.jpg)
Repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" may be the right thing to do, but there's only one reason to do it: military effectiveness.
Reader comments: 12
Didn't that Manchester bank robber last week know that if you are going to rob a bank on Elm Street, ManchVegas, you are supposed to tape a tree to your head?
More Columns >>>
- > You never know about the mail (2)
- > Caroline Baum: We might as well be building pyramids (16)
- > Jonah Goldberg: Obama not ideological? Don't make me laugh (26)
- > Shackling our future to our elderly (12)
- > Thomas Sowell: Politicians in Wonderland (22)
- > John Clayton: For most writers, this is THE list
- > Gaming the abortion debate (32)
- > Joe McQuaid: Washington reigns supreme, but the Granite State has a few notables, too (8)
- > Some things never change, just the voices (4)
- > Fergus Cullen: Cronyism and corporate welfare rule RGGI grants (17)
- > George F. Will: The Democrats' two brains (18)
- > Is free speech merely a privilege? (25)
- > Thomas Sowell: An active electorate is a powerful electorate (16)
- > Pat Buchanan: Is Obama losing the white vote? (24)
- > Joe McQuaid: Virtual reality makes winter bearable for golfers stuck in its snowy grip (5)
Andrew Cline has been editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader since October of 2001. His writing has appeared in more than 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Review.John Harrigan: 'Want' vs. 'need,' 'can' vs. 'should' with the wolves
Print
Email
Mobile
Reader comments
By JOHN HARRIGAN
Woods, Water and Wildlife
Sunday, Apr. 27, 2008
LAST WEEK'S COLUMN struck a nerve among people with strong feelings about wildlife management, trophy hunting, and wolves. The letters took me to task for saying that newly established trophy wolf-hunting in the West gives potent ammunition to the anti-hunting crowd and is also just plain wrong.
One writer made no bones about it -- he doesn't like predators, period, the only good wolf is a dead one, and without at least some limited means of control we'd be overrun, to the detriment of livestock and game populations. Another long-time reader said my opinions were not in keeping with a pro-sustainable use philosophy, and that there was a need for science-based management of the wolves.
There are around 1,500 gray wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, descendants of the 31 wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone Park in the mid-1990s. The federal government recently "de-listed" the wolves from endangered to merely threatened, which allows state-by-state management. And the states evidently have been itching to have at the wolves.
Several writers noted that wildlife managers have a good track record, and can fine-tune things so that if the overall health and future of a population is even the least bit endangered, they can stop a hunt. This is true, and there is no doubt that the three states can conduct sustainable wolf hunts. I have never said otherwise. We have proved this here in New Hampshire with the lottery-permit moose hunt and the hunting seasons on the restored wild turkey.
The word in play on the wolf issue is not "can," but "should." Sustainable hunts usually center on prey species such as deer and elk, not predators. Few people want to eat wolf or coyote or bobcat.
In most cases the aim is a head for the wall. A hunt of this sort is no doubt sustainable, but given the wolf's status and symbolism, is it right?
Is there a need for science-based management of the wolves? If you believe that all things should be controlled by mankind, yes. If you believe that unmanaged wild populations will settle into what's sustainable, no.
Quite naturally, elk-hunting organizations, ranchers and farmers want wolf populations controlled, and hunting is the most practical way. There are payments for wolf-killed livestock, but they are never enough.
Still, I don't think wolves in the West are at the point where they "need" to be controlled, as if they would ever "need" to be anyway.
As always, it would boil down to whether society "wanted" or "needed" to control their numbers. Wild creatures, and nature in general, have no need of anything from us.
Trees, for instance, don't need to be cut; we cut them because we want and need to, for the wood and the money.
As for the anti-hunting scene, I still maintain that trophy wolf- hunting is just the wrong thing, at the wrong time -- a big fat headache we don't need.
John Harrigan's address: Box 39, Colebrook, NH 03576. E-mail: hooligan@ncia.net.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. © 1997-2010.
