Here is what one professional has to say about wolves and those opposing their reintrodcution. He is talking about the reintroduction of wolves into the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.
What do you think?
Sitting here reading a feasibility study on re-introducing wolves to
the
Olympic Peninsula (where we went on vacation last summer, Patti) and it
said (under Social Factors) that as education levels increased, so did
favorable impressions of re-introducing wolves. The group that most
opposed wolves were people with limited education who perceived wolves
as a
direct threat to their livelihood (ranch and livestock) (my definition
of
ignorant rednecks??)==who would thunk it???
Incidently, what I found interesting was it predicted that wolves would
kill 0.91 cows per 1000 cows each year (based on the HIGHEST reported
figures)==shoots down what the anti-wolf groups are saying. Little or
no
increase in deer losses was predicted (wolves would displace/eat some
of
the cougars + coyotes in the area) and little increase in elk losses
(wolves tend not to migrate with the elk during summer when cougar
kills
increase). Smaller kills by cougars and coyotes would offset the wolf
predation. Recent reports from Yellowstone are bearing this out.