This could be satire but I don't think it is:
"The anti-wolf rhetoric is heating up in Greater Yellowstone -- and politicians and extremists are eager to fan the flames of hate against the wolves you and I fought so hard to return to the wild.
We need your help to counter the vocal anti-wolf rhetoric in the region and save wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies. Please donate now.
The rhetoric is getting out of control. Fringe anti-wolf groups refer to wolf poachers as wildlife patriots." The founder of the misleadingly named Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife suggests using adopted shelter dogs and sheep as bait to lure wolves to their deaths.
Idaho Governor "Butch" Otter even went so far as to call elk and other wild game "livestock" -- implying there should be a right to kill wolves that are feeding on their natural prey.
That`s why Defenders is embarking on an ambitious new initiative to seek out the voices of reason for our wolves in Greater Yellowstone and counter the escalating anti-wolf hysteria.
Source
22 comments:
If wolves are all that necessary in a world dominated by humans, let's reestablish them in the farmlands of the Midwest where the deer population is exploding.
Then we'll get a chance to see how many pets and children and even adults are killed.
I'm sure liberals will give it a name "lupusphobia" so they can label and silence opponents. Notice Muslims are Jewishphobic and liberals are never labeled "moralphobic"
There is a similar controversy about re-introducing wolves in Scotland - where of course there is a lot of sheep-farming, not to mention hikers and campers.
The notorious anti-wolf forces want all the land for themselves, (including govt land) without any of that land for protected and endangered species. Wolves are an integral part of the natural environment in that area, and as such, are entitled to the same protections as all other parts of that environment. They have been hounded and persecuted for decades simply because they sometimes prey on cattle which are "illegally" feeding on park land, land that is home to the wolf, and other predators.
What is needed is for people to go into Yellowstone and start shooting cattle and privately-owned bison that are grazing on public land. Of course, if a few of the rancher/terrorists get shot, all the better.
There always was conflict between the wolves and the humans. To expect it to have gone away just because the wolves were gone for a while is ridiculous.
Anon 3:52. In the first place . . . oh never mind. You sound like you're beyond reasoning with.
GOOOOOOOO WOLVES !!!
I must be living in a bubble. Why is it that I can't see or hear all the hate that is supposedly going on all around me? I never known that was a group of people (more than two) that was anti-wolf? Are they anti-animal, like some animal "lovers" are anti-human, or just anti-wolf?
Or is old Rodger just trying to pull a fast one by stirring up anti-anti-wolf sentiments to pocket some donation money?
I don't understand all this fuss about extinction. Isn't evolution supposed to be how things are? Aren't the fittest supposed to be the survivors? I guess those poor little wolfies just aren't as fit as humans.
Final Score
Humans 6 billion
Wolves approaching 0
And we're still undefeated!! (Neanderthals don't count!)
I don't understand all this fuss about extinction. Isn't evolution supposed to be how things are? Aren't the fittest supposed to be the survivors? I guess those poor little wolfies just aren't as fit as humans.
Final Score
Humans 6 billion
Wolves approaching 0
And we're still undefeated!! (Neanderthals don't count!)
This is probably a true quote. Ten years ago, the wolf population was decimated by humans and the balance in the ecosystem was being destroyed by the burgeoning elk population. Without natural controls on the elk, they were destroying the watershed, causing erosion and killing off entire species of trees. In 1995 and 1996, several packs of wolves were trapped and reintroduced into Yellowstone to control the Elk population. Have we gone too far? Any time man deliberately interferes in these matters, we screw it up. For a hundred years, we did everything we could to stop forest fires in the west. This caused an over abundance of scrub and forest floor debris which then became a ticking time bomb. Natural fires would clean out this undergrowth and fires in the past were not as vicious as they are today.
Anon 11:36 said;
"In 1995 and 1996, several packs of wolves were trapped and reintroduced into Yellowstone to control the Elk population."
This is true, but remember, wolves were there for thousands of years without any problems. The environment was in balance. It was only when ranchers starting killing off the wolf population that man had to intervene and "re-introduce" wolf packs to the area. That should tell you the true source of the problem.
Something to think about;
Whenever there is a "problem" in nature, such as an imbalance, it is almost always caused, either directly or indirectly, by man.
9:41 PM - Your smug view that it's okay when evolution favors humans above wolves, might not be so smug when you and millions of humans who are over-populating this planet are "brought back into eco-balance" by new and horrible diseases that defeat human-made drugs!
Wolves are predators, and all predators are, by nature, prone to hunt the EASIEST prey.
A wolf pack attacking an Elk Herd does NOT go after the biggest, baddest, healthiest animal. They go after the very young, the weak, the infirm, the EASY p rey.
Because sheep and cattle are EASIER prey (thank you 10,000 years of domestication) the wolves would rather eat them.
Unless you create a wolf that only feeds on Elk Meat, there will always be conflict between men and wolves.
The Wolf Lovers should create a COMPENSATION fund, to reimburse cattle and sheep farmers for the animals they will invariably lose to the wolves. If the wolves are THAT valuable, providing such a fund should be cheap by comparison.
Wolves are not endangered, it's the efforts to reintroduce them to the wild that has endangered both livestock and humans.
-------------
New York Times’ Logic: Hunting is bad but we don’t need to become vegetarians.
http://politicallyincorrectlibertarian.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/new-york-times-logic-hunting-is-bad-but-we-dont-need-to-become-vegetarians/
Stan B:
Actually there IS a compensation fund. However, the rancher must have the sheep/calf carcass to show evidence that the livestock was killed by wolves. There is no compensation for livestock that simply "disappears".
That being said, the ecological changes from the return of the wolves are too numerous to list. By simply keeping the Elk heards nervous and on the move, the Elk have stopped overgrazing stream banks, which in turn has allowed regrowth of countless flora and fauna species that had dissappears from the streams.
Somehow there has to be a balance between protecting the ranchers' livestock and allowing natural predators to remain.
Inevitably it becomes a "zoning" question: i.e, it's not whether we want wolves or not, it's where we want them.
Equally inevitable is that we will all have to carry guns in order to go into the wild, or even to walk in our city parks, as the predators come wandering in on a regular basis.
This is already the case where I live, a city of ~350,000 where cougars and bears have begun to follow the deer into every corner of our town. Hungry cougars and hungry bears, habituating themselves to humans...and the frequency of attacks is escalating.
Enjoy your sidearms, folks.
Anon 2:47
Nahh, you missed it. My smug view is that evolution is a crock of shit. But I am curious as to why these new and horrible diseases are going to affect me and millions of other humans, yet not you? hmmmm
Oh, I get it, the wolves will protect you! I'm thinking you ought to do like that commercial and go hug a polar bear and then report back to us how that experience went.
10:07 PM - Now you're being even sillier!
(btw. I did not exclude myself from the general fate of human-kind. Diseases are a form of population control and those most resistant survive and pass their genes on to subsequent generations. This is called "natural selection" which is the engine of biological evolution. You may not belive in it but you only exist because of it!)
In related news:
A lawyer in St. John’s, Newfoundland, “says government could be held accountable for introducing moose to the province in 1912.” The giant herbivores sometimes cause serious car crashes.
Introduce a whole pack of wolves in the middle of some big city area where all the ignorant flatlanders live and let them get a look at real wildlife
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