Idaho sends a message: It's fine to shoot wolves

If the federal courts won't let Idaho citizens hunt gray wolves legally, the state certainly won't expend any money or effort to keep people from hunting them illegally. That was basically what Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter told the feds and the electorate in mid-October. History will show that this program (of wolf management under the federal Endangered Species Act) was a tragic example of oppressive, ham-handed 'conservation' at its worst," Otter wrote. "Idahoans have suffered this intolerable situation for too long, but starting today at least the state no longer will be complicit." The feds have formally taken over, but they clearly don't want to do it. They have, after all, been trying to delist wolves in the northern Rockies so that they don't have to. They have responded to pressure from the states, within which some ranchers and hunters would like to see more wolves in their gun sights and a lot of people would like to see less regulation by the feds. Some observers also assume Fish and Wildlife officials have acted partly from a desire to have a success story: If the wolves have recovered, the system works...more