Sterilizing adult wolves................gassing their pups....................do the fish and wildlife folks in Idaho think they are back in the middle ages? Our friend Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense shared his friend Lisa's Op Ed piece on living in peace with all wildlife.............right on Lisa!!!!!!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rick Meril <rick.meril@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 5:48 PM
Subject: Re: ID Wolf Op-ed
To: brooks@predatordefense.org

Brooks...................please say "bravo" to Lisa for me.......................I will post this tonight.................Insightful, caring and truly human in her appraisal of where we currently are in wildlife management and how far we have to go to truly evolve into caring cousins of all things wild and free....................Many thanks for sharing.

Rick 

 There are several things about this that are dreadfully misguided, but most alarming is what it says not only about our relationship with nature and wildlife, but with ourselves.   Ultimately, wildlife management and conservation is inextricably intertwined with human well-being. Call me a wildlife advocate, animal rights activist, conservationist; I'm all of these things, because given today's over-manipulated wildlife, they do — and should — overlap

. At the same time, how we relate to the environment affects — and is a reflection of — human wellness. What we do and how we do it matters to our own physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and vice versa.  

 Wildlife Services' wolfcontrol proposal crosses a bright line and should be a deafening wake-up call to all of us about the state and future of natural resource management. As we control wildlife with increasing hubris, we walk down a path of self-destruction — literally, in the sense that we'll eventually eliminate so much biodiversity from the planet, the U.S., the region, that we'll compromise the ecosystem services that humans rely on for survival — and internally, in the sense that our souls will wither if we don't allow nature to remain bigger than us or beyond our control in some ways, or if we don't live in deference to other living things or a sense of awe or mystery. Where wildlife is no longer wild, we strut towards our own demise. 

  This federal proposal highlights that it's time for all of us to engage in working toward management that's more integrative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive and which restores/ preserves our integrity.   Lisa Upson   Bozeman

Bozeman Daily Chronicle 9/10/10

Wolf plan leads to self-destruction

   At what cost would humans gas wolf pups to death and surgically sterilize alpha pairs? This is what USDA Wildlife Services in Idaho proposes, supported by Idaho Fish and Game, to grow elk herds and protect livestock.