I have been interested in some of the letters that have been published. I find it very difficult to understand how some people can be a friend to something that does absolutely no good. It does nothing but destroy. I haven't been able to find one good thing that a wolf does. It doesn't kill only because it is hungry, it kills just to kill. Is one wolf of more value than 15 elk plus deer, antelope, sage grouse, quail, rabbits, cattle, horses, dogs, cats and whatever else it can find per year?
One writer was disturbed by cattle being grazed on her public land. It is my public land, too. She would rather see elk, deer and wildlife. How then can you be a friend to something that does nothing but destroy it?
We have 4,150 acres of deeded range land with about 1,000 acres of public land mixed in with it. We pay a per-head fee to use our public land. Your elk, deer, cougars, wolves, sage grouse, and other wildlife use our private range land for nothing. I am not complaining. They are mine also, but don't accuse the livestock owner of not paying enough to graze his public land.
There are efforts to keep the sage grouse off the endangered species list. This is wasted effort until something is done about the predator, and that includes the hunter. We have nursed little families of birds through the summer only to go the morning after the hunting season opens to find only skin and feathers where the birds were.
When I was growing up I had chicken pox, measles, mumps and other childhood diseases. Everyone did. Now my grandchildren don't need to suffer them. The wolf is the same thing. Why not be as smart as our ancestors? They tried to do away with the wolf to survive. Now they use my tax money, one article said at $1.5 million dollars per wolf, to bring them back. Surely that money could have been used for something that does more than destroy.
Ronald Peck
Carey
