Proposed wildlife regulations speciously motivated Veronica Egan’s “Wolf foes want to undermine protections” (Letters, Herald, Nov. 26) is logical to the letter in depicting the mentality of those who oppose formal designation of “endangered” to wildlife species that would prey on prized big game species (such as elk and deer) or whose habitat requirements would conflict with grazing interests.
I find it especially amusing when hunters who oppose endangered status for wolves and grizzly bears vaunt about going into “the wilderness” seeking what they call the atavistic experience, not realizing that the existence of three wild mammal groups define an area as genuine wilderness: grizzly bears; wolves and wolverines.
I find it disgusting, almost unbearably so, when the grazing gangsters oppose protections for endangered wildlife species that depend on healthy habitat and ecosystems. To put it bluntly, I know of no form of natural-habitat destruction more lethal than grazing. A clear example of the points that Egan urges is the refusal of Colorado agencies to recognize the existence in Colorado of a relic population of grizzly bears. Such recognition would require that this population be categorized as endangered. Further, with that status in place, there would follow all manner of habitat usage restrictions that would exclude domestic grazing. Then, too, the hunters would contend, protection of grizzly bears would leave them free to slaughter deer and elk in numbers – even though the griz is more of a carcass feeder. I hiked/camped in grizzly range for 13 years in Alberta and British Columbia and can say without hesitation that I would, when I’m in “wilderness,” prefer the company of Ursus arctos horribulus and wolves to that of bleating sheep and fattening cattle.
By the way, I don’t in the least mind elk and deer. But I do recognize that wild predators have more of a right to them than kill-crazy hunters.
Thomas Wright
Aztec
