Wolf advocates have known for a long time now that ranching is the nemesis of all things natural and wild, and that if you want to help the wolves, boycott beef, leather, wool, lamb and mutton. But lately hunters like those in the Idaho trophy elk hunting industry have been out to prove that they are a wolf’s gravest threat.
Not only do certain Idahoans want to run wolves out of lands cleared for ranching, they want to eliminate them from the wilderness as well.
They see public lands, such as the Lolo National Forest and the Frank Church wilderness area, as private breeding grounds for elk specimens they love to kill, and they’re not willing to share those specimens with the likes of wolves.
Some wolf lovers respond with hatred for the cows and sheep themselves, and disregard for deer and elk. But wolves need elk and deer to survive, therefore wolf lovers should also be elk and deer lovers and wilderness advocates. Ultimately, a true wolf lover is not only anti-cattle and sheep ranching, but also anti-deer, moose, caribou and elk hunting.
Wolf advocates who are indifferent to ungulates and accepting of hunting and ranching will never see an end to wolf hunting or “control.”
Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson
Exposing the Big Game 
LOL, it’s so sad – they don’t even want to share road kill with wolves. There’s been a few states passing laws so that people can take home road kill, or used for compost in highway landscaping, anything but let the wildlife have it and let nature return it to nature, as is the natural way of things. Pretty bad. We want to defy Mother Nature at every turn, and we keep screwing up, and just don’t get the message. I don’t blame elk and deer, cattle and sheep. It is ignorant, arrogant humans who are to blame. Mother Nature should give them all a good kick in the butt. 🙂
Oh, she will. She won’t let humans get away with so much disrespect without a buttkicking….
I agree, It is not the “elk, deer cattle, & sheep” who are the perpetrators. Cattle and sheep are also victims, who are forced to breed and overpopulate the land. I see many dead cattle lying on thousands of acres of NM drought-scorched lands, with no rancher in sight, because, regardless of the reason for the death, these ranchers will get some kind of reimbursement–just another business loss.
I often “preach” (don’t I Jim?) that ranchers, hunters & trappers are very often the same, as witnessed here with our ” NM Game Dept.’s latest “game” using dogs & other weapons,to kill a mountain lion: Game Commissioner Chairman,, Scott Bidegain, a big rancher/hunter, was involved in this killing with his buddies from Texas. The response by one of these animal serial killers? “just a little bitty misdemeanor.” from his rich Texas rancher accomplice. Commissioner Bidegain resigned from the game commission, but he and his predecessors have had a history of other animal slaughter, such as prairie dog & coyote killing “derbies.” This wildlife slaughter expose’ is just the tip of the iceberg.
Jim makes wonderful points, as usual.
Thanks Rosemary. It sounds like Commissioner Bedgain and his buddies are trying out for the title,
Kill “Em All Boys 2″… Keep up the preaching.