http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/20/international/i070855S61.DTL

Last ditch effort to get some breeding going will probably fail, according to rhino experts.

Crap.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I can tell you that I have not seen any of them lately . . . .

__________________
" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

HA! I thought it was a political thread.

__________________

1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

Wasn't that long ago they were chewing up our yard and giving our dogs and cattle fits. Now they're nowhere to be seen.

I dunno, I think the rhino is a cool animal. So prehistoric looking. Well, any animal has long roots in pre-history but the rhino just looks way old. I'd rather loose the hippo than the rhino.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Yea.... I thought it was some kind of "fat joke"?


Sad story.... I'm sure more species will follow. We (humans) are the virus of the earth. We will continue to destroy, consume and over populate every area on this planet until nothing is left or until the earth gets sick of us and "sloughs us off".

__________________
AJ

1985 300D (SOLD)

Are Hunters Stupid? The Unintended Consequences of Wolf Hunting


By George Wuerthner,
George Wuerthner

In my younger days I worked for the BLM in Boise, Idaho. A new range con, named Daryl, came to the district. On Friday after work, we invited Daryl to a party so he could meet some of the local folks. I was talking to a couple of women when Daryl ambled up to us with a beer in his hand and big smile on his face. I introduced him and he started talking to the ladies.
I think on the whole he was making a good impression. Dressed in his cowboy boots and jeans, Daryl made a striking figure. After making some small talk for a while, Daryl made his move. He asked them if they wanted to go gopher shooting on Saturday. “Gopher shooting” they asked incredulously? “Yeah, he said, “gopher hunting—you know blowing away gophers.” They looked stunned and remained silent. So Daryl tried to recover and said, “The fun part is seeing the red mist rise in the air when you hit one. It’s an incredible rush,” he said with obvious enthusiasm.
Those women just looked at each other like they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. He might as well ask them if they wanted to go the park and molest children. The women fled. Daryl was left baffled and standing alone. He just couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to go blow away gophers, especially when he offered to bring a spare rifle so they could join in the fun.
Poor Daryl had grown up on a farm in North Dakota, and more recently had worked in Burns Oregon. In his world, shooting gophers was considered a legitimate recreational pastime. But what passes for fun in rural America seems like senseless killing to most urban dwellers.
Sometimes I think most hunters in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are as clueless as Daryl. They can’t seem to comprehend how killing wolves baffles, if not outright infuriates, a lot of people. Wolf killing gives fodder to those who want to stop all hunting. Sometimes when I see these rural rubes, strutting around celebrating the initiation of a wolf hunting season and talking about how it’s an “adrenaline rush” to shoot one, I have to wonder if they are brain dead or just incredibly naïve and ignorant about the rest of mainstream society’s values? They apparently cannot imagine how much some forms of hunting, including the shooting of an icon like the wolf, turns off the rest of society to hunting.
Most people don’t hunt, so the perception of hunting and hunters is key to how society will tolerate and support hunting as a legitimate activity. Yet most hunters seem to take the knee jerk attitude that anyone who objects to any form of hunting or kind of hunting, no matter how barbaric, is either a member of PETA, or just doesn’t “understand” Nature. The truth is that many of those objecting to wolf hunting are neither ignorant of ecology nor members of PETA or any other animal rights organization.
Americans are willing to accept some forms of hunting, typically if the animal is used for food and/or if there is a legitimate safety issue—say animals carry rabies. But they don’t support outright slaughter of animals for no reason other than someone thinks killing is fun or a challenge. I and many of my friends hunt—but we all eat the animals we kill, and we don’t kill animals unnecessarily or with malice against them.

