oak,
Leopold was never ever the last word on game management. He was the first word. The Sand County Almanac was not a scientific treatise of game management but a philosophical perspective on it. The primary literature is full of the actual science, but I know you don't want to go there. Meanwhile, the field has moved on a good long ways, and it is well demonstrated that wolves can have a real and positive effect on the environment. You only need to look as far as the recruitment rates of hemlock in your state to get an idea of how far out of bounds whitetail deer have become.
What you and many others at the fire don't like is someone that fails to walk in lock step with the prevailing attitudes here. I don't mind doing that where I feel it is valid and where I know something about the topic. This is one of those issues. I don't suppose you are going to change your mind. You are rather locked into narrow group think. But there are others here that can think outside of that little box, though they do not speak often since they are only going to be berated by the loudest members here.
This is not a place for independent thinking but I like to reprove that fact every so often. Just to see if anything has changed.
