Fortunately the Hog Heaven Pack’s slaughter is not going away. You can bet more of this is planned-
Killing of Pack Draws Cries of Protest. By Jim Mann. Northwest Montana Daily InterLake.
In the article, it reads “Laudon [of MT Fish, Wildlife, Parks] said he can imagine what it would be like if the state completely ignored the concerns of livestock owners and the costs they incur due to wolves.
” ‘There would be a hell of a do-it-yourself club out there,’ he said. ‘We can’t have that. Now that would be a trigger-happy Wild West.’ ”
In fact, without their radio collars and aircraft, a do-it-yourself-club would be far less lethal than Wildlife Services. The problem is Wildlife Services and their “toys.” These need to be taken away from them.
This level of livestock loss is trivial, and would be of no public interest at all were it not wolves.
I have it from a pretty good source that slaughter of this pack (assuming it even was just one huge pack) was a trial run. More will be in order and soon, including Idaho if they get away with this.
With all of the truly bad news out there, what looks like an impending depression, they might think there is enough noise in the news that their actions won’t be noticed.
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Related. Wolf kills rise in Rockies. Bush administration set to remove gray wolves from endangered species list [again]. By MATTHEW BROWN. AP
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
Ralph, how come these wolves can be killed for predation since they are not part of the “experimental population”?