Are Wolf Wars Starting?
January 13, 2010
The topic of wolves becomes very passionate. I have spoken many times that advocates of wolves continue their lawsuits with demands seeking far more than original goals of the wolf reintroductions in Yellowstone and Central Idaho. It seems never a matter of concessions, only a matter of we want more and we want it now.
While the public’s awareness of wolves seems more front and center in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, all too often we forget about the struggles people are having with wolves in the Great Lakes wolf population. Even though there are many things that are different with wolves in the West versus wolves in the Great Lakes, there are also many things that are the same – that when wolves destroy private property, people get emotional. When it appears there is little that a landowner, rancher, livestock owner, hunter, citizen, can do to protect themselves and their property, anger builds. This happens no matter where you live.
I have written many times, like back last March, that unless the environmentalists/animal rights/anti hunting groups didn’t back off with the demands and lawsuits, they would become part of the reason to drive people to take matters into their own hands. Have we reached that point? I hope not.
But we have to seriously ask ourselves if it has begun. The federal government is now investigating the deaths of sixteen wolves in three states in the Great Lakes area – Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. There have also been reports of illegal wolf kills in the Idaho, Montana area.
There are myriad reasons that some might be driven to take matters into their own hands and while many of us can sympathize, I cannot condone breaking the law to achieve one’s goals. It should however serve notice to all citizens that people should have a right to protect themselves and their property regardless of the desire to protect a species.
Let’s hope that these incidents are isolated and do not lead to further acts of poaching. It will accomplish nothing in the long run.
Tom Remington
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Tom, Does this generation think that the settlers of America were stupid? I think that’s a huge lack of respect and a sign of the times. The farmers and settlers definitely got rid of wolves for a reason and it was a good one. Now if this generation actually had to depend on themselves to survive it would turn out the same way.
Well, Gare W, that’s a very good question. I think the real answer is this generation don’t know anything about the settlers. Those who know about Yellowstone Park assume it happened when God created the heavens and earth (of course to them YP is heaven.)
What gets perpetuated throughout time is that man killed off all the wolves because they were scared of them. I think there was much more to it than that.
Did you read my series “To Catch a Wolf”? It gives us a bit of history on how people used to deal with wolves and why.
History is not taught to our kids anymore.
Now you also bring up a very good point; that if this generation had to fend for themselves, I don’t think they would necessarily be thinking about which is best for our ecosystem, killing a predator that’s taking all your food or starving to death.
We have the ancient Bible, the Geneva 1560, the AV1611KJV and the Greek and Hebrew Textus Receptus, texts to back them up, they get scoffed, ridiculed, but no one has debunked them, there are not contradictions in them either.. Not one..
We have a Constitution and Bill Of Rights, a Declaration of Independence, and it still stands today even though hundreds of legal documents, not lawful documents, subvert and pervert it.. Because the Charlatans cannot undo what those Founders put in ink.. So they resorted to frauds and other crimes..
And then during those debates between 1787 and 1792 the letters to the editors of the day numbered in the thousands, I have collected as many as I could find.. Letters penned by farmers, Ranchers, shoe makers, carpenters, Seamen, Soldiers, Tavern proprietors, tradesmen, lawyers, explorers.. And in reading those letters one is humbled at the vast legal knowledge concerning freedom, individuality, and the lawful execution required to maintain those ideals..
Quite honestly they blow our doors off. I strive to be like them… I wish I had been among them.. This time in history is a punishment for some I am certain of it.. To watch this willful ignorance is a horror..
Sheep can never live with wolves..