Furthermore, many Americans, including myself, consider spotting a wolf in the wild as a cherished event. Despite the claims by some hunters that there are “too many” wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, the chance of seeing one of these animals in the wild is extremely rare. There are less than 2000 wolves spread over three of the largest western states. Imagine if there were only 2000 deer spread over all three states—would hunters think there were “too many?”
Plus, for many Americans, wolves are symbolic of a largely lost heritage of the wild, unfettered nature. And for some, such as myself, wolf restoration represents the best of American values—acknowledging the great ecological wrong we imposed upon the land when we extirpated wolves, and an attempt to heal the ecological wounds we created. So the idea that any state would implement a policy to restrict or reduce wolves is something to strongly oppose.
As the ecologist Aldo Leopold noted years ago, wolves also play an important biological role as a top down predator that has many ecological ramifications across the landscape. Unfortunately most hunters have not yet developed the ability to “think like a mountain” as Leopold admonished.
We do know that wolves select different animals in the herd from hunters. Wolves, while opportunistic, still tend to kill the young, old, and injured. They can keep herd animals free from disease and can sometimes have significant influence upon other animals and plants. For example, it’s theorized that hey alter habitat use by ungulates, for instance, moving elk out of riparian areas. Even when wolves severely reduce prey numbers, they are performing an important ecological function by providing plant communities respite from heavy browsing pressure.
Hunters by contrast, tend to kill the productive age healthy animals, and have less ecological influence upon prey species and habitat use than native predators.
Of course, some hunters rationalize killing wolves because they suggest the animals “need” to be managed. I hear that all the time, as if somehow the natural world had gone to hell in a hand-basket before Euro Americans arrived just in the nick of time to rescue Nature from imminent collapse. Of course, the “need” to manage wolves is both a self-created and self-justifying excuse to kill animals that most hunters wish would just go away or at least believe should be kept at much lower numbers.
All this talk about the so called “need” to manage wolves is disingenuous at best. Any good ecologist will tell you that wolves and other predators do not need to be “managed” since they are more or less self-regulating by prey availability and social interactions. The only reason one has to “manage” wolves is because state wildlife agencies want to sell more hunting licenses. (There may be rare instances where lethal action is necessary where an animal may have become habituated to people and poses a safety concern, but that is entirely different than “sport hunting”.)
I doubt most agencies care about predator social interactions. They treat wolves and other predators like cogs in a wheel—interchangeable parts. Shoot some wolves. Not to worry, more will be born. But the interactions between wolves, prey, and humans are not so simple. Animals have real social lives that influence many aspects of their behavior.
Indiscriminate hunting, by disrupting these social relationships, can exacerbate the conflicts between wolves and humans. Killing a large percentage of wolves in any area creates many of the so called “problems” that hunting is supposed to reduce. Indiscriminate hunting and reduction of wolves (as opposed to the surgical elimination of a particular animal or group) skews the local population towards younger animals which are less skilled hunters, thus more likely to attack easy prey like livestock.
Also with more young animals breeding, that produce more pups, you actually increase the total biomass requirements of packs so that even if they don’t prey on livestock, wolves are likely to need more prey—i.e. those elk, deer, and moose that hunters covet. Nothing will do more to create animosity and conflict towards predators than hunting. But you won’t hear this from any state wildlife agency since it’s not in their interest to worry about social interactions of animals.
Yet if you read hunting magazines and/or listen to hunters discussing the future of their favorite activity, you find a common theme is that predators are destroying game herds, and the “antis” are out to take away their guns. The “antis” are, of course, anyone else who doesn’t hunt. Most hunters spend more time complaining about the “antis” than doing anything meaningful to protect the habitat that is central to all hunting.

The real threat to hunting doesn’t come from PETA or any other animal rights group, but from the habitat loss resulting from oil drilling, logging, livestock grazing, ATVs, sprawl, and all the rest of the development and degradation of natural landscapes that continues unabated daily. Some hunters and some pro hunting organizations like the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, among others recognize this, and certainly most agency biologists are well aware of this threat, but the average hunter seems less interested in protesting against oil wells, expanding ATV use, and/or sprawl than complaining about the antis.
If hunters want to help realize their worst fears—that is fuel opposition to hunting by society--they could find no better way to do this than continue blowing away wolves. But if Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho want to signal to the world that they have entered the 21st Century and no longer hold archaic and outdated ideas about predators, they can begin to value wolves as essential for ecological diversity, as well as their role in the American imagination as symbols of what we are doing right to heal the ecological wounds we created. The way to do this is to stop the hunting of all predators starting with wolves.
.

