mt ..... your a smart guy, I respect your opinions, not because I always agree but I know you can always justify your beliefs. Can’t ask for more than that.
“They are either there, or coming”
Well.... probably.
I’ve given up trying to influence wildlife management, and/or mismanagement. I’ve said it before and I guess I may as well say it again. 74 old men shouldn’t be telling 40 year olds how to manage or mismanage their generation’s wildlife. So......... if wolves come to Utah or not, it will no longer have anything to do with me.
But..... regarding opinions on what should be or what outcomes will be, in spite and attitude, I still have a few thoughts that rattle around.
In the lower 48, human populations and crowding are considerably elevated since the last time we had signicant populations of wolves and grizzly bears. We still have yet to learn what the consequence will be when these apex predators grow to significant numbers. I’m not gonna pretend to know what the next generation of humans will decide a significant number is, but there is one and if or when we get here, the critter will loss to the human, again.
Currently Utah, has intentionally kept their numbers of wolves extreme low. We can agree how many are here now but it’s very few. The image below is part of the empirical reason I believe that. Not many folks that get a photo of a wolf, in Utah, are not going share it. If the right people in Utah encounter a wolf, nobodies ever going to know about it. As of now, not many wolf picture are getting passed around the wedding receptions. With the number of trail cameras, on our public lands, not many critters, of any make or model are going undetected.
So...... if wolves or grizzlies come here, in significance numbers, the only way they’ll “stay”, is if our law and our attitudes here change. Laws and attitudes could change but at the present, there’s no indication they’re are.....there’s no noise in the back rooms or notes on the napkins. At least not at the present. That certainly doesn’t mean folks haven’t tired.
Why?
Because, as a State, “those in control” don’t want them.
Why?
For the same reason their great grand fathers didn’t want them. They are too difficult to manage and mismanagement creates too many conflicts with the existing demographic.
“Wolves are coming”...... they could because our demographic is certainly changing. Will it change enough to accommodate wolves before the rest of the State’s wolves populations grow large enough to cause those State to remove their wolves, again, I don’t know but I’m willing to wager a $100 wolves won’t be legal in Utah in my life time. And, while it will be hard to collect because a corpse can’t pay it’s bets but........, I’d wager another $100 that, in time, other States, in the lower 48, will, at some point in time decide wolves are incompatible with human in large numbers, the same as they did over 120 years ago.
Just because they’re back, in many places, doesn’t mean their going to stay. It’s too bad that humans have to relearn so dang many things.
Now this will get me in a ton of hot water because it is unadulterated speculation and how could we ever know, but what the hell, I’ll speculate anyway.
The Native Americans, at least, the ones I’ve read about all gave grizzlies and jaguars a wide wide birth. They respected them to the poInt they treated them as gods or god like entities. They counted coup if they could prove they even touch a live one.
Why?
First it was out of abject fear, then respect, then worship. Now, let’s suppose that their ancestry had the firearm before the grizzly had become a god like animal to them,....... meaning they weren’t terrified of them, because they could protect themselves from them and kill them, like any other animal in the neighborhood. If that had been the case, do you think the Native American would have tolerated the grizzly....... or the wolf, or the jauguar? I don’t, I think they would have been extinct long before our ancestors got here. Human don’t put up with an abundance of bull sh-t from animals, if they don’t have to.
Humans love nature and wild things but not more than they love food, there lives and their well being. Hell, we fight wars and kill each other, when conflicts reach a “signficant” degree.
So....... maybe “their coming”....... but they “aren’t gonna stay”.
But what the heck would I know and your experiences and bias are as good and as justified as mine.
Wish we could be here long enough to see it play out...... I still kinda like it here.
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