Stupid reason #3: Wolves are dangerous to humans. Jesus Christ, no they are not. The grey wolf is a timid animal, much more likely to run from an approaching human than to make any kind of aggressive gesture. To be fair, wolves can occasionally contract rabies from other animals–they’re not natural carriers themselves–and nearly all reported cases of wolf attack have been by rabid wolves. But that doesn’t even matter!
There have been between 20 and 30 wolf attacks, three being fatal, in North America in the entire 20th century. Since wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in 1995, there have been zero attacks. In that same 100-year period, there were 71 fatal attacks from brown bears (including the grizzly subspecies). Oh, and about 17 people die every year from dog attacks. Wolves run when they see humans. They are not dangerous. You are not “protecting your property” when you shoot a wolf in your backyard; you are murdering an animal that’s scared as hell of you.
There is no valid reason to make it legal to hunt wolves. The only honest argument you could make is “I like to shoot wolves for fun,” which is kind of psychotic, so shut the hell up about livestock or elk herds or danger to humans. And don’t get angry when us sensible folks listen to scientists and make your insane compulsion illegal. Shooting wolves is bad for wolves, meaningless for livestock, bad for the environment, and bad for people. Conservation of individual species is incredibly difficult; we have done damage to our ecosystems, and they don’t work as well as they should, and, yes, we need to find a way to keep it as healthy as possible given our own needs. And that’s why we need to listen to scientists, not ranchers or hunters. We need to get the best data possible, run it through the best minds we can find, and make our laws in accordance with what will do the most good. We sure as hell shouldn’t listen to a group that wants to shoot wolves on Tuesday so they can shoot elk on Wednesday.
Yellowstone estimates that a million people saw 832F in its short, six-year life. I don’t even need to get into the whole “it was a protective mother, a fierce hunter, a noble leader of its pack” stuff, because this isn’t about anthropomorphizing a wolf. 832F was almost certainly the most visible element of an important effort by the National Park Service to restore Yellowstone’s ecosystem to its natural order, an effort that’s vital to the survival of this park and even this country. People came from all over the world and saw this wolf, this rare creature, in one of the country’s most beautiful places, the way it’s supposed to be. That is an amazing thing. And now nobody will see it again, because it was shot, perfectly legally. And now it’s dead.
Comments
Wolves do not deserve to die. They are loving family units who look after each other with rules just like humans. They kill to eat and survive just like humans. They look after each other like humans are supposed to do. Perhaps God created these beautiful animals to teach us the right way to live. Think about it.
If only…. We must Work harder which takes everything we have not to Self Combust over the stupidity that a large portion of the human race displays…. We are focusing on Establishing a Sanctuary thhat hopefully will not only help the wolves in need, but people that can also benifit from interacting with them.