I would like to hear him explain how a herd of 17,000 elk was unstable.
There's something to what he says.
A herd that big can cause tremendous stress on the grazing and migration areas.
Used to be when the heavy snows hit Yellowstone Park 20,000 elk would come pouring out, through fences, ranches, across roads, looking for forage.
But then they would fan out and settle and most everything was good. Twenty thousand was too big a herd. Two thousand is a tragic joke.
They could have trimmed the herd by increased hunting. Instead they wanted to play God, and brought in the wolves, as least as much out of loathing for the people on the land as for elk management.
The Feds and local game authorities have been lying and dumbing-down now for thirty years.
Their latest stupidity showed up just a month or so ago. They were talking about an onset of chronic wasting disease, which can lethally afflict elk, deer and other big game.
At the meeting it was decided that the best method would just be to let the wolves sort it out. The main guy said, "Well, the wolves eat the elk, and the best part is that it's free!" (Which it is not, of course---millions upon millions are poured into "managing" the wolves.)
So the Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks' solution to a disease risk is to let the predators kill them all before they can get sick. Sheesh...