[Vision2020] NY Times OP/ED: Mixed News for Wolves

[Dan Carscallen]

In an editorial posted by Wayne from the NYT:
 
"This eagerness to resume the slaughter is based on claims that the
wolves are devastating livestock populations and game animals like elk.
These claims have little basis in fact and should be rigorously examined
during the public comment period ahead. Even then, the wolves should not
be de-listed until Idaho and Wyoming adopt adequate regulatory
mechanisms for protecting wolf populations that present no threat to
humans, are valuable to the ecosystem and have taken years to rebuild." 

Honestly, I don't care one way or the other about the wolves (there is
only so much food to go around, and I can protect myself in the woods),
but the writer states that there is "little basis in fact" regarding the
claims that wolves are devastating livestock and wild game populations,
yet only a couple sentences later states that "[wolves] are valuable to
the ecosystem".

Seems to me the ecosystem has been getting along without the wolves
while they were endangered in some areas and absent in others, so that
claim of "value to the ecosystem" would also have little basis in fact.

I guess that's why it's an editorial.

DC