Someone help me understand the real issue here.

Are wolves the real issue? What I mean is, is a wolf any different than a bear or a cougar? I have never read or seen anything to suggest they kill anymore than they need to consume. That means they don't kill for fun, they are just predators that kill prey to feed.

Or is the Federal government the real issue? I think it is. They should let states have a plan for managing them. You can't put an animal in an ecosystem where everything else is managed but let one animal roam free.

Remember though, we wouldn't be in this mess if everyone would have been responsible in the first place. Sure a man should be able to protect his property and livelihood. It should be legal to kill a wolf caught in the act of hurting livestock. There should be hunting seasons. But man should not be able to kill everyone he sees and then hide them under the next pine tree. Thats ludicrous for a true sportsman to say about a wild animal. What if the local farmers in your area got together and decided that deer were evil cause they ate all thier crops. Then they started killing every deer they saw. Didn't matter if that deer was 20 miles from home. We would have a thread where everyone would chime in and suggest thier punishment should be everything from chinese toture to the electric chair. Why do think the Buffalo are all but gone? Why do you think elk were all but extinct for a time? A true sportsman does care about conservation. Nature is wild and not a big ranch where we get a list of animals and decide what does and does not belong.

Ok the tree-huggers got the politics of wolves screwed up and as sportsman we ought to spearhead that issue. But also as sportsman we should care about conserving wild things and wild places.