Wolfweb spreading misinformation?

[Dark-Hyena]

I just read the introductory page properly for the first time;

There were once at least thirty different subspecies of wolf. Most have become extinct. About five subspecies survive today.

BS. According to Wilson and Reader's 3rd edition of Mammal Species of the World (2005), there are currently 37.
http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=14000738

a few still live in eastern Europe, India, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Middle East.

A few? That's an understatement.

From "Wolves: Behaviour, ecology and Conservation" (2005)

Eastern Europe


According to this, all E.European wolf populations, save for those of Estonia and Bosnia are increasing.

Western Europe


Asia


Do the math, added to the fact that none are decreasing. From the way the author of the homepage wrote, one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the mentioned places had no hope whatsoever of rehabilitating wolves.

No one knows how many survive in Russia and China.

Rubbish. See above. China is cause for concern, but Russia's wolf population, hunted or not, is among the world's largest.

Most wolves in North America are found in Alaska and Canada and hunters, from whom most of our knowledge of this shy creature comes from, say they are now almost impossible to find...

Of course they're difficult to find. Wolves are notoriously difficult to track. However, if the author intended to mean that American wolves are fast becoming extinct then...



I really fail to see what there is to despair about. There are no decreasing wolf populations, and the only places where it is legal to hunt them are in areas where they number in four unit figures, and are classified as stable/increasing.

[SHvar]

Actually there is no misinformation there.
There were many subspecies of gray wolf at one time, now there are a handful left throughout the world, many extinct.

Next, the numbers of gray wolves in the northern hemisphere at one time rivaled humans, it was in the millions. Today you could count the total number in the tens of thousands worldwide. The only reason those numbers are that high is the efforts of some people to protect them. I read somewhere that the total numbers of wild gray wolves in the northern hemisphere were reduced to a few thousand many years ago (worldwide) with most being in Russia (hunting was more regulated, and alot more difficult in the old Soviet Union.
Not alot of people in Russia had access to firearms back then, many hunters used steel pipes with a pipe fitting holding a shotgun shell, they drilled holes to place a nail as a firing pin, then used a hammer to fire it. This was used commonly to hunt birds, and small game.

[Shade]

I'm pretty sure Kazakhstan has more than Russia.

[Dark-Hyena]

Actually there is no misinformation there.
There were many subspecies of gray wolf at one time, now there are a handful left throughout the world, many extinct.

According to Wilson and Reader's 3rd edition of Mammal Species of the World (2005), there are currently over 2 dozen subspecies alive today.
http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=14000738

That is hardly a handful.

I read somewhere that the total numbers of wild gray wolves in the northern hemisphere were reduced to a few thousand many years ago (worldwide) with most being in Russia (hunting was more regulated, and alot more difficult in the old Soviet Union.

Not quite. The Soviet union killed far more wolves than modern Russia has. The primitive weapons you speak of were characteristic of the old Russian empire and the early days of the USSR. By the 1940's the Russians were hunting wolves with modern weapons and helicopters. Today, although wolf hunts still occur, aerial hunting (which was considered the most effective method) has been abandoned, and the wolves there are among the most numerous of the world.
Russians have been hunting wolves since the Tzarist era, and even during their power peak in the 60's (when the most wolves were killed), they were unable to completely wipe them out. I doubt the modern federation could do any better, expecially now that there appears to be no indication of reviving aerial hunting.

[SHvar]

The old Soviet Union did hunt wolves using the army, they killed over 100,000 a year for a few years to eliminate them, since then the attitude has changed, and the numbers always bounced back. To this day they are the only country (Russia) that has consistantly reported attacks on humans, usually protecting livestock, or children roaming alone. The wolves have been conditioned for so long to know that they can get food easily around humans, so its difficult to change that back in a country that the populace is so poor and the country cannot put the financial effort into protecting both species with all of their other problems.
Wolves do so well in Russia because they have so much land that is not inhabited by man, is not inhabitible by man, and so much of it there is no interest in living or making use of it.

[maylin]

I doubt the modern federation could do any better, expecially now that there appears to be no indication of reviving aerial hunting.

There is aerial hunting in alaska so in some places aerial hunting has been reviving
http://alaskawolfkill.com/