FFWD Weekly
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Rant & Rave by Javier Bermudez-Prado The recent shooting death of Nakoda, a wolf in Kananaskis who was sponsored by people around the world through the Central Rockies Wolf Project, has opened some eyes. Mine. There is, it seems, a disparity between the views people take when confronted with unregulated hunting of one animal compared to another. Mention that a whale or a similarly beloved endangered species is hunted without bounds, and a cry of outrage will sound like a storm from every corner of the civilized world. Some species, although not officially on endangered species lists, are endangered on a regional level (that is, the population is dangerously low in a particular area and may become locally extinct). When those species are hunted without regulation or quota, the view seems to change. Especially when the animal in question is the wolf. All our reason and avowed environmentalism as a nation seems to become suspended, and the old stereotypes creep back into our minds. We convince ourselves, wolves are a nuisance and a bane to humanity – a danger. Some hunters talk of unchecked wolf populations having devastating effects on elk, caribou, moose and deer populations, and use that to justify their unrestricted shooting of wolves. It’s interesting to note that wolf populations actually strengthen ungulate herds by killing weak or unhealthy animals (whereas hunting usually removes healthy breeding stock from the population – a biologically unsound practice), and handling nature’s need for checks on the populations of grazing animals. For millions of years, wolves roamed unchecked and achieved a balance with the herds they subsist on. The hubris involved in assuming it is our place to keep wolves from depleting ungulate populations is revolting. The only thing being protected by unchecked hunting of wolves is the continued ignorance we have of these animals. Natural predator/prey relationships in an ecosystem are NOT going to threaten prey animal populations. In fact, prey animal populations rely on the natural selection provided by predators so as not to overpopulate and to maintain the system of genetic adaptation that strengthens them. If these natural prey/predator relationships threatened the food chain, herd animals would have been extinct millennia before man ever picked up a sharpened rock. The wolf has been driven to extinction in many regions where it used to roam freely. Twice this century, the central Rocky Mountain population of wolves has become completely extinct. Human efforts have reintroduced wolves to the region both times, but the animals remain unprotected even with the irrefutable proof of their risk before us. From populations that ranged throughout the Northern Hemisphere, now they’re restricted only to places humans don’t want to live or certain national parks and the wilderness surrounding them. While protected within the borders of the parks, wolf territories are large and often include lands outside of the borders of the parklands that are their sanctuary. Outside of these parks, wolves are not safe from hunters. Whether or not we believe that, as a species, we have more rights than any other organism on the planet is irrelevant. As part of an ecosystem, we have a responsibility to maintain the natural balance. That’s what hunting licenses, tags and hunting quotas are supposedly for – conservation. Why, then, is wolf hunting not checked? Is there any reason that is not either hypocritical or based on fallacy for the continued persecution of one of North America’s most beautiful and most endangered predators? Can anyone – hunter or politician – justify conservation efforts based around animals not endangered or at regional risk of extinction without also justifying the need to protect an animal that, in a range as large as the central Rocky Mountains, only has a population of approximately 70 individuals? Can it be justified that I have to buy a tag to take down an elk, but anybody can go out and shoot the primary breeding female of a small wolf pack– that, I might add, was raising six pups at the time she was shot last week? I rather doubt it. But that’s just me.

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