Keep politics outof the wolf debate
This is in direct response to the article titled, "Wolf Hunt May Make Problem Worse." My first area of concern comes from the quote from ecological speaker George Wuerthner stating, "I think for some people the idea of wolf recovery is that it's the federal government..." I thought this article was supposed to be about wolves. As a politician, this statement would make more sense, but the statement is instead used as a political agenda piece rather than an ecological fact therefore hurting Mr. Wuerthner's credibility as an ecologist. With that being said, I wonder what Mr. Wuerthner was really doing in Coeur d'Alene. Was he here to discuss wolves or politics?
Another fact that I find troubling in the article is the point made toward hunters and ranchers and that those two groups, "Hold the most negative attitudes concerning wolves." It seems to me that somebody who has to live with the wolf threat 365 days a year for the sake of survival and income would be just as credible, if not more credible, than the ecologist who "studies" them for sake of science and, as in this case, propaganda.
On to the facts as presented in the article. One fact that stands out comes from statistics representing certain areas alone: Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. He states that in, "1992, three years before wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone and Idaho, the state of Montana estimated the state's elk population at 89,000..." In politics this is called a red herring. He intentionally throws us over to the entire state of Montana to divert attention away from any possible conflicting statistics from Yellowstone and Central Idaho. Word to the wise: The Northern Yellowstone elk population in 1992-93 was 21,492 with 1,695 being harvested by hunters. In a 2009 study, that population had decline to 12,743 with 1,096 being harvested by hunters and 452 being harvested by wolves. That study can be found in PDF form at http://fwp.mt.gov/fwpDoc.html?id=36743.
What exactly is this article about, anyway? I see some political hoopla complete with the ever so popular logical fallacies implemented by the ever-so-professional politician, some bent factual data about wolves, as well as a couple paragraphs about bears and cougars because apparently cougars, bears and wolves all have the same mentality towards humans and have the same pack behavior. This article as well as the speech seems to convey more of a political agenda than anything else. We are supposed to be talking about wolves. I don't care about cougars or bears or the fact that me being a small government believer makes me automatically hate wolves because they represent the government. Then we have to go into a moral dilemma and consider a wolf's social interactions. How about the rancher's social interactions with making a living or the hunter's social interactions with harvesting an animal so they can feed their children during these tough economic times.
Lastly, who exactly is George Wuerthner? Somewhere he has a degree (or two) that I can't seem to find where he got it from and written 30+ books none of which have anything to do with wolf conservation nor ecology. They are mostly guides to state and national parks, half of which have no cover photo on amazon.com. Great, this guy hasn't studied a thing.
Aside from the fact that the article, as well as the speech given by Mr. Wuerthner, can be picked apart line by line and refuted with abundant factual data, I have decided that rather than write a book I will try to keep this in response form. I do wish to recommend that if an article is to be written, make sure the content emphasizes the topic rather than some other underlying ideology (in this case underlying political propaganda with a wolf ecology speech).
David Carlile is a Coeur d'Alene resident.