More than one hunter has said to me “We have to shoot them to save them”. I see this rationalization as a recently adopted justification derived from the quasi-science of wildlife management as practiced by most state Departments of Natural Resources. This essentially entails the manipulation of ecosystems to expedite the profitable farming and harvesting of lumber, deer and other wildlife and natural products. What indeed is wild when 650,000 deer hunters go onto state and federal lands during the annual November harvesting in Minnesota alone? This segment of society supports highly lucrative outdoors equipment and hunting supply industry that has a vested interest in seeing wolves hunted once more, and that there are plenty of deer for license paying consumers to go out and kill especially when wolf numbers are kept low. Safari trophy hunters tell me in one voice “Wildlife must pay its own way”.Alternative and choices can be made, regardless of the atavistic imperatives and gratification of being a hunter. Seeing beyond the strength of the wolf being the strength of the pack, the strength of the pack is the strength of the gene pool and the ecosystem. Our collective will to avoid harming and injuring and practice CPR, locally as well as globally---Conservation, Preservation and Restoration---is what is now called for, particularly with the consequences of climate change. Specifically in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and the Western Great Lakes region, the ecological role of the wolf, properly utilized, would greatly benefit the deer population, forest vegetation and natural biodiversity, and make many current “management” practices, including having to kill in order to save, redundant.
A Note: Hundreds of thousands of captive, cage-crazed carnivores raised for their fur in Minnesota and Wisconsin (the nation’s top producer of mink) are suffering. This aspect of wildlife farming has no place in a civilized society. Neither do the commercial puppy mills in Minnesota, one of the top ten states producing purebred dogs under conditions similar to those of the farmed fox and mink.
Micheal Fox
A Note: Hundreds of thousands of captive, cage-crazed carnivores raised for their fur in Minnesota and Wisconsin (the nation’s top producer of mink) are suffering. This aspect of wildlife farming has no place in a civilized society. Neither do the commercial puppy mills in Minnesota, one of the top ten states producing purebred dogs under conditions similar to those of the farmed fox and mink.
Micheal Fox
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