Wolves Should not be Hunted in Minnesota or anywhere

                                     Wolves Should not be Hunted in Minnesota

         Everybody has an opinion when it comes to whether or not we should hunt the grey wolves in our area. My opinion is that we should not hunt the wolves. I personally do not believe that we need to control the population and I disagree with every other excuse the hunters give us as reasons to hunt the wolves.

        Many hunters say that the wolf hunt is a good thing. Some even say that killing the wolves will help the wolves. An article in The North American Hunting Club Magazine written by Luke Hartle states,"The good news: The boys at the USSA are more ready to fight for us—and for what’s best for the wolves—than ever before."

         How could killing wolves possibly be good for them? Some say killing wolves would benefit the wolves because they would have less resources they would have to share. There would be less wolves to kill the deer so there would be more deer available for the wolves and the hunters to kill. In the article"The Great Wolf Debate: Hunt Them Down or Let Them Flourish," Mayton points out that "For biologists such as Kronemann, killing wolves in order to protect them is contradictory. The Idaho biologist told The Ecologist that he believes it is simply fear that is driving government officials to push for hunting as a way to resolve the situation."

        Another argument people use to kill the wolves is because they are killing all the deer. This is simply not true. The hunters are killing "all the deer." According to www.deefriendly.com "Minnesota hunters harvested 192,300 deer during the 2011 season." It is estimated that each healthy wolf kills approximately 15-20 deer a year. With this year's estimate of 3,000 wolves in Minnesota we can assume that the wolves kill 45,000 to 60,000 deer a year. That means the wolves kill only about 1/4 of the number of deer that Minnesota hunters kill. According to the Minnesota DNR website, Minnesota has approximately 1 million deer. That means the wolves kill only 4-6 percent of the population a year while Minnesota hunters kill 19-21 percent of the deer population a year.
        It seems that a large number of people are supporting the hunt out of fear. People believe they need to kill the wolves to protect themselves and their family. People who are for the hunt are instilling fear in locals causing them to believe they are in danger. According to www.mnforsustain.org, "There is no record of a non-rabid wolf killing a human in North America and rabies has never been found in Minnesota wolves. A healthy wild wolf generally tries to avoid contact with humans." Wolf attacks are very rare. You are more likely to be attacked by your neighbors dog than by a wolf.
         A more common excuse to kill wolves is that they prey on livestock. Farmers are in fear that their livestock is in danger of wolves. The facts are that livestock are always vulnerable to predators and to theft from other people but killing by wolves is so low that we can not justifiably use this as an excuse to kill them. According to The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)'s 2005 report, livestock loss due to wolves killing them is the lowest, second only to killings from bears. According to the DNR we have had about 3,000 wolves in Minnesota for the last 10 years so the report has likely not changed much since then. In 2005 only 5 percent of all cattle loss was due to predators and only 0.11 percent (not even a whole percent) were due to predation by wolves.
Even if the statistics of wolves killing livestock were mich higher (which they aren't), there are other ways to solve this problem besides killing such a beautiful creature. Collette Adkins Giese said in her article against the delisting of wolves, "There are plenty of tested, nonlethal options to safeguard livestock from wolves, including the use of guard dogs, flagging and predator-proof fencing. And when depredations do happen, livestock owners in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are compensated for their losses."
          I believe that hunters will use any excuse to justify the killing of wolves (or any animal) and instill fear into the local population to make it acceptable to hunt. They make claims that hunting benefits the animals, benefits nature and that it protects our families and livestock. All the hunters really care about is getting the trophy or achievement from getting the biggest or fastest animals. Luke Hartle said in his article, "As a hunter, I want the opportunity to kill a wolf as much as anyone else." Melissa Timm of Hamptom wrote to MPR News and said "I would love to hunt a wolf, just once. It is a highly skilled and smart predator. It would also be a great trophy."
I believe that if an animal is to be hunted it should be for food only. Sadly, the wolves are hunted for their pelts. Not very many people are willing to eat the wolf meat. People are looking forward to making money off the pelts. Some say that it makes sense to have the wolf hunting season when pelts are at their prime so we can get use out of the wolves that are killed to control population. I believe that nature has it's own balance. The wolves are at the top of the food chain and we never had a problem without human interfereance. There is a circle of life and every thing in nature has a purpose. Humans were not born with guns and bows in their hands. I believe, if we are not fast enough to catch them by foot and strong enough to take them down by hand, then we are not truly meant to kill them by nature's rules.
         The wolf is a beautiful and magestic creature who has just as much right to be here as humans do. Killing the wolves will never be right according to nature, no matter what excuses we try to use.