Thank you for responding but no offense, Cindy - your statement that "ski poles will slow you down" tells me, that you don't snowshoe very much - or you "snowshoe" on four inches deep, flat, crusted, old snow only?
However, that might be okay - for an occassional weekender?

BTW: What kind of damages have you seen were made by wolves? I don't know of anyone being injured by wolves and for cattle and sheep we can always find a good - although only temporary protection? Within a few decades we will be eating a different kind of "beef" (get over it) and the sloughter houses will need to be eliminated for environmental reasons, anyway.
Bison populatipon is safe from wolves - both animals have been existing together for over million of years.
Wolves keep a natural balance in our outdoors and that is really important.
Wish you had many great outdoor trips with your camera and please, leave the pop gun home?

I do understand that wolves are a very controversial subject, but if you want to know the true story about something that is happening in an area....please do NOT rely on the government agencies reports or statistics....contact the local government or the local people and ask how it's affecting them....then you will get the whole true story. Not only with wolves but with any issue that you want to learn about...talk to the people that are affected by it...not the government agencies that put the policy in place.

If you don't live in the area that the issue is affecting then you have no clue as to what is really happening. Any government reports number can be and are skewed for whichever side you are on. Show me a report that says there are very few grizzly bears in my area and I will show you a report that says just the opposite...same with wolves...same with Pine martins and I could go on an on.

The only people that want the wolves are the people that do no live in the states that they were reintroduced. I spend a lot of time in the mountains and have seen the decline in the elk, deer and moose herds in my area and it is so very very sad to see. There is not a government report that will ever come close to showing the true numbers that I have seen.

Funny thing about government reports, data gathered by field agents is generally accurate but the format and presentation of that data is subject to influence from political sources whose objective may have nothing to do with the purpose of data collection.
As example, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission denied there was a population of mountain lions in north Arkansas, though locals reported sightings for at least 30 years- I’ll say 50 years. Trail cameras and cell phones now make such denials “inconvenient”. Recently, the AGFC admits there are mountain lions in Arkansas, but “…they’re not breeding”- a remarkable statement. Ten years ago, in Van Buren County, a lady bringing groceries in from her car, became a missing person. Those at the site maintain evidence from tracks and scattered produce argues strongly in favor of a mountain lion attack. Official word is something different. Some folks, trying to reconcile these opposing perspectives, speculate a healthy mountain lion (and/or wolf) population will regulate deer numbers once hunters are disarmed.

If you believe the numbers in the reports, then let me sell you the golden gate bridge that is located in MT...I will sell it to ya cheap!!! lol. There is no way that the number killed by grizzlies compares in any way close to what has been killed by wolves.....I have seen a sheep ranch that wolves killed 127 of them in a single night in a frenzy...never ate a single one. I have had to protect my horses as well from a pack...so don't even try to bulldoze me with your statistics....I have seen the effects of them and it's not pretty.

Funny, we’re in he same business. I’m selling the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge at a more than fair price, and even that’s negotiable. I’m not trying to “bulldoze” you or anybody else, what ever that means; I’m just presenting numbers that your state agency produced, and can’t see any reason they would lie about numbers that ranchers produce, and are a matter of public record. I’ve no doubt you’ve had to protect your horses, but find it difficult, if not impossible to accept that healthy wolves, hungry or not, would kill 127 animals, never eating a single one. Killing just for the “fun” of it is behavior reserved for humans.

Funny, we’re in he same business. I’m selling the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge at a more than fair price, and even that’s negotiable. I’m not trying to “bulldoze” you or anybody else, what ever that means; I’m just presenting numbers that your state agency produced, and can’t see any reason they would lie about numbers that ranchers produce, and are a matter of public record. I’ve no doubt you’ve had to protect your horses, but find it difficult, if not impossible to accept that healthy wolves, hungry or not, would kill 127 animals, never eating a single one. Killing just for the “fun” of it is behavior reserved for humans.

That would be funny if it wasn't so pathetically misinformed! I don't know how long you have lived in NYC but you really need to get out into the real world. I know, I know...nothing happens if it doesn't happen in NYC. Nothing real, nothing interesting, nothing exciting certainly, nothing worthy of being reported on in the News. In short, nothing that counts happens any where in the world if it doesn't happen in NYC and you might miss something if you ever left.

Here is the article for one of the slaughters....https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/montana-wolves-kill-120-sheep/ and here is another article https://missoulian.com/news/local/wolves-kill-120-sheep-at-ranch-near-dillon/article_5ff01772-938f-11de-9aca-001cc4c03286.html and another https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/160325-wolf-pack-kills-19-wolves-surplus-killing-wyoming.....I can keep producing articles but I think this is enough.

Sorry to burst your bubble and produce proof.