Originally Posted by
skibuminwyo
Ok, I'll throw two cents in, since I can't seem to get rid of the chills enough to sleep. Where's Nyquil when you need it?
Anyway, the "rhetoric" being mentioned is a holdover of Manifest Destiny, which, as anyone who passed high school history knows, is the belief that God ordained Westward Expansion. This philosophy of land management and growth may not still be called by the name, but it has been so ingrained in the quote unquote rural west that it is hard to escape. If you don't believe that people don't push further and further into animals turf, I suggest taking a drive by Ennis, MT, or Jackson, WY or Cody, WY, or any other smaller town in Montana and Wyoming. I'll only speak for those two states, since they are where I have lived all of my life. If you drive down by the river in Cody, you will see a big sign warning of the possibility of black bear encounters. If your eyes are peeled, in the right place at the right time, you will see a sow and two cubs while fishing, or rafting. Animal's ranges will change, from a variety of factors, but the long and short of it is simply this: they were here first! WE pushed onto THEIR areas, all the while showing very little respect for the land, or the creatures, or the people who lived here first.
As for people in the west want to eliminate wolves because of livestock predations, etc. etc.
This is another wonderful generalization, one that gets made by too many people. I know that you aren't trying to insinuate that all people in the west are trying to destroy the wolves, but try not being ripped apart by others when you claim that you are an ecologist or environmentalist from Wyoming. You kind of get laughed at a bit, because of the stereotypes, especially lately.
I honestly don't think that those who want to kill wolves necessarily want to do it simply because of predation. Some, as we learned with wolf 253, and his two pack mates, one who was pregnant, were shot on the borders of a feed ground for elk, simply picked off to be picked off. Maybe these guys wanted bragging rights, maybe they had too many cartridges, who knows. But those three wolves have never had anything to show that they had ever hit livestock.
I think the bigger thing that makes some people want the wolves eliminated is fear. Think back to the nursery rhymes, with the big bad wolf, and how our American folklore has demonized the wolf. They are things to be afraid of. I can't tell you how many rumors get started around here along the lines of attacks and near misses. "Oh so-and-so's kid got chased around by a pack of wolves yesterday up at the Old Mill." Well, those are all rumors, and quite frankly are bullshit, but people still eat them up, and use it to try to prove that wolves are dangerous. I can't remember if the statistic still stands, but for a long time there was never a wolf attack on a human. I'm too lazy right now to look it up.
Predations do happen, though, and I won't defend people who wind up shooting a wolf that they see eating through a cow, or a horse, or what have you. And yes, wolves go after elk, but they aren't destroying the population, as so many armchair good-ol-boy "ecologists" have so eloquently :rolleyes2 said. I also am not a fan of the way any of this has gone. Anybody who had half a clue about behavior knew that the whole project was going to turn into this cluster, but it was kind of pushed aside. Well, there was no plan at the start, and there sure as hell isn't a plan that is working now. I think that Montana has the best plan, and Wyoming's plan makes me want to puke, but that is just my $0.02.
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