Please, no offense is intended, however this is an ignorant comment, typical of the hysterical reactions of western small town America, where the ranch/farm lobby holds considerable sway, much of it founded upon ignorant, but innocent, good intention. However, more than a few out west are not so innocently ignorant, a small, but powerful lobby of ranchers, farmers, and greedy politicians have been actively propigating these misconceptions in a well coordinated disinformation campaign intended to capitalize on the vast ignorance of the public.
The Wolves introduced out west are not any different then the wolves of the great lakes, exact same animals! This misconception emerged from this farm/ranch lobby, and has been expertly propagandized by them, until it has been embraced by the ignorant, and inexperienced public as some sort of truth! Why your wolves have gotten bigger is not due to some "mysterious" Canadian genetic super-strain, rather it is due to the genetic inferiority of your elk, which had no experience with such a superior, keystone predator as the gray wolf!
This disinformation campaign has been spearheaded by the most disreputable factions in the sport hunting media, I challenged(it went unanswered)the editor of "Predator Nation" magazine, "Skip Knowles" on a particularly eggregious example of destructively hyperbolic disinformation in their winter/spring publication where he preposterously passed along to his readership that he had "personally" talked with a Yellowstone wildlife biologist that witnessed gray wolves "kill, and eat, three puma's in a single day!" This type of patently false, and destructive disinformation, is exactly the same method of deliberate disinformation associated with the "Canadian genetic super-wolf" silliness that has infected western discussion on gray wolf management!
Frankly, the western states are so ecologically damaged, so altered from the original "natural system" through the destructive influences of the ranch industry that the remanining ecosystem itself, is largely artificial, and cannot be maintained as is, thats to say you cannot have both, wild wolves, and ranchers, co-existing! We all know what that portends for the re-introduction of the wolf! This was amply demonstrated when Idaho essentially, re-exterminated gray wolves this past year after getting the Obama administration to sign off on it, in hopes of getting votes for a certain politician. Idaho's vehemently anti-wolf government, which is in perfect lockstep lockstep with the ranch lobby, came out just a month after their own state biologists had arrived at a count of some 500-600 gray wolves, with a mysterious figure of their own, a clearly fraudulent 1500 + animals, the result was that they killed well over 500 gray wolves while laughing in the face of the nation, often posting bloodthirsty video images of the slaughter to the internet!
Here in the great lakes, where the last great wilderness area remains in the lower forty eight, we have far greater experience, and tolerance in dealing with these keystone predators, we have/had a sterling trapping program in place, and we have ranchers/farmers who are better equipped to co-exist with them.
Last edited:
