Cal, of course as a hunter I pay, kill, and eat the game I take. That is how it works and has worked over the course of decades to create the largest elk herd in the world right here in Colorado. If I quit hunting and paying in fees to CDOW our elk and moose programs will be adversely affected.

I assumed (silly me), that most sportman understood how this has worked.
By 1900 absent regulated hunting and with the presence of commercial harvesting, game populations were devastated. Laws were passed and it was on the backs of sportman's licenses and fees that the game populations were built back up through game managememt. For example, four hunters buy licenses, one hunter kills an elk, the state takes all the money from all four hunter's license fees and uses it to manage the herds and resources so that the benefit exceeds the drain for an overall net gain. No other group in American society in spite of their claims to the contrary have stepped forward to fund wildlife as generously.

Unlike the wolf, the hunter provides a net positive contribution; however, it took decades to get to where we "were" at. Yes, Colorado and Montana have gotten a fair bit of my money over the years; however, I always felt it was for a good cause. I don't hunt year around, I don't thrill kill, and I (and my offspring) kill in accordance to the CDOW's projections for population control.

Now with a seemingly whimsical roll of the dice, the USFW has chosen to gamble those decades of progress on the introduction of a trendy new specie to call their own, as they appeared to be bored with the more "ordinary stuff." Unlike hunters, the wolves do not bring in any money to the states to help further propagate the prey species (like a fee paying hunter does), in fact, wolves are draining resources away from Elk and Moose programs while at the same time literally "eating them for lunch." [Aside: You'd swear the USFW must have helped in planning the Iraq post war period, in either case it appears the planners can't see straight forward problems coming until it bites them right in the arse.]

I side with the elk and the moose, and that is the long and the short of it.