Wolf Myths, Lies and Folklore and Other Predator Scapegoating:
My gym is a rich source of rancher and hunter folklore, lies and myth. It riles me but it is rich in BS and lots to rebut. I live in Great Falls Montana, need I say almost pure colloquial myth, lies and folklore? Redneck central! It is very, very “red” here. Anytime I bring up the subject of wolves or over hear ambient colloquial conversations, I run up against one or more of the following myths, lies, folklore. They generally scapegoat predators, including raptors, for any sports game waning rather than looking to the real factor s:f encroachment, over hunting, forage changes, climate warming, loss of habitat, and basically man caused problems. Ecology is an abstract concept seemingly beyond their grasp. They operate from a belief system way of thinking and do not want to confused by science, logic or facts. It is folklore way of thinking and knowing. You can tell them the facts and the response will be, “I don’t believe that.”
-Political Management of the Wolf
Congress did not debate delisting the wolf. A rider was attached to a defense appropriation bill (April 2011) put there by Mike Simpson of ID and Jon Tester of MT and sneaked by congress, the American people, the press, and conservationists. It was terrible precedent of over riding the ESA by politics and of wildlife management by politics. Newspapers, the media often reports that congress delisted wolves, in the northwest and midwest, leaving the false impression that there was an at large congressional review and discussion. A rider is a sleazy way for a minority group to get a questionable piece of legislation past congressional debate and discussion and from American public and news awareness that something is passing. The rider should not be allowed for any piece of legislation. This tactic may have opened the door to parochial and often republican political management of wildlife.
-Wolves are killing herds of cattle. No, wolves kill about 0.002 % of cattle in MT, 65 of 2.6 million in 2012, 55 in 2013. Many ranchers of cattle and sheep are encroaching on wolf populated public land and in general wilderness with 772 permits to graze in national forests in MT alone.
-Wolves have to be managed, killed in large numbers, their populations driven down to marginal existence or they will rampage over the landscape, and be everywhere and decimate game and stock. No, wolves will fill up wilderness niches in some of their old territory, across the states then regulate their own populations relative to game and wilderness availability and wolf family elbow room, which may be most salient factor (wolf pack elbow room). The alpha male and female are mother and father of the pack. They and older wolves teach young wolves which takes 25% of their young lives, learning from elders how to hunt and what do hunt and most to avoid conflict with man. Wolf management by hunting is asinine. It disrupts families and social learning, accomplishes little to nothing and more likely than not creates problems.
Myth: Wolves are dangerous. Wolves are scary. They attack people. No, there are only 2-4 documented cases in North America in history, in the last 400 years, two to thtee of which are weakly substantiated. One was in Alaska and one in Saskatchewan (doubtful, more likely a bear, at a dump, per a wildlife biologist). The rest is old world folklore, hollywood BS, visceral reactionary, irrational nonsense perpetrated by fairytales, movies (i.e., The Gray, Canyon, Frozen, werewolf and vampire tales TV). Wolves, bears and lions deserve an annual humanitarian award for tolerating man.
-Wolves are decimating or wiping out elk herds. Elk numbers are up in the states wherein there are wolves. Elk numbers in MT have gone from 89,000 before wolf reintroduction to 145,000 now. Wyoming has had 11 years in a row of record elk harvests. Per MT FWP (March-April issue Montana Outdoors, 2014) elk are at or above target levels even in wolf territories, 100-150% target levels. Colloquials, hunters often confuse local fluctuations in elk numbers with normal elk movement for forage, over hunting, forage availability, encroachment, climate change effects with normal and healthful predator predation, and blame wolves (scapegoating), forgetting and not understanding that all was well before man, and normal, and balanced, not so since man, especially european man and bloodsport traditions. Where do colloquials get the absurd idea that predators are the culprits in game sport game declines and not man?!
