I?m going to start this out by saying I have no use for wolves, and see no value in reestablishing them anywhere. I?ll go a step further and admit I have no use for bears, of any kind, and saw no value in reestablishing them in my home state of Arkansas.
That?s a selfish opinion though. I can see the other side of the coin. I can see the mystique of those who enjoy nature in a very different way than I do, and the perspective they have that going to a wild place (to them) like Yellowstone, and knowing there are wolves there as they existed in this country for centuries, and possibly even hearing one, is an experience they would enjoy.
I think the original poster made a good recommendation, basically to keep this on a real level, and try to keep emotions out of it.
From what I have read so far, if wolves are re-introduced into Colorado, the deer and elk will be wiped out, hunting will cease to exist, gun manufacturers will go bankrupt, for some reason we won?t be able to afford guns anymore, and the second amendment will be repealed.
I am having a hard time comprehending how bringing wolves to Colorado will be the catalyst for all of that, but that certainly is not an argument that is going to stop wolves from coming into Colorado.
I have to wonder, knowing that wolves existed in Colorado for centuries, were there no deer and elk in Colorado until the wolves disappeared? I realize fully that wolves will have an impact on ungulate populations. Maybe the herds have been completely wiped out in Yellowstone and there are no more deer and elk. I cannot speak to that.
I am big on conservation, and I tend to support wildlife biologists more than most. I often wonder though, how we all got to the point of thinking that animal populations would cease to exist without humans managing them. I do notsay that to take away from the fact that hunters have had tremendous impacts on animal populations, and also are the largest collective group of conservationists in the world, but most of the impact we had and that was needed, was because of what we humans did to the populations to begin with.
Buffalo for example needed help. Not because they could not survive without humans, but because they could not survive because of humans. We wiped out the buffalo, and then yes we restored them.
So I am going to throw out a statement here, that a lot of people are going to immediately disagree with, but if you think about it long enough, and really sit and think about it, it will start to make sense. Hunting regulations exist not for the management of the animal because animals cannot survive without us managing them, but it exists for the management of human impact on the animals and the fact that if we do not manage ourselves, animals will cease to exist.
I hear all the time that if hunting ceases to exist, game populations will explode, there will be no more food, and they will all die and they will no longer exist. The reality is, that is not true. Animals existed in this world long before humans existed in enough numbers to keep their populations down. Wildlife existed in this world and thrived for thousands to millions of years, depending on your perspective of how old the earth is. Wildlife management is basically about one century old. Animals did just fine before humans started managing them.
Animals did just fine before humans started killing them all, therefore requiring a need to manage ourselves.
Sure, If wolves are re-introduced in Colorado deer and elk numbers will probably go down. That is not something I want to hear, and one reason I as a hunter, will gladly do whatever I can from halfway across the country to try and assist in anyway I possibly can, to keep wolves from being brought back.
But at the end of the day when the deer and elk numbers go down, the wolves will go down because they are going to have less to eat. When the wolf numbers go down, deer and elk numbers will go up. It is just a simple circle of life that the world used to manage wildlife since the beginning of time.
It?s not appealing to us as hunters, that game populations may have an additional factor that is inhibits human control, in addition to bad winters , disease outbreak. At the end of the day though l, when the folks up and down I-25 decide they want to see wolves back in Colorado, it?s going to happen and no amount of emotional arguments about how it will affect hunting is going to make a dime?s worth a difference.
Maybe the answer is compromise? How can everyone get what they want? I think that?s what you have to find and figure out. That?s the whole problem with this country today nobody is willing to give in and make compromises where everyone gets some of what they want.
This is probably a stretch but for example what if an agreement was reached where wolves could be introduced back into RMNP, and any wolves seen outside of the boundaries could be shot on sight, anytime of the year. Is that going to guarantee that wolves will never spread to other parts of Colorado? Not necessarily, but I can guarantee you those dogs are smart enough they?ll learn the boundaries of where they?re safe and where they?re not. If a mallard duck can learn where the refugees are, a wolf definitely can.
Anyway I just realized how long this was. I apologize for the rambling, just passing on some thoughts from a long way away.
