Wolves in Idaho

[M.T. Pockets]

I don't want wolves to divide hunters, but I think it's best we let the people in the states that have wolves decide on how to manage them. It's easy to like wolves as long as they're in somebody else's backyard, chasing & killing the animals someone else plans on hunting this fall.

I might as well talk about the white elephant in the living room.

Where there are wolves there is less opportunity for the sportsman to hunt animals. Personally, I like to hunt big game animals and more wolves or wolves being introduced into areas where they haven't been for 100 years, is going to limit hunter opportunity. Is this selfish on my part ? Maybe. But I'll take a stand on it and live with it. For example, in Sweden & Finland up to 50% of the moose population can be harvested in a given year. They don't have large predators.

I don't want to eradicate the wolf, but I don't like the idea of "reintroducing" them where they haven't been for a long time. I think they should be hunted where there is a sustainable population, the grizzly bear too. The ecyosystem has changed too much. With sport hunting in the scene now, the role of the large predator in the ecosystem has also changed. Uncontrolled, the wolf will have devestating effect on hoofed animals in a given area.