“Smoke a Pack a Day” (The Wolf Controversy)

No Wolves. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2014

Well, Wisconsin must have a different political and ecological situation on their hands compared to Yellowstone. And they really do. (Go HERE for the results of an interesting Wisconsin wolf opinion survey.)

Sure enough, a bit of Googling shows that there are 600+ wolves in Wisconsin (800+ in 2012) compared to something under 100 in Yellowstone. Throw more human beans into the mix in the case of Wisconsin and you are bound to get complaints.

What is the right number of wolves for Wisconsin? Guesstimates range from none to 350 to 1000. You have wolf huggers who want as many as possible and the killer faction that would be happy to exterminate them, with the in-between voices being drowned out by the yelling. (Why do extremists always coopt the conversations, anyway?)

Yes, the dialogue can be quite bitter at times as evidenced by the above-pictured bumper stickers.

The guy in this truck was fly fishing on Yellowstone’s Madison River. It had me wondering if he has ever heard of something called the trophic cascade? Does he know that the wolf can actually have a positive impact on his fishing possibilities in Yellowstone?

And, what might be the effect of the wolf on the ecosystem in Wisconsin? OnWisconsin Magazine has a good article discussing that very question. It is from 2009, but the ideas contained therein are still valid.

Closer to home, what is the right number of wolves for Yellowstone National Park, a place with fewer people and a mandate to “protect”? What about wolves outside the park in “buffer zones”? Who knows. But we do have quite a number of “exterminator voices” out here in the West, too. Hunters have even lured and baited wolves out of the park then killed them.

What is it with humans and predators that we must act so? What is this instinct among some of us to simply kill what we fear and don’t understand?

Personally, I’m all for welcoming the GRIZZ, the wolf, the jaguar, et al back into their former ranges (where such ranges even still exist). Get the wolf in to Rocky Mountain National Park to shape up the drowsy elk superpopulation there. Have GRIZZ munch on a few stray humans and their dogs now and then. (Heck, I could potentially be a victim, with the solo hiking I do.)

Bring back the real thrill of the wild! Oh, how it would make our lives on this planet so much richer!