WOLVES: View from a student

I was one of the students who saw the wolves. Those wolves were born in captivity and they had the wolves on a choke chain and leash. They made sure that those wolves knew humans and were used to human hands.

For our debate, our teacher divided us into groups; my group used many sources like...

• Fish and Game website

• A wildlife conservation book by Doug Smith

• Defenders of Wildlife website

• Our school's library books

• And many more

The wolves were only there because our ALP class read "White Fang" by Jack London and our teacher thought it would be fun to see some wolves in real life. We had our debate on Friday the 18th. The Wolf People came on Monday the 21st. We didn't get facts from the Wolf People until after our debate.

Our teacher did not show us any pictures or videos of how wolves kill for sport and don't eat the meat and go on to the next kill because that is not true. Wolves kill when they are hungry. They eat the sick and elderly deer and elk.

There are only about 1,000 wolves in Idaho. Those numbers will go down fast if we keep killing them. I don't see a reason why we need to track wolves. That seems very unnecessary to me.

Humans are more mean and brutal then wolves will ever be. In Moses Lake, Wash., a man shot his brother, in Deer Park, Wash., a mother was murdered, and the Mariners' outfielder was stabbed to death. As you can see, people are more brutal than animals.

I read seven books about wolves from our library. When you use good research that isn't from movies, then you see that wolves only kill to live. If humankind never started shooting deer, then we would barely notice the wolves because a wolf has never killed a human since they started keeping records in the 1800s.

I'd just like to thank my teacher for letting me have this wonderful experience. Not many people get to see wolves in real life. Thank you to the Wolf People too. Very little people get to have that wonderful experience. It was very interesting seeing the wolves. Even though they aren't gray wolves, it was really interesting to see them anyways.

SARAH SMITH

Fifth-grader at Dalton Elementary

Dalton Gardens