Re: Judge clears way for wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana

Hunters not obligated to eat wolf kills

http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_421946c4-a1b8-11de-8fff-001cc4c002e0.html

On the day of Montana's first big-game wolf hunt, the question remains: What does a hunter ethically do with a wolf?

Taxidermists say wolf pelts aren't top grade at this time of year, compared to their full winter coats. Most of the recipes for cooking wolves on the Internet come from the online fantasy game "World of Warcraft" (there was one video of "Carpaccio of salmon and wolf with tender herbs," but it turned out to be wolf fish).

Wolf chili is also common, but that's a commercial brand, not an ingredient. M.F.K. Fisher wrote a great cookbook titled "How to Cook a Wolf," but it's mainly metaphorical - when the wolf is at the door, cook the wolf.

A successful Montana wolf hunter - the season begins Tuesday in several backcountry areas - must do several things with his or her kill. The wolf must be properly tagged with a validated license as soon as it's killed. The hunter must report the kill to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department within 12 hours, noting the sex of the animal and location of the hunt. The hunter must also personally present the hide and skull to an FWP warden within 10 days of the kill for inspection and hide-tagging.

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Montana FWP commissioners have declared gray wolves a "species in need of management" in their decision to allow big-game hunting of the animals. Their rationale was based largely on evidence that wolf packs are cutting into elk and deer numbers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's conclusion that Montana has more than enough wolves and breeding pairs to sustain a viable population.

But the commissioners did not designate wolves as "suitable for food" as other big game are. That means hunters are not legally obligated to keep the carcass, other than the pelt and skull. It's illegal to waste any parts of other game animals that are fit for human consumption.

Some Montana hunters mainly seek wild meat to eat. Some seek trophy animals to display or record. Many fall somewhere in between, which puts wolf hunting in a gray area. If it's not fit to eat and makes an uncertain trophy, why hunt it?......

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

I'm not at all sure what I would do with a dead wolf. Most certainly I wouldn't eat it. But if it's invading my space I would most certainly kill it.

I guess that some people just want to kill things. I remember the "safari" movies from when I was a kid, yes they were talkies, where the white hunters and their clients would shoot anything that moved. Especially vulnerable were crocs and hippos if the safari party was doing some river travel. The native population was pretty much at risk too.

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Old Dude

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mrcondron
I guess that some people just want to kill things. I remember the "safari" movies from when I was a kid, yes they were talkies, where the white hunters and their clients would shoot anything that moved. Especially vulnerable were crocs and hippos if the safari party was doing some river travel. The native population was pretty much at risk too.

I think some people don't feel alive if they cannot make something else dead. What a sad characteristic of humans that is.

I remember back in the late 60's four of us went on a double date to see a movie in San Francisco titled, "Alaskan Safari". All of us were into photography at the time and naively thought in that day and age that it was a photographic safari. Boy, were we ever wrong. We treated a couple girls to a movie about slaughtering just about every large beautiful Alaskan mammal one could think of, including a polar bear. The polar bear scene is one I can never get out of my head because the first shot did not kill him. Successive film showed this bear with blood flying from his wound in a hobbling charge towards the shooter before he was subdued with two more shots. We all exited the theater in disgust wondering what purpose this movie served.

Jim

http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_91237b86-a2f8-11de-8741-001cc4c002e0.html
Montana's first big-game wolf has been killed in the remote backcountry near Cooke City.
State Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said Perry Zumwalt of Roberts shot the wolf on Tuesday in Hunting District 316, a remote part of the Beartooth Wilderness north of Yellowstone National Park.......

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

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tomdisco
I remember back in the late 60's four of us went on a double date to see a movie in San Francisco titled, "Alaskan Safari". All of us were into photography at the time and naively thought in that day and age that it was a photographic safari. Boy, were we ever wrong. We treated a couple girls to a movie about slaughtering just about every large beautiful Alaskan mammal one could think of, including a polar bear. The polar bear scene is one I can never get out of my head because the first shot did not kill him. Successive film showed this bear with blood flying from his wound in a hobbling charge towards the shooter before he was subdued with two more shots. We all exited the theater in disgust wondering what purpose this movie served.

Jim

My Dad was a hunter, and while I was not interested one way or another as a youngster, one time in the 1960's I was watching a hunting show with him - American Sportsman, with Curt Gowdy, or something like that - and a couple of guys were in Africa, stalking a huge male elephant. They watched and watched, and when the big boy charged and got to within maybe 200 feet of them at full gallop, they let loose some rifle shots. The elephant came a bit more, slowed, stopped, staggered and fell. My mood went from disinterest, to fear when the animal charged, to surprise when the shots rang out, to confusion and then horror and sadness for this magnificent creature who, to the men on the screen, was nothing more than a head to hang on a wall. The vision of this TV show haunts me to this day, especially knowing what elephants are like, what their societies involve, and how terribly they and their species have been treated by humans.

Some things are just not meant to be. That is one of them.