Lost - One "Y" chromosome

Moscow Pullman Daily News (online) 12/28/06

Nothing sporting about hunting
I am saddened to read how some residents of Idaho, such as Jim Hagedorn (Opinion, Dec. 26) believe wolves should be removed from the endangered species list.
Perhaps we need to add these so-called Idaho sportsmen to the endangered common-sense list. After all, wolves are vital to maintaining a healthy environmental balance by doing what human hunters have no business doing, which is to say let’s leave the hunting of the elk up to the wolves, nature is better at taking care of the balance than man is.
If you really want to do something sporting play a real sport like basketball. There is really nothing sporting about hunting, unless you want to arm the elk and deer and let them get off a few shots at the crazy humans dressed in fluorescent orange. “Sport” implies each side is competing with the other and has a chance at winning. Hunting wildlife, or as some call it, “big game” is really just about the selfish slaughter of animals. It would be one thing if humans still had a physical need to hunt for their food, but the last time I checked we can get all the protein we want at our local grocery stores.
What Idaho needs is hunting management, not wolf management. If you want to complain about decreasing elk herds then why not decrease the amount and frequency of hunting? The wolves were there long before the human hunters arrived with their modern ATVs, rifles, and Gore-Tex jackets. Leave nature up to nature and try not to upset the balance again.
If the wolf population had not been decimated to begin with then reintroduction would never have been necessary. This issue is not about the wolves, it is really about man wanting to manipulate nature for his own benefit.
Matt Saavedra, Pullman

It appears poor Mr. Saavedra has never heard of Darwin's theories on evolution nor does he understand how the food chain works. Hey, Matt. It's too bad you are too feminized to do your own killing. You are either a sniveling little coward who has to pay others to do your dirty work or you are an idiot vegitarian that doesn't understand why we have sharp teeth. In either case, you are a contaminant in the gene pool. Please remove yourself without reproducing. The world doesn't need more sissies like you.

Now that doesn't even begin to cover all the things wrong with Mattilda's position. Reintroduction of wolves would be fine, if the prey in the impacted area were used to dealing with them. They aren't. It's been generations since wolves have been a threat in most areas. That's why it's called "reintroduction." If the wolves were present in the first place, they dissapeared for a reason. I doubt they were hunted to extinction out in the wilds of Idaho (quasi historical anti hunting lore notwithstanding). Ranchers sure weren't spending their days traipsing through the forests after them, prospectors didn't care and there never were enough trappers in the area to do the job, even during the heights of the fur trade in the west.

So, just why did the wolf dissapear? He wasn't able to compete. He was most probably driven out by humans. We moved in on his habitat. We attracted his food sources to our agricultural lands and easy pickings in the winter and he followed. Once he got too close, he became a dangerous nuisance and we did him in because WE, not the wolf, are at the top of the food chain. Until mankind is prepared to relinquish his position at the top, wolf populations will be unsustainable. They are already causing headaches. Once it gets real and the first wolf caused human casualties are reported, we'll take the wolf out of the equation again.

Remember the stories about the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood? Well, it wasn't the Big Bad Bunny Rabbit who ended up dead at the end. Man (intelligent, not head up his butt man) has always feared and loathed the wolf. It will always be so. If you threaten me in the forest, don't be surprised when you grow a large calibre hole in your head. It's what I do to things I want to eat or that look like they want to eat me. It's what MEN do, Matt.

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