Prezactly. Same in WI. Ask a lib in Madison how they feel about the wolves and you'll get a unicorn's and rainbow's response. Ask a deer hunter in ANY part of the state and you'll get the 180. No one, save a small minority, wants them exterminated, we want them controlled. The problem with our state is the Department of Natural Resources cannot come up with a way to accurately count not only the bears but the deer as well - and, even if they could, there would no doubt be political pressure to somehow do otherwise anyway. It's not difficult to surmise that they're entirely off on the wolf numbers either. Wolves were put here to control the population of deer in our north woods - simple as that. Now that there are seemingly no deer, a bear population count that was off by 50% and an overabundance of wolves, something has to give. The wolves make an awfully nice start.
And, BrentD, you have little understanding on what makes the world go round and cash registers sing during the fall season in WI's northwoods. If you choose to think it's the Birkie crowd gathering to hopefully catch a glimpse of wolf utopia, you'd be sadly mistaken. I choose to applaud the people that take matters into their own hands when it comes to "management" of lupus because there isn't a damn person in Madison doing a thing about it. Contrary to your belief, there ARE sportsman with a better understanding of what's happening in our forests than there are under-informed biologists,"ecologists" and pompous, politically-appointed puppets that choose to shine their seats with their derriere's rather than getting said derriere's out there for a first-hand observation of what's happening in the real world. And they'd do quite well to use their ears more and mouths less as well.
You'd also do well to take your science and formula's and mix in some god-damned, down-to-earth pragmatism for a change.
