The final straw has appeared. Our family, after 12 wonderful years of visiting Sun Valley for the Christmas holiday, has opted to pull out for good.
We patronize your finest lodges, frequent your haute-cuisine cafes, procure the finest ski equipment at the town’s ski and snowboard shops. This time, no more! Your state and adjacent Wood River Valley citizens live in too close proximity to the Salmon, Idaho, wolf derby during the holiday.
We cannot sit nor slide on your slopes knowing full well that a state that generates more particulate-matter point pollution than the entire state of California has sanctioned an unambiguous slaughter of the last gray wolves, happily denies citizen overview to the monstrous animal slaughter scenes in the Magic Valley, and in general despises progressive environmental protection, has prevailed in creating such insidious conditions we can no longer look the other way.
The wolf-killing derby embodies everything backwards that Idaho has to offer. It’s not enough that in a little under 150 years the state cattlemen and lumberjacks had slaughtered every last male and female wolf in the state in the name of dominance—no dear readers, then visionary biologists and concerned citizens asserted their right to encourage the reinstatement of this animal. We are no longer confused!
Chris Miller
California