Hunters aren't the worst threat to wolves' survival

Well, they are hunting wolves out West this fall, and many people think it's a shame. The wolf is barely off the federal endangered species list in Montana and Idaho, and right away these states are allowing public hunting. But not everyone thinks hunting wolves is bad, and not just ranchers and sportsmen who believe the wolf conflicts with their own interests. Many of the folks who see public wolf hunting as a positive development actually are pro-wolf. They notice that wolf populations that only 20 years ago were almost nonexistent in the West have now recovered so much that the populations can afford regulated harvesting like their fellow large carnivores -- mountain lions and bears. These folks view the wolf's new status as a state-managed species as helping to secure a more normal and healthy standing for the wolf in the West's wildlife community. Regulated hunting of wolves will not endanger the species again. But habitat loss, especially the loss of large contiguous tracts of wild land, will. That, rather than the human-caused deaths of individual wolves, will be the big concern of those folks who now decry state management of the species. To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, "In wilderness is the preservation of the wolf."...read more