The problem with wolves in the US is not the wolves, mother nature, or "balance". It's a human emotional issue fueled by bad politics.

Wolves weren't here during our lifetimes. We managed and hunted all other species without them and we like to think we were doing a relatively good job at it too. We adapted, adjusted, spent time and money on the way our world was. Our father's taught us how to hunt elk and deer without the wolf's presence. To us the way our elk and deer behave was as normal as snow in the winter.

Suddenly we had the wolf crammed down our throats and the wolf changed our world. Now the elk behave differently. The hunts don't feel the same...because they aren't. We feel as if we have lost something. It's not easily understood unless you too had the same thing and then lost it. If you never had it, then you can't understand.

Some may call us wimps or say that we are over analyzing the situation but those people grew up with the wolf and the wolf was a part of their world. The wolf was not a part of ours and we had no choice in the matter. We were not consulted, we were not involved in the planning, we were not even asked our opinion. They were just suddenly here one day.

To make matters worse the wolf was protected and we had to fight with all we had to get it de-listed just to manage them. The wolf is more than another predator....it represents unwanted change. Sure we can adapt....we always have. But it's hard for many of us to understand how we the keepers of our wildlife had no choice in the matter. We don't understand how people sitting behind computers all day and their only knowledge of the outdoors is what they see on the wallpaper of some of the images that came with their Windows package did get to make this decision. We understand that the wolf was put here in a political move to eliminate the need for hunters.

So yeah maybe many of you are right and 20 years down the road the wolf will be just another predator. An maybe one day we'll laugh at how we thought the wolf was going to eat every elk south of the border that we had fought so hard to bring back. But right now the wolf represents the enemy in our fight to keep our hunting privilege alive! It reminds us that if enough money and people get involved we can be forced to do what we do not want to do! That's a scary feeling folks.....and we feel we are in the midst of the biggest battle of our hunting lives.....and not because the wolf will eat all of our elk but because the wolf represents a major political loss for us and we fear future losses.