Myth-Wolves are wiping out the Yellowstone elk herds.There were only a few wolves in the beginning years. They reached a peak in 2006-2007 with 175 wolves, and are now around 85. There has not been enough wolves to decimate elk numbers. No, there are not and there never has been enough wolves in YNP to wipe out or significantly affect the herds. At most, they may have a 5% impact, which has been good for the herds and the ecological system, flora and fauna. Before wolf reintroduction (1995-1996-1997)) elk numbers in and around YNP were at an all time unsustainable high. The herds had exploded in the 1980’s because of rich forage within the Park due to some wet years and new forage opening up north of the Park, and probably because of insufficient predation.After wolf reintroduction there were two rough winters in a row (1995-1996, 1996-1997) followed by drought years. Even though elk numbers were declining, FWP MT allowed hunting, spring and fall, outside the Park for years, until 2005, spring and fall. Man is the main elk killer outside the Park. Currently there is drought affecting forage, and a current rich predator environment of bear, lions, and wolves. Elk will range in search of new or available forage and not hang in the Park so much. Man (sportsmen), sports killing impact is additive, not natural and often harmful. Predator-prey relationships are natural, millennium old, and healthy. Sports’ killing of animals is not healthy for man or the animals they kill. Wolves are healthy for the elk herds and else as they are apex animals who belong there, making the herds healthier and having a positive trophic cascading effect on flora and fauna (plant and animal). Wolves tend to kill the weak, diseased, vulnerable and to move the herds. Man, sportsmen, go for the trophy animals and kill healthy animals weakening the bloodlines of the herds. It is man that needs to be managed, not wolves, bears on lions. Man is the disease on wildlife, flora and fauna. The YNP elk herds are now at historical levels, and the cow/calf ratio is normal, and the herds are closer to sustainable levels. http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/elk.htm
-Yellowstone Park is a zoo and not natural. Of course it is natural and it is not a zoo. It was and is being preserved as a balanced wildlife ecology. The Park Service has made a successful effort to bring back wolves as part of that natural balanced ecology. It has been successful with wolves having trophic cascading effects on flora and fauna. Why is this such a mystery to colloquials, such a hard concept to grasp:: that wolves and other predators are a healthful and natural part of wildlife ecology, worked out of millennia, while sports killing is neither, rationalizations for sports killing I guess. Before hunter regulation, hunters (our forefathers) and ranchers, in cahoots with the federal government, wiped out wildlife across the land. The main benefit of hunting regulation has been the recovery of wildlife and now conservation efforts are attempts to bolster and round out that recovery to include the predator
-Predators have to be managed. Yes, they do in the sense of individual problems with particular problems, but that does not extend to driving down the populations for sports killing of game animals. Predators, such as the wolf and grizzly will fill up the niches and regulate their own populations for the most part, leaving enough sportsmen blood sport killing.
-Wolves kill in a horrendous and tortuous way, tearing their prey apart in a slow manner. No, wolves go for quick kills by severing major arteries and limiting risk to themselves and it no more “tortuous” the sport killing which often wounds, not killing right away; especially archery which wounds about 50% of the time, not killing, leaving an animal to wonder off with an arrow embedded. Shooting also often just wounds. So, sports killing is kind and saves the animals from a less kind death?! This is an amazing rationalization. Man mostly contributes to waxing and waning of game (recreational sports killing). Per Montana Outdoors (March-April issue 2011) regarding sports killing in 2010, hunters killed 95,000 deer, 19,000 pronghorn, 20,000 elk, and hundreds to thousands of birds, bears, goats, moose and else. Man is also encroaching on forage, wildlife habitat, and wildlife corridors. Man is also encroaching through global warming. Over 50 % of wild animals have disappeared in the past 40 years.
These same minds do not accept that wolves belong in a healthy ecological wilderness and could care less. They also do not buy the argument that wolves bring in $35.5 million in added tourism to YNP making each wolf worth over $400,000.00 (based on population estimate of 85).
Myth of giant wolves: There is the myth of the alien, giant, Canadian wolf being introduced into the states and YNP in the initial recovery efforts. The wolf introduced was the same that was here before they were eradicated, Canis Lupus or Gray Wolf. It was the Canadian Plains Wolf that was re-introduced. Wolves do not recognize the Canada/US border and have wondered back and forth across the imaginary line for millennium. The Gray Wolf is more often named for different locations such as the Minnesota Timber Wolf, still Gray Wolf and not any larger, or the MacKenzie River wolf or the American Northwest wolf, or Canadian plains wolf. They are all Gray Wolves. Gray Wolves range in size from 85-105 lbs. with very few in the world ever found larger. A 135 lbs. wolf was found in Montana, but must fall within the normal range. A 175 lbs. wolf was found in Alaska and a 174 lbs. wolf in Canada, but fewer than 10 in all the world found over 130 lbs., ever, including Russia and Europe. The Mexican Wolf (Lobo), subspecies of Canis Lupus, on the road to recovery, hopefully, around 90 now, is smaller, about coyote size. The Eastern Wolf, Canis Rufus, is also on the road to recovery, hopefully, is also coyote size roughly. Wolves had probably not been totally wiped out in the USA with small numbers remaining in the northwest, southwest and east. Wolves had started reintroducing themselves via Glacier Park during the wolf recovery era of 1975 to 1995-1996-1997.
