Finally Common Sense On Wolves & Elk….

I can always count on George Wuerthner to speak the truth about  wolves…..

We need wolves to be wolves.

By George Wuerthner, 5-11-10

If the published comments and quotes of David Allen of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) are accurate reflections of his attitudes (and I don’t know that they are), one might get the impression that the only reason hunters and anglers helped to recover elk and deer populations was to enable them to claim all future elk and deer as their private property to shoot and consume. Allen even used a bit of hyperbole to declare the restoration of wolves to the Rockies as “one of the worst wildlife management disasters since the destruction of bison herds in the 19th Century.”

RMEF and other prominent pro hunting organizations are demanding that wolves be “managed” so they will have little effect upon elk numbers which hunters’ desire. This is not to suggest that wolves cannot influence ungulate numbers. Thankfully they can. Nor am I worried that wolves will go extinct if managed. But I do worry that wolves may not be permitted to exert their top down ecological footprint upon the land if they are managed to minimize their influence upon ungulate populations. 

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Posted in: gray wolf/canis lupus, biodiversity

Tags: wolves and trophic cascades, wolves and elk