Creel’s response was mostly irrelevant:

1. Murray’s study was also based on wolves radio-collared at ages > 6 months (“Pups < 6 months usually were too small to be radio-collared . . .” Murray et al. [2010]). Thus they also could not measure mortality in animals < 6-months old.

What the Associated Press says is irrelevant to the evidence and to the fact that the natural mortality rates used in this study are biased low, for the mortality occurring for the first 6-10 months of the wolves’ lives was unmeasurable. Also irrelevant are the facts that the Murray et al. study was based on 22 years of data. For 22 years the study did not include mortality occurring in the first 6-10 months. Agencies of co-authors are also irrelevant.

2. My comments addressed Fig. 1, not Fig. 2.

3. Yes, please read Fuller et al. (2003:183-185) and note in Table 6.8 that natural mortality rates in non-harvested populations are as high as 34%, contrary to Creel and Rotella p. 3).

Further note reference in Fuller et al. the study by Ballard et al. (1997) that “wolf numbers remained stable at an annual winter mortality rate of 53%, including a minor amount of natural mortality.”

Finally, yes, please read the JWM article, which again is totally irrelevant to whether the data Creel and Rotella used was too biased to support their main conclusion.

Ballard, W. B., L. A. Ayres, P. R. Krausman, D. J. Reed, and S. G. Fancy. 1997. Ecology of wolves in relation to a migratory caribou herd in northwest Alaska. Wildlife Monographs No. 135.