-Wolves chase for fun. No, wolves will test a herd for weakness or probe for opportunity, but do not chase for fun. They cannot afford the risk of injury or death on a frivolous chase. Wolves do not kill for fun. Wolves are sometimes blamed for dog kills and coyote kills.
-Wolves only eat live kills, not carrion. No, at times the majority of wolf diet is winter kill. Wolves are only successful in 5-15% of caribou and elk hunts.
-Wolf haters (ranchers, sportsmen, yokels) discount any argument they hear for wolves, pro-wolf facts and science, the logic and facts of balanced healthy ecology, the boon to tourism; get angry, shut their minds, walk away. And/or they could care less about anything beyond their own noses, like many/most
Americans. Wolf haters and phobics (loupophobes) are steeped in folklore, myth, lies, false legends, anecdotal bull between and among themselves. There is an irrational gut, visceral, mindless, irrational, knee jerk, primitive reaction going on here. TV shows and theatre fare reinforces the nonsense, superstitions, folklore.
-Then there is the media. Is there any investigative reporting anymore? The media repeats the myth, lies, folklore of the anti-wolf minds giving them some credibility, a false balance reporting policy by echoing their lies, folklore and myths as, “Sportsmen say…. or ranchers say…..” There are facts out there and logic, which largely escapes the media.
-There is a huge implied question, alarm here: Are the state wildlife agencies, especially the one in the wolf jihad states of WY,MT, ID, and WI as ignorant as the hunter-rancher groups or are they completely co-opted by license fees and political coercion? Where is the education and corrections from them on folklore, lies and myth? Where is the emphasis on nonlethal management? (“Wolves do not purchase hunting licenses, and most state wildlife managers draw their pay from revenue derived from sale of hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. That, in brief, is what is wrong with wildlife management in America….” Ted Williams, 1986)
-Related to wolf myths and predator in general myths is the myth of hunters and ranchers as conservationists. Conservationists? Sport Killing and Trapping as Conservation
Trappers and hunters are good with rationalizations, both rationalizing themselves as “conservationists” which is absurd, when what they really do is game farming for sports and profit killing, marginalizing predators. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. reasons for game decline is almost always man and his activities: Loss of habitat to farming and grazing, as it is with sage grouse, forage loss due to man or weather or fire, over-hunting. Hunting is additive killing falling outside the wilderness ecology. Man is no longer few and dependent on subsistence hunting; now it is just sports killing. In any case, it is not predators’ depredations that are primary factors to be “managed” in a knee jerk way way of thinking, often spurring wildlife agencies to join in the “management” of predators rationale.; predators-prey have established millenniums of balance, and predators should never be scapegoated as the sportsmen do with bird, ungulate and fish number fluctuations. Climate change may be resulting in flora and fauna changes and even movement to other climes and loss of forage, fire damage, and disease. It is man that needs management in terms of controlling hunting levels, habitat loss and recovery, corridors of travel for wildlife kept or regained (available), learning to live with wildlife instead of against it in the march of civilization in ranching and farming, extraction industries, development. The rationalizations of trappers and hunters for managing the predators is an old, invalid mantra belonging in the categories of myth, folklore, lies, and with us from the dawn of civilization and sports hunting.
As a result of the myths, lies, folklore mindsets, and repetitions of it all, and general ignorance, the public also repeats the myths, lies and folklore, especially wolf hating parochial(s) and ranchers and hunters until they become ingrained and stubbornly resistant to change. Conservationists are not going to have any or much impact on the rigid and reactive mindsets, so they must not only continue to counter the ignorance with valid information, but also appeal to a larger audience and find wolf friendly legislators at the state and federal levels. Also, the dollar appeal of wildlife viewing, by far more profitable than wildlife killing, needs to get out there more. All of this must come out over and over.
My wife’s rancher father tried to accuse bald eagles of eying his calves for dinner. As if. Eagles will clean up afterbirth but that’s about as far as it goes. Ranchers seem to have a need to fear predators like their ancestors needlessly did. That’s half the fun for them. Thanks for continuing to confuse them with the facts in your neck of the woods.
