I'm posting this here as a new topic, because it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the sniper post it was originally posted on.
But, to quote the discussion so far:
quote:
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Originally posted by Sir Taliesin:
quote:
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Originally posted by Neb:
You hunt wolves? Why? They're peaceful and beautiful creatures
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Not if your a farmer, or cattle/sheep rancher! They find penned up livestock easy pickings. I would assume Canada has a season on wolf hunting. I think the State of Alaska has one or if they don't then the State hunts them to keep the population down. Much like the African countries thin out their Elephant herds.
JEEZ! We got WAY with this!!!
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I'd rather let a couple of wolves devour a few sheep/cows than shoot them. Even if the livestock were my livelihood. Wolves are in my opinion so intelligent and beautiful that I'd be tempted to put a ban on killing them if I was in power, unless of course their numbers were threatening the populations of other creatures dramatically.
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See
http://www.nywolf.org/pdfs/wolfrestore.pdf
This article addresses wolf restoration projects in the USA, not just in the Adirondaks as the title suggests. It also addresses the treatment of the wolf under the Endangered Species Act.
Sir Krustin, our intrepid wolf-hunter, is from Canada. I think there it is legal to hunt wolves. In fact, this has created an issue regarding endangered wolves whose habitat is along the Maine/Canada border because they are protected in one spot of their habitat but not in another. Too bad we can't teach the wolves how to see political boundary lines in the snowy terrain.
In the USA, AFAIK, wolves are protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and "endangered" ("threatened" is the lesser protection classification of the ESA's 2 types of protections). As a listed species, it is illegal to "take" wolves, which the courts have interpreted to include the "taking" of habitat (i.e. cutting down their forest to build your home on your property).
Many landowners think having an endangered species on their property is great. It automatically makes the land protected from development. Some landowners However often are NOT happy to find there is an endangered species, as the now cannot develop their land. This leads to a practice that we refer to in environmental law as "Shoot, shovel, and Shut Up."
If you do hunt wolves in the USA, please be wise and keep your mouth shut about it. If you do it elsewhere, IMHO, you are killing a noble creature whose entire species is threatened and, again IMHO, deserves to live more than you or I.
