Is this a first? Climate disruption? Because the theory behind man-made global warming has been proven a fraud, has our liberal press created a new buzz word to explain away the errors, fraud, conspiracy and manipulations of “We the People”? Climate disruption? We’ve gone from global warming to climate change and now it’s climate disruption. Is that a catch-all phrase that we can use for any excuse to place blame and pass off responsibility?

I can certainly understand how an individual, who stakes his entire life and reputation on bringing wolves back into the Yellowstone National Park area and Central Idaho, would react so emotionally when he hears that a legislator in Utah wants to kill all his wolves trying to enter the state of Utah.

Bangs is supposed to be a professional, a salaried employee of the Department of Interior/United States Fish and Wildlife Service, one whose salary is paid by the taxpayers of this country. You would expect a better response from a professional scientist.

“People who don’t like them [wolves] give them supernatural powers. It’s that way all over the world,” Bangs says. “In reality, they’re no big deal.”

The tone of the article leads a reader to think that the presence of wolves is no big deal. He seems to blow off and almost ridicule anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his outdated information on wolves. His reference to people “giv[ing] them supernatural powers” is almost a Farley Mowatt followers response. I wonder if he also believes wolves only eat mice and tiny rodents?

But in reality, did Bangs refer to the loss of moose in the Yellowstone area to “climate disruption” or did the author of the article do it? You decide.

Wolves have contributed to a decline of elk in and around Yellowstone, but moose loss is probably more due to climate disruption. “Moose can’t handle heat at all,” Bangs says. “They just lie around and don’t store body fat.”

Notice the quotations mark don’t come in until after the use of “climate disruption” and the quiet admission by the author (I wonder where that information came from?) that wolves have contributed to elk reduction. It does however seem to fit with the quoted response by Bangs saying moose can’t handle the heat – assuming he is referring to global warming. He is also saying that moose do nothing but lie around in this “climate disruption” and die. And, according to the same article, Bangs said that wolves are only a problem with some livestock.

Bangs’ comments are not sitting well with many wildlife and outdoor sporting organizations. It has been slow coming but state wildlife officials in Idaho and Montana are now coming around to admit that wolves are destroying their elk, deer and moose herds far more than they thought they would. In some places, the effect is serious, posing a real threat to elk, deer and moose herds.

Don Peay of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife in Utah asked Bangs:

I would like some scientist to explain to me how Utah – which has a hotter climate than Wyoming, Idaho and Montana whether there is global warming, climate disruption, etc – is seeing a totally different trend in Moose, than is being experienced in the wolf inhabited areas of WY, MT, and ID.

If Climate disruption is the reason that moose are declining in the Yellowstone region – it is so hot the moose populations just lie around and don’t put on fat reserves – then why are Utah moose populations increasing significantly during this same climate change phenomenon ? it would seem to me that if heat was the problem, then Utah’s moose populations should be even in greater decline than the greater Yellowstone area.

Toby Bridges, a hunter and activist who administers Lobo Watch, had a much more emotional response to Bangs’ comments. I won’t share all of them here but here’s some of what Bridges had to say:

Sportsmen here fully realize that growing wolf numbers have destroyed Yellowstone’s great elk herd, not Global Warming. Likewise, elk herds all along the mountains of western Montana and northern Idaho are being decimated by out of control wolf numbers. And when addressing this issue, the best you can do is is to toss out an “Oh well” attitude in the linked article, trying to use smoke and mirrors and a list of other factors to try covering up the real problem – your parasite carrying kill crazy wolves.

So while many sportsman’s groups in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon and Washington have united together to work in a proactive way to convince the courts to allow the states to manage wolves at a level that will provide a better balance between predator and prey, Bangs is still preaching the “wolves aren’t the problem” mantra. Our tax dollars at work I suppose.

Tom Remington

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