Exposing the Big Game 
Wolf Myths, Lies and Folklore and Other Predator Scapegoating:
My gym is a rich source of rancher and hunter folklore, lies and myth. It riles me but it is rich in BS and lots to rebut. I live in Great Falls Montana, need I say almost pure colloquial myth, lies and folklore? Redneck central! It is very, very “red” here. Anytime I bring up the subject of wolves or over hear ambient colloquial conversations, I run up against one or more of the following myths, lies, folklore. They generally scapegoat predators, including raptors, for any sports game waning rather than looking to the real factor s:f encroachment, over hunting, forage changes, climate warming, loss of habitat, and basically man caused problems. Ecology is an abstract concept seemingly beyond their grasp. They operate from a belief system way of thinking and do not want to confused by science, logic or facts. It is folklore way of thinking and knowing. You can tell them the facts and the response will be, “I don’t believe that.”
-Political Management of the Wolf
Congress did not debate delisting the wolf. A rider was attached to a defense appropriation bill (April 2011) put there by Mike Simpson of ID and Jon Tester of MT and sneaked by congress, the American people, the press, and conservationists. It was terrible precedent of over riding the ESA by politics and of wildlife management by politics. Newspapers, the media often reports that congress delisted wolves, in the northwest and midwest, leaving the false impression that there was an at large congressional review and discussion. A rider is a sleazy way for a minority group to get a questionable piece of legislation past congressional debate and discussion and from American public and news awareness that something is passing. The rider should not be allowed for any piece of legislation. This tactic may have opened the door to parochial and often republican political management of wildlife.
-Wolves are killing herds of cattle. No, wolves kill about 0.002 % of cattle in MT, 65 of 2.6 million in 2012, 55 in 2013. Many ranchers of cattle and sheep are encroaching on wolf populated public land and in general wilderness with 772 permits to graze in national forests in MT alone.
-Wolves have to be managed, killed in large numbers, their populations driven down to marginal existence or they will rampage over the landscape, and be everywhere and decimate game and stock. No, wolves will fill up wilderness niches in some of their old territory, across the states then regulate their own populations relative to game and wilderness availability and wolf family elbow room, which may be most salient factor (wolf pack elbow room). The alpha male and female are mother and father of the pack. They and older wolves teach young wolves which takes 25% of their young lives, learning from elders how to hunt and what do hunt and most to avoid conflict with man. Wolf management by hunting is asinine. It disrupts families and social learning, accomplishes little to nothing and more likely than not creates problems.
Myth: Wolves are dangerous. Wolves are scary. They attack people. No, there are only 2-4 documented cases in North America in history, in the last 400 years, two to thtee of which are weakly substantiated. One was in Alaska and one in Saskatchewan (doubtful, more likely a bear, at a dump, per a wildlife biologist). The rest is old world folklore, hollywood BS, visceral reactionary, irrational nonsense perpetrated by fairytales, movies (i.e., The Gray, Canyon, Frozen, werewolf and vampire tales TV). Wolves, bears and lions deserve an annual humanitarian award for tolerating man.
-Wolves are decimating or wiping out elk herds. Elk numbers are up in the states wherein there are wolves. Elk numbers in MT have gone from 89,000 before wolf reintroduction to 145,000 now. Wyoming has had 11 years in a row of record elk harvests. Per MT FWP (March-April issue Montana Outdoors, 2014) elk are at or above target levels even in wolf territories, 100-150% target levels. Colloquials, hunters often confuse local fluctuations in elk numbers with normal elk movement for forage, over hunting, forage availability, encroachment, climate change effects with normal and healthful predator predation, and blame wolves (scapegoating), forgetting and not understanding that all was well before man, and normal, and balanced, not so since man, especially european man and bloodsport traditions. Where do colloquials get the absurd idea that predators are the culprits in game sport game declines and not man?!
