This ran in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner today. It has really brought all the Wolf and Bunny huggers out in protest. I even made a comment in the paper about it Here is the link
http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/oct/20/sheep-kill/ For those of you that go there I am known as Graybeard here in Alaska. People called me that, and I used that title, long before I ever heard of Graybeard Outdoors.
Sheep kill
Dan Hawkins, Fairbanks
Published Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Oct. 15, 2009
To the editor:
I am writing regarding the article in the Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009, edition of the Daily News-Miner titled: “Montana wolf quota eyed after nine are shot near Yellowstone.” The comment by the former park ranger that “Yellowstone can’t be a source for wolves to colonize other areas if they get blown away right at the boundary” offends me deeply.
Why? Because no mention is made in the article or by the ranger or by the Wolf Recovery Program people or by the other wolf apologists of the horrendous sheep — kill by wolves in late August on a ranch near my home town of Dillon, Mont. The ranch is about 60 miles from the Yellowstone Park boundary. I know it well. One hundred twenty purebred Rambouillet bucks (rams) were killed in the worst wolf predation recorded and no mention was made of this. For the complete story simply Google “Wolves kill 120 sheep at ranch near Dillon.”
Non-sheep ranchers have no concept of what this loss, both financially and emotionally, means to the ranchers. These rams represent at least 50 years of careful selection and breeding, they are purebred stock and can cost $1,000 or more apiece. The loss of the rams at this time is critical because it is the start of the breeding season for the production of lambs in the spring. So the ranchers have lost their lamb crop as well as their precious breeding stock with hopelessly inadequate compensation. Yet it is the shooting of nine wolves at the park boundary that is decried.
Clearly there are too many wolves loose in the stock country. Perhaps it may be possible to achieve some sort of balance between numbers of predators and the needs of the people who make their living raising livestock in Montana, but all the facts must be presented. One-sided articles such as the above won’t do.
