canyon National Park from the east side (the park's eastern border follows the Sierra crest), climbing Mt. Whitney (at 14,495 feet the highest peak in the lower 48 ),and hiking pretty much all of Yosemite, also east to west.
No wolves in that stretch of that Sierra now, not for a long time. But there are bears around every corner, not to mention nasty little sidewinder rattlesnakes hiding in the granite up to about 9,000 feet or so. (Do NO hestitate to call for a chopper if one bites you.) And above that, there's altitude sickness, which is no freaking joke. Climbing 3000 feet a day is plenty.
But the biggest killer in the Sierra is the weather, which comes up wickedly fast and hard in July, and usually manages to kill one or two hikers every summer. Those who go in prepared for this, with heavy clothes and a sturdy tent and enough fuel to make warm food for the duration, will survive it. Those who think they can pare down their packs by going in with out this stuff often don't make it back out at all.
for anyone who thinks that the loss of wolves and coyotes (although coyotes are one of the few animals who have actually expanded their numbers and range, mostly to fill the void left by the extermination of wolves) would be handled by the buzzards even western ranchers have found that their yields increase when the alpha predators are at work on the range.
it works like this:
wolves and coyotes eat mice, other rodents, and deer (old, sick, and very young mostly) which compete with cattle for forage.
they do a lot of cleanup of detrius of nature.
(the apache have found that they are also very effective at keeping dumbass white folks outta our woods, leaves more elk for us)
jesse: i had that very same revealation deep in the central highlands. i was on my first lrrp and we had stopped for the umpteenth fucking time to take leaches off of each other and i was totally freaked and grossed out. i was shivering and almost at the point of sobbing. i was so freaked i didn't care if everybody thought i was a lightweight. i was ready to go all vegetarian and shit. i was mumbling shit like this jungle's out to get me. an old meo tribesman from cambodia was acting as a scout for us and he put his hand on my shoulder and gently said:
jungle no get you.
jungle no care.
that perspective allowed me to quit viewing the land as an advesary and instead as an indifferent entity. it allowed me to find the things in the jungle that could be turned to my advantage.
give me indifference over hostility anytime. i can work with that shit.
They are, after all, the ancestor of dogs. It's built in to us to think they're cute.
Kim C: It's the other way around: Dogs--domestic dogs--have it built in them to be cute.
I love my mutt more than I can say (and how weird is it that I even have a close friendship with a member of another species?), but I do so because evoking affection is his job. Domestic dogs are, to be blunt, a parasite species; they simply can't get on without us. A pet dog left to go feral has a life expectancy of about a year. (Compare cats; what good-sized city doesn't have a few colonies of full-blown wild Felis catus [can't really call them "house cats"]?)
Wolves, not so much. What's built in us to find cute, is babies. Baby animals are adorable. Even wolves, like in the picture.
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