[QUOTE=snookwhaler;2365592]

Sad story.... I'm sure more species will follow. We (humans) are the virus of the earth. We will continue to destroy, consume and over populate every area on this planet until nothing is left or until the earth gets sick of us and "sloughs us off .Grey Wolf Taken Off Endangered List


May 4, 2009 -- The grey wolf was Monday taken off the U.S. list of endangered species, making a comeback 35 years after it virtually disappeared and can now be hunted in most states, officials said.
"We have recovered a wolf population," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, based in Montana.
"The populations are viable, they are in great shape, they have extreme genetic diversity and so the endangered species act did its job to bring wolves back."
The grey wolf was placed on the endangered list in 1974 after the animals were almost eliminated in many U.S. states.
But thanks to conservation efforts its numbers now reach some 4,000 in the Great Lakes region, which includes Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and there are more than 1,300 in the Rocky Mountain states of Idaho and Montana. There are also between 8,000 and 11,000 grey wolves in Alaska.

there are too many wolves in america--i support everyone's right to hunt any animal they want to

__________________

You know there are too many how? You have stumbled across them? They decimate your livestock?

Feral pigs are what's really out of control. Them and deer. Now if only we had natural predators that could keep those numbers down.

I realize cattle and sheep ranchers are not keen on large numbers of wolves. Not sure what the answer is.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

i've counted all the wolves in berkeley, ca. there are 271 of them. i speak to them mentally. i'm a wolfman, that's how i know. my eyes are yellow and i have 'wolf dreams' in which i run with wolves and communicate with them through emotions

__________________

C'mon man, surely you can do better than that. Berkeley has approximately zero to do with this. You support anyone's right to hunt anything they want? You're in good company. That's the prevailing view on the planet. That's why tuna are heading towards functional extinction as well as salmon and many other fish. Not actual extinction - Atlantic cod are not extinct but their numbers are so small that they are no longer commercially viable and may not be for some time.

Humans are not the pre-eminent genuises in all matters that you seem to think. We have achieved a competitive advantage over most all other species, with the possible (likely) exception of some insects and bacteria/viruses. How well we handle that power will have large ramifications for the next few hundred generations, that would be our descendents.

Or, we could just PAR-TAY dude!

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

yes, i support anyone's right to hunt anything, anytime, anywhere. except other humans.

if tuna are on the verge of extinction, we'll do what we did to salmon--we'll breed them. have you ever tasted high quality tuna sashimi? i live for it. plus what would i eat after my workouts?

supporting hunting is not synonymous with species extinction--that's a false alternative that animal rights activists who go to UC berkeley want you to believe



i never said or implied that. you said that.


who cares about the next hundred generations. i live for my life, not the lives of people a hundred generations after i've turned to dust

so, to conclude, I say PAR-TAY dude!

__________________

Salmon farming is one of the dumbest things on the planet. Consumes way more fish than it produces, and the salmon is piss poor mushy crap that has to be dyed red with food coloring. It is only hastening the decline of wild salmon. But why would I expect a clueless fool to know anything about that?

Anyone who pulls out the Berkeley card over and over is admitting that they have very little else to draw on. Hunting has a long and noble tradition but there are just too many of us for it to be engaged in willy nilly.

Newflash bubba, the founding fathers that are often held up as the people who gave us the greatness of America were motivated in large part by concern for their descendents. You're like a locust: consuming anything in your path. But hey, go fer it, duuuuuuuudddddde.

BTW, your avatar is a clown.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

[QUOTE=snookwhaler;2365592

Sad story.... I'm sure more species will follow. We (humans) are the virus of the earth. We will continue to destroy, consume and over populate every area on this planet until nothing is left or until the earth gets sick of us and "sloughs us off".[/QUOTE]

WHAT--No species became extinct except through mankind's efforts?

__________________
1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Passenger Pigeons immediately come to mind, for example.

__________________
1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)