Wolves have
been a big issue in Denmark for several months now – for the first time in 200
years we now have wolves living in our little country – two of them to be
exact. But unfortunately all the loonies have started to come out of the
woodwork as well. Some people seem to have their knowledge of wolves from the
tales of the Brothers Grimm, and we have been subjected to all kinds of
paranoid and hysterical ramblings from people who are now too frightened to
take a walk in their local wood, from politicians who are certain the wolves
have been released by biologists as part of some kind of underhanded scheme to
suppress people living in rural areas. An organization has even started to
collect signatures to get the government to sanction killing the wolves.
The latest
is “anonymous” hunters declaring that when the deer hunting season starts in a
couple of weeks, the wolves will not be a problem, as they will shoot them on
sight. They are even bragging about two wolves that have allegedly already been
shot and buried quietly. Unfortunately stupidity is not illegal in this
country, but they even have the audacity to say that the wolves have been shot
as an act of compassion – this is based on a photo of one of the wolves taken
by an automatic camera a few weeks ago showing a wolf shedding its winter coat.
“This wolf is clearly severely debilitated by mange, so we are in fact doing it
a favour by shooting it.”
This one is
only sleeping in the sun by the way.
Oh yes –
and of course there is also an element of “them and us”. Them being people like
me living in the capital, and not knowing a thing about nature, unlike a
certain group of farmers and other people living in rural areas who see
themselves as the only people who truly understand what’s going on in nature,
and who see themselves as living in pact with nature and the seasons. “How do
you think it would be to live beside a ferocious predator like a wolf? some of
them have shouted at me – you can of course if you like, exchange ferocious
with bloodthirsty or something even more scary. I have even been told that if
my child was eaten by a wolf I would be sorry that I hadn’t listened to those
sane voices wanting the wolves to be killed as quickly as possible.
And to
think I had this idea that the Middle Ages was long gone. Silly me!
Can't people lobby for wolves to have total protection?
SvarSletOfficially they have - both in Denmark and in the EU, but some hunters are claiming that they will shoot them if they get a chance, and stuff the law.
SletWe actually get exactly the same sentiments here.
SvarSletWhen wolves returned the the Northern Rockies, you got all sorts of anti-rancher conspiracy theories that people were promoting, including one that wolves regularly kill grizzly bears!
Where I live the large, pack hunting candid is the large coyote with wolf ancestry, usually just called the Eastern coyote. The conspiracy here was that automobile insurance companies here were paying out too much in claims for deer-related crashes that they were going to have to introduce coyotes to control the deer population. The conspiracy goes that one man shot a coyote and found State Farm Insurance tags in its ear.
Never mind that it's never been demonstrated that coyotes actually do control deer numbers.
Some much nonsense about coyotes caused our agriculture commissioner, a known political hack and pander bear of the worst sort, to propose a coyote lottery bounty:
http://retrieverman.net/2013/03/19/coyote-bounty-lottery-proposed-in-west-virginia/
http://www.hurherald.com/cgi-bin/db_scripts/articles?Action=user_view&db=hurheral_articles&id=22020
SvarSletThe conspiracy: "The other day a cattleman went out to check on his herd and noticed that one of his favorite cows, who happened to be expecting, was missing. He went on a hunt and found her with a fine new calf in the woods but she and the calf were worn out as three coyotes were circling looking for a tasty meal. A Mr. Remington equalized one of the exotic varmints and the other two fled the scene as they knew they would have an allergic reaction to hot lead. Someone else noted that they trapped one that had an ear tag that said 'Property of State Farm Insurance.'"
He also claims that there are wolves running loose in West Virginia because coyotes weren't doing the job! (There are no wolves here. The last one was killed about 1900. It was starving to death and had only a single grouse in its stomach.)
http://www.hurherald.com/cgi-bin/db_scripts/articles?Action=user_view&db=hurheral_articles&id=33038
"One local resident saw one of the wolves that had been turned lose locally. He tried to shoot it but the shot was too long and the varmint escaped. One fellow noted that someone in the DNR was given millions by insurance companies to turn the wolves loose to kill the deer that were causing car wrecks. Earlier they had tried the coyotes but they didn’t do the job well enough."
These sentiments are very common in rural America. This comes from the Eastern US. In the West, where there actually are wolves.