PR funds for wolves

[2naSalit]

7. I was in

Idaho when the reintroduction took place but am in MT now. It was quite an issue between the state of Idaho and the USFWS to the point that Idaho had a temper tantrum and forbade any state employee from having anything to do with anything regarding wolves. So the Nez Perce tribe stepped up and partnered with USWFS to monitor and host the wolf reintroduction into the Frank Church Wilderness. It's just been a long hard battle since then. The advocates bent over backwards to appease the livestock industry and they kept coming up with more issues, mostly fabrications, and advocates kept leaning over backwards until the cart fell over so to speak.

The 1080 issue is a problem not just in TX and WY but also in MT and ID. A good read about the wolf issue and WS is Wolfer, A Memoir by Carter Niemeyer... been out for a few years now but one of the most comprehensive accounts of what was going on before, during and after the reintroduction from a WS employee who actually handled the wolves at both ends of the situation and a professional trapper himself. I have worked with Carter and everyone you've ever heard of involved in the reintroduction up until about 2010. And I have several former and current Senators and a former Sec. of DOI who not only recognize me on sight but some who also despise me because they know that I won't back away from them when they try to use BS and will I call them out on it... when they see me in a suit holding my briefcase, they wish they had sent an aid instead. It's not that I get into heated debate, I just don't buy the BS and let them know that I will only work within a fact and science based set of parameters when we are discussing policy vs reality. I use peer reviewed data when I talk to them and they have a hard time with that most of the time. I am a policy analyst, most of the legislators at the state and federal level rarely get it, for them it's mostly the good ol' boys and campaign contributors thing.

I also know a lot of livestock producers and seen many vacillate from a position of willingness to work with NGO advocates and being bullied by their peers into making a 180 degree turn in what they tell the media and what they say in policy discussions.

When one of my Senators illegally pushed a rider through attached to a continuing resolution for the budget that removed wolves from ESA protection and banned litigation about the rider, I was done dealing with those assholes. Now I refuse to let anyone know where or when or if I have seen wolves and try to educate the people I encounter about the truth and reality of their behavior vs what they have heard in the media and point them to more appropriate information sources. I can't handle the blatant and ubiquitous ignorance that is perpetuated for the sake of romanticism and BS all designed to bilk the taxpayers and keep stupid perps of global warming/climate change in place. Yeah, the conversations can be interesting but if they don't help people learn about what is real and what is imaginary or involve just plain lying, it's just hot air.



Thanks for the OP though, wish there were more like it to help get people to figure it out.