I have a feeling that the leaders have decided if they reintroduce wolves into our forests, camping will cut back, the need for herd management through hunting will be reduced and consequently people just won’t be buying rifles and handguns.
Who is going to go out shooting, camping or hunting if there’s a danger that you might be attacked by a pack of wolves? Keeping in mind that someone who goes out hunting deer once a year is nowhere close to being what I would consider a woodsman.
Hunters who drink in the evenings, and there’s lots of them, when they run out of beer they must go to town to buy more. Would you go to sleep half plastered if you knew there was wolves in the area?
Over the next twenty five years I won’t be surprised if the sales of hunting licenses drops significantly.
What really galls me is that there is very little truthful dialogue between wildlife biologists and hunters. For years there has been a cover up on big cat populations from South Carolina to the West coast, big bears in the Northwest, and wolves all through the Northern to Northwestern states. I also know of one instance a few years ago where Virginia wildlife biologists were dumping sacks of rattlesnakes on a friend’s farm from a roadway to “re-introduce” them back into the area.
While I think it is exciting to be in an environment where there is a bit of risk, you are correct in stating that most hunters everywhere are just unprepared for an encounter with something that is going to hunt them back.
We always made a pact in camp before the hunt that if we were set on by a big bear it would just get shot and nobody would talk about it. I’ll be darned if I would give up a big elk to a bear, cat, or wolf pack after spending several thousand dollars on a hunt!