This is a cause I support, and I've lived with two hybrid wolves, who were the most intelligent four legged animals I've known. Lots of ranchers here in NM would like to hunt wolves too. There have been a few killed illegally here this year. One pack is being relocated away from ranching country near where I live as they have killed three cattle recently. The state cattleman's organization, (can't remember their name), are concerned that the move wasn't instituted sooner, and that there has been no compensation for the lost cattle. We should probably work out some kind of compensation equation for these lost cattle, and perhaps we would have less resistance to bringing canus lupus back into more sustainable populations.

I have to say it saddens me that the EPA is doing this. While I can understand this from a political point of view --attempting maintain Democratic gains in Western states, low on the list of political battles to fight at this moment, etc --the Obama administration should be following the humane and scientific path here.

"Why in the world are we hunting predators in the twenty-first century?"

Because they are there Rowan. Now take our Timberwolves. We allow a couple to be shot every year in Minnesota. There are 3,000,000 licenses issued but only two or three can be shot a year. Its fair and it costs 50 bucks for a license so we get a lot more money to fund the RNC and such.

Now, if you really are worried about debt in this country we need to raise money.

So I propose issuing 100,000,000 licenses to Americans to shoot and kill 5,000 conservative republicans.

The license fee would be one grand. Every body can purchase as my licenses as they wish.

We could simply narrow the herd to those who work on WallStreet or CEO's making at least ten million a year.

We would raise money.

We would thin the herd.

We would get rid of an awful lot of evil people.

We would lower the debt.

It is all so clear to me now.

But wolves. Ah leave em alone for a couple years.

As an Idaho resident, I can tell you why the wolf has been delisted: because ranchers and hunters have more pull in this state than environmentalists do. Ranchers don't want the wolves because they occasionally will get ahold of a cow or lamb. Hunters don't want them because it limits the number of wild game they can hunt (in my mind a completely ridiculous argument -- we want to kill the wolves so they don't kill the animals we want to kill). It's unfortunate, but this is the truth of the matter.

Why in the world are we still allowing any
endangered species to be hunted? Isn't it
bad enough that the earth is melting
and the polar bears and penguins
cannot find a place to be alive?

Wolves should be honored. When I hear them howl
now I feel connected to a mutual loneliness
in the universe. Our loss of kinship
to other beings is destroying us.

Rowan, you probably know I cannot agree with you more.

The wolves kill livestock because they are hungry. They do not kill for fun, they kill for food. Now, the wolf hunters, on the other hand,............

In the end, all this killing of natural predators does is tilt the balance even further out of whack. It's out of whack now which is why the wolves are having to kill domesticated livestock in order to survive.

In five years time there will be a proliferation of the next species down the food chain. Then they'll be bringing the wolves back to bring down the deer that are destroying the crops that feed the domestic livestock.

And, so it goes.

Ken Salazar, who is Secretary of the Interior, was a poor choice by Obama. He's too friendly with the Bigs.

:(

signed

This makes me incredibly sad. I don't despise much in this world, but I despise hunting. If it is the only way you can feed your family, I can tolerate it, barely. But for sport? Why not just get in a cage and beat the shit out of each other...

Sport hunting is cruel, it's barbaric, it's uncivilized.

Hi Rowan, I can't say shooting wolves comes top of my animal rights/irreverence-towards-nature worries. I'd rather there be better treatment of the animals in our food factories, for one thing. And I'm not too into caricatures of bloodthirsty ignorant hunters. Those I know have a deep respect for nature. And something similar goes for ranchers. They have a reasonable beef with wolves attacking their livestock.

That said, wolves should be kept on the endangered species list so long as they are endangered. By your numbers, there's a population somewhere north of a thousand in that region. I'm clueless, but that sounds like a pretty small and unsustainably fragile gene-pool. Do they provide a serious rationale for this decision?

Slightly OT, I found this post and video on wolves and the alpha male myth, which has seeped into so much sociology, very interesting. Thought you might like it as well.

http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/08/9685

Hunters may "respect" nature, but if your idea of good time is tracking down and killing another sentient being, you are bloodthirsty. Just watch those hunting shows on television, the guys all giddy after one of them downs an elk or whatever it is they hunting that day. If they want to paintball them, then I let adjective bloodthirsty go. But it is obvious in their reactions that it is the thrill of the bullet (or arrow) tagging the target in just the right spot as to be lethal.

Moreover, if their respect was "deep," if they weren't ignorant, they would grasp the interconnectedness of the predators to whole eco-system. They wouldn't put their desire for game to hunt above a desire to see a healthy functioning ecosystem. They would grasp that nature isn't just something you go visit with the family or buddies in order to have a good time. They and the ranchers would be working with government to find a way to co-exist with the wolves and other predators.