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Will We Hunt Wolves into Extinction?

Did we bring back wolves so we could kill them again?

By Barbara Palmer

There were over 17,000 licenses sold to kill wolves. It saddens and repulses me that there are that many people who have the need to kill a wolf for fun and sport. Wolves are not used for food. In my view, killing sentient beings for the sheer sport of it is not an ethical form of hunting.

I can’t help wondering if these people, particularly trappers, are just psychologically indifferent to the pain and suffering animals experience while dying in a trap or wounded from a missed shot. Their compassion gene is definitely missing.

Historically, wolves were hunted into extinction. Then wolves were reintroduced to put balance back in nature’s ecosystem. For example, in Yellowstone Park, wolves have caused a positive cascade of ecological change, including helping to increase beaver populations and bring back aspen, and vegetation. Now we are going to kill them again.

Why can’t man allow nature to balance the ecosystem? Nature has always done a better job of maintaining balance than we humans have. From billions of years in the making, mankind has wiped out 60 percent of animal populations since 1970, according to a major report produced by the World Wildlife Fund involving 59 scientists from across the globe.

Did we bring back wolves so we could kill them again?

Barbara Palmer
Whitefish