Myth-Wolves are wiping out the Yellowstone elk herds.There were only a few wolves in the beginning years. They reached a peak in 2006-2007 with 175 wolves, and are now around 85. There has not been enough wolves to decimate elk numbers. No, there are not and there never has been enough wolves in YNP to wipe out or significantly affect the herds. At most, they may have a 5% impact, which has been good for the herds and the ecological system, flora and fauna. Before wolf reintroduction (1995-1996-1997)) elk numbers in and around YNP were at an all time unsustainable high. The herds had exploded in the 1980’s because of rich forage within the Park due to some wet years and new forage opening up north of the Park, and probably because of insufficient predation.After wolf reintroduction there were two rough winters in a row (1995-1996, 1996-1997) followed by drought years. Even though elk numbers were declining, FWP MT allowed hunting, spring and fall, outside the Park for years, until 2005, spring and fall. Man is the main elk killer outside the Park. Currently there is drought affecting forage, and a current rich predator environment of bear, lions, and wolves. Elk will range in search of new or available forage and not hang in the Park so much. Man (sportsmen), sports killing impact is additive, not natural and often harmful. Predator-prey relationships are natural, millennium old, and healthy. Sports’ killing of animals is not healthy for man or the animals they kill. Wolves are healthy for the elk herds and else as they are apex animals who belong there, making the herds healthier and having a positive trophic cascading effect on flora and fauna (plant and animal). Wolves tend to kill the weak, diseased, vulnerable and to move the herds. Man, sportsmen, go for the trophy animals and kill healthy animals weakening the bloodlines of the herds. It is man that needs to be managed, not wolves, bears on lions. Man is the disease on wildlife, flora and fauna. The YNP elk herds are now at historical levels, and the cow/calf ratio is normal, and the herds are closer to sustainable levels.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/elk.htm
-Yellowstone Park is a zoo and not natural. Of course it is natural and it is not a zoo. It was and is being preserved as a balanced wildlife ecology. The Park Service has made a successful effort to bring back wolves as part of that natural balanced ecology. It has been successful with wolves having trophic cascading effects on flora and fauna. Why is this such a mystery to colloquials, such a hard concept to grasp:: that wolves and other predators are a healthful and natural part of wildlife ecology, worked out of millennia, while sports killing is neither, rationalizations for sports killing I guess. Before hunter regulation, hunters (our forefathers) and ranchers, in cahoots with the federal government, wiped out wildlife across the land. The main benefit of hunting regulation has been the recovery of wildlife and now conservation efforts are attempts to bolster and round out that recovery to include the predator
-Predators have to be managed. Yes, they do in the sense of individual problems with particular problems, but that does not extend to driving down the populations for sports killing of game animals. Predators, such as the wolf and grizzly will fill up the niches and regulate their own populations for the most part, leaving enough sportsmen blood sport killing.
-Wolves kill in a horrendous and tortuous way, tearing their prey apart in a slow manner. No, wolves go for quick kills by severing major arteries and limiting risk to themselves and it no more “tortuous” the sport killing which often wounds, not killing right away; especially archery which wounds about 50% of the time, not killing, leaving an animal to wonder off with an arrow embedded. Shooting also often just wounds. So, sports killing is kind and saves the animals from a less kind death?! This is an amazing rationalization. Man mostly contributes to waxing and waning of game (recreational sports killing). Per Montana Outdoors (March-April issue 2011) regarding sports killing in 2010, hunters killed 95,000 deer, 19,000 pronghorn, 20,000 elk, and hundreds to thousands of birds, bears, goats, moose and else. Man is also encroaching on forage, wildlife habitat, and wildlife corridors. Man is also encroaching through global warming. Over 50 % of wild animals have disappeared in the past 40 years.
These same minds do not accept that wolves belong in a healthy ecological wilderness and could care less. They also do not buy the argument that wolves bring in $35.5 million in added tourism to YNP making each wolf worth over $400,000.00 (based on population estimate of 85).
Myth of giant wolves: There is the myth of the alien, giant, Canadian wolf being introduced into the states and YNP in the initial recovery efforts. The wolf introduced was the same that was here before they were eradicated, Canis Lupus or Gray Wolf. It was the Canadian Plains Wolf that was re-introduced. Wolves do not recognize the Canada/US border and have wondered back and forth across the imaginary line for millennium. The Gray Wolf is more often named for different locations such as the Minnesota Timber Wolf, still Gray Wolf and not any larger, or the MacKenzie River wolf or the American Northwest wolf, or Canadian plains wolf. They are all Gray Wolves. Gray Wolves range in size from 85-105 lbs. with very few in the world ever found larger. A 135 lbs. wolf was found in Montana, but must fall within the normal range. A 175 lbs. wolf was found in Alaska and a 174 lbs. wolf in Canada, but fewer than 10 in all the world found over 130 lbs., ever, including Russia and Europe. The Mexican Wolf (Lobo), subspecies of Canis Lupus, on the road to recovery, hopefully, around 90 now, is smaller, about coyote size. The Eastern Wolf, Canis Rufus, is also on the road to recovery, hopefully, is also coyote size roughly. Wolves had probably not been totally wiped out in the USA with small numbers remaining in the northwest, southwest and east. Wolves had started reintroducing themselves via Glacier Park during the wolf recovery era of 1975 to 1995-1996-1997.
