This kind of story makes me so angry! My husky is as close to a wolf as a dog can be and I know these animals are sensitive, feeling creatures that don't deserve to be hunted to extinction. Call me a bleeding liberal tree hugger if it makes you feel better but some days I think we deserve extinction ourselves. Billions live in poverty without adequate food and clean water and yet we can't tear out our forests fast enough to make more room for more cars and subdivisions. These wolves are considered a nuisance because they no longer have their own habitat. How dare they inconvenience us in search of food and shelter to survive.

I didn't know the purpose of the endangered species act was to bring something back from the brink of extinction, just to kill it off and end up right back where we started. The wolf numbers may be increasing, but without a large amount of genetic diversity, a single disease can wipe out the entire population. I think they need more time to thrive and spread out, even if someone loses a cow or two along the way.

Americans aren't the only ones who have shaped their land with little regard to its natural inhabitants... Europeans did it centuries ago, so long ago few people can name more than two or three large animals that live there now... I can't... does Europe have wolves? Or Bison? Elk? Bears?

Nothing will stop capitalism, save our own extinction.

Even if we get rid of all the wolves, once we're gone, our dogs will revert to something similar...

Maybe we should ban free-range cattle farming, and go back to letting the bison roam, then culling them like we do yearly with white-tail deer... cattle farming is a huge problem, on many levels... the amount of grain we grow for cattle, the fertilizers for that grain, the tillage and runoff, the natural inhabitants gone from the land; black-footed ferrets are endangered because cattle farmers didn't like their livestock's legs broken in prairie dog holes, poisoned the prairie dogs which poisoned the ferrets... Everything's connected...

I hope I can afford that steak for the grill tomorrow.... and swallow it past my shame.

if you look at the objectives of the fish and game in your local area you'll see that at no point are they trying to wipe out any animal populations. they are only trying to control the population to reduce the contact of humans and wildlife.

Where do you live? because if you think controlling the population is a bad thing it's a really good chance they are NOT in your backyard... OR you have never interacted with a wolve.....

We have the right to protect our animals (livestalk AND pets) and our children... If an animal habitually bothers humans they should be removed (and this does NOT mean relocated)

Indeed -- my guess is the speed of the federal government to re-list these beautiful animals on the endangered species list -- once humans have organized (using helicopters, even) and hunted them to protect their interests -- will be far outpaced by the speed of those hunters to do terrible damage. People really need to learn to structure their lives and businesses to coexist as peacefully as possible with the land in which they choose to live. If you can't live where you live and do what do without killing other things to do it, within reason, then you should live/do something else.

what you shouldn't be allowed to do in the first place is remove wild animals from their native habitat to suit your own selfish needs. Don't take it personally, but you are part of the problem, not the wolves.

why don't we just "control the population" of humans, because we are bothering the wolves a lot more than the wolves are bothering us.

""""Where do you live? because if you think controlling the population is a bad thing it's a really good chance they are NOT in your backyard... OR you have never interacted with a wolve.....
We have the right to protect our animals (livestalk AND pets) and our children... If an animal habitually bothers humans they should be removed (and this does NOT mean relocated)""""

Wolves aren't in your backyard, you're in THEIRS. Put up fence to keep your cows in... or are they grazing on PUBLIC lands? If you graze them on public/government lands, you don't get to decide, you take the risk.

What kind of frenking fence will keep a wolf or wolves from an innocent little calf. If people are so worried about wolves stop blogging about and join some organization. I mean you may convince a few people to side with you but then what. You'll just sit your butt on the couch and watch tv or cook dinner or go watch a movie. Do something about the problem join a conservationist group in your area and work to make habit for endangered species such as wolves and even other creatures that are not yet on the endangered species list. Heck, I've got mussels in the creek behind my house with salamanders, snails, bream, some baby bass, raccoons, opossums, white-tailed deer, great horned owls, barn owls, blue herons. The only thing I have done so far is let a few of my neighbors know what is in the creek so that we contribute to it thriving. In Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming just make more reservations for the animals in general that helps all species. Also, a person or persons needs to monitor the prey species to see if the wolf populations have any devastating effect on those species in the area. Also, any people here that eat meat, you may want think about this each time a cow is killed the price of milk or beef will go up so find a solution to this problem. The Native Americans worked with the land and so can we so we have to find the balance and where us and this busy society fit. Since wolves are not in my area presently, people have taken the place of the wolf to hunt beavers, birds, deer, and lots of other game. To add onto what I said about the reservations, if an animal comes off the large reservation then he is fair game. Podboq is saying that from the comfort of his home. Be careful, if you want to sleep next to rattlesnakes, water mocassins, mice, mosquitoes, wolves, black bears, cougars, and fire ants be my guest. Go camping in the mountains for a week that will help you notice more about nature and respect her more than you ever have.To let everybody, I bass fish, trout fish, and dove hunt (those birds are hard to shoot). I plan to deer hunt and turkey hunt sometime. I love animals like the rest of us on this site but let's find a balance. I am welcome to ideas of how to solve the growing wolf populations just keep posting here and we can discuss it thoroughly.