YOUR COMMENTS
Unfortunately, John, this is a no win situation. I understand both sides of the argument, and agree with certain points on both sides. The bottom line is, you can't have it both ways. The reintroduction was probably the biggest mistake of all. If the wolves were meant to be there still, nature would've taken care of it. Instead, they were put back, and now the balance is skewed. Between 2 states, I pay over $200/yr on licenses to hunt/fish whatever..and for the record, I'm a meat hunter. Sometimes I kill, sometimes I don't. But...you start introducing more predators...does that mean I pay less every year? That's the problem with laws and rules...once you start...it's hard to say where to stop. I say let em hunt the wolves. If they're meant to be, they'll find a way to adapt.
- Jason, Nottingham
I have had a running argument with my brother in law, who is a hunter. He agrees with some of those folks out west - 'the only good wolf is a dead wolf'. He feels the same about coyotes, and I suspect any four legged predator would be on his list for extermination. Why? Because they compete for the same game the hunters are after, and if they are allowed to run rampant out there in the wilds there will be no game left for the hunters! my argument is that they do NOT compete for the same game - they go after the young, the old, the sick, the weak - effectively culling and ultimately making for stronger, healthier herds. The hunters, on the other hand, go after the biggest and best, the prime bucks- and leave the tattered old gimpy fellas to their fates. I'm not against hunters, or hunting, for the sake of filling one's freezer for the winter. I do think that trophy hunters need to find another pastime - and all of those folks out west who are just salivating at the thought of going after the big bad wolf should remember that the wolves were there long before they came along with their cattle and sheep. The wolves were there, keeping the bison, elk, moose and deer herds healthy and strong. Those ranchers need to find a way to coexist with the wolves. I'm with John - leave nature alone and it will find it's own balance.
- Sharon, Derry
I don't think these westerners have ever been to northern NH before. We don't have grizz, we have rumors of catamounts, we have occasional visiting lynx. We also do not have massive herds of livestock grazing on miles of prairies. I welcome the return of the wolf to the great northern forests. These scare tactics of the big bad wolf are taking wolf behavior far out of context. Wolves are predators, but in spite of what our fine poster from Idaho ballyhoos, they don't warrant the fear behind 'smoking a pack a day'.
- JB, New Boston, NH
John, I really respect your opinion, BUT, you need to think about the wolves a little more. I`m sure that if your farm was in wolf country you would see this bit differently. You might want to check out the Billings Gazette from time to time. They are running wolf stories all the time.
- carl d nassif, Spring, Tx
John is exactly correct about the fallout from the wolf hunt in Montana.
In fact, a national boycott of Montana beef and tourism is now under way.
Bad wildlife management is not acceptable. The folks gunning for wolves never liked federal government regulations. Welfare ranchers subsidized by the very government they rail against should know better.
I have lived in the mountains of New Hampshire since 1968 and would welcome a return of the wolf. Well, actually I suspect they are already there.
My two cents worth. Boycott Montain beef and tourism until reason returns.
- Niles Youngblood, Sedona, Arizoan
That's great thinking Kevin, let's kill off the grizzly next right?
- mike, hooksett
Last fall, outside of the little berg of Avery, Idaho in the St. Joe River drainage, a local young man decided to run his 3 bear/mountain lion hounds. What they encountered instead was a pack of these don't need to be killed wolves. The wolves killed two of the dogs immediately and maimed the third so badly the owner had to shoot it on the spot.
These dogs did not "need to be killed" either, but they were, by a pack of indescriminate killiing machines.
As we say here in Idaho, "Smoke a pack a day."
- Kevin Flanders, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
I have to disagree with John on his wolf
management. In the last 15 years government trappers have killed many
wolves that were considered problem
wolves(killed cattle, sheep dogs, etc.) so
wolves have been controlled as John puts
it. So now the wolf is going to be managed as any big game animal and anyone who has a wolf tag is going to be able to harvest one. If they were not
controlled it would be like states that do
not control Mt. Lions, and people have been attcked or killed,
I'd be willing to bet that when and if the
people that want to release them(wolves)in Northern New England, their are going to
be some upset people. Then farmers are
going to find out wolves are not all that
great to coexist with. John I doubt those
pasture guard dogs of yours would be
any match for a pack of hungry wolves.
- Stephen Moulton, Billings, MT
NOTE: If you have visited this page before, newer comments may be hidden. Press F5, or hold down the Ctrl key while reloading or refreshing the page. (Another option for Firefox users is the Clear Cache add-on.)