-Wolves chase for fun. No, wolves will test a herd for weakness or probe for opportunity, but do not chase for fun. They cannot afford the risk of injury or death on a frivolous chase. Wolves do not kill for fun. Wolves are sometimes blamed for dog kills and coyote kills.
-Wolves only eat live kills, not carrion. No, at times the majority of wolf diet is winter kill. Wolves are only successful in 5-15% of caribou and elk hunts.
-Wolf haters (ranchers, sportsmen, yokels) discount any argument they hear for wolves, pro-wolf facts and science, the logic and facts of balanced healthy ecology, the boon to tourism; get angry, shut their minds, walk away. And/or they could care less about anything beyond their own noses, like many/most
Americans. Wolf haters and phobics (loupophobes) are steeped in folklore, myth, lies, false legends, anecdotal bull between and among themselves. There is an irrational gut, visceral, mindless, irrational, knee jerk, primitive reaction going on here. TV shows and theatre fare reinforces the nonsense, superstitions, folklore.
-Then there is the media. Is there any investigative reporting anymore? The media repeats the myth, lies, folklore of the anti-wolf minds giving them some credibility, a false balance reporting policy by echoing their lies, folklore and myths as, “Sportsmen say…. or ranchers say…..” There are facts out there and logic, which largely escapes the media.
-There is a huge implied question, alarm here: Are the state wildlife agencies, especially the one in the wolf jihad states of WY,MT, ID, and WI as ignorant as the hunter-rancher groups or are they completely co-opted by license fees and political coercion? Where is the education and corrections from them on folklore, lies and myth? Where is the emphasis on nonlethal management? (“Wolves do not purchase hunting licenses, and most state wildlife managers draw their pay from revenue derived from sale of hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. That, in brief, is what is wrong with wildlife management in America….” Ted Williams, 1986)
-Related to wolf myths and predator in general myths is the myth of hunters and ranchers as conservationists. Conservationists? Sport Killing and Trapping as Conservation
Trappers and hunters are good with rationalizations, both rationalizing themselves as “conservationists” which is absurd, when what they really do is game farming for sports and profit killing, marginalizing predators. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. reasons for game decline is almost always man and his activities: Loss of habitat to farming and grazing, as it is with sage grouse, forage loss due to man or weather or fire, over-hunting. Hunting is additive killing falling outside the wilderness ecology. Man is no longer few and dependent on subsistence hunting; now it is just sports killing. In any case, it is not predators’ depredations that are primary factors to be “managed” in a knee jerk way way of thinking, often spurring wildlife agencies to join in the “management” of predators rationale.; predators-prey have established millenniums of balance, and predators should never be scapegoated as the sportsmen do with bird, ungulate and fish number fluctuations. Climate change may be resulting in flora and fauna changes and even movement to other climes and loss of forage, fire damage, and disease. It is man that needs management in terms of controlling hunting levels, habitat loss and recovery, corridors of travel for wildlife kept or regained (available), learning to live with wildlife instead of against it in the march of civilization in ranching and farming, extraction industries, development. The rationalizations of trappers and hunters for managing the predators is an old, invalid mantra belonging in the categories of myth, folklore, lies, and with us from the dawn of civilization and sports hunting.
As a result of the myths, lies, folklore mindsets, and repetitions of it all, and general ignorance, the public also repeats the myths, lies and folklore, especially wolf hating parochial(s) and ranchers and hunters until they become ingrained and stubbornly resistant to change. Conservationists are not going to have any or much impact on the rigid and reactive mindsets, so they must not only continue to counter the ignorance with valid information, but also appeal to a larger audience and find wolf friendly legislators at the state and federal levels. Also, the dollar appeal of wildlife viewing, by far more profitable than wildlife killing, needs to get out there more. All of this must come out over and over.
My wife’s rancher father tried to accuse bald eagles of eying his calves for dinner. As if. Eagles will clean up afterbirth but that’s about as far as it goes. Ranchers seem to have a need to fear predators like their ancestors needlessly did. That’s half the fun for them. Thanks for continuing to confuse them with the facts in your neck of the woods.
You are so very correct. I do not understand that mentality.