operation p.a.w. ;; don't let the howls stop

[pidgeoncat]

Grey Wolves are no longer endangered in the united states. In fact, many populations have too many individuals to support, which causes problems. When there are too many wolves, there is not enough food to sustain them all, so many of them will die of starvation, and overpopulation makes diseases worst when they do hit, since they spread faster.

Ethical hunting helps to balance this cycle by removing some individuals of the population and lowering their numbers back to carrying capacity. That's why most states only offer a certain amount of tags for wolves and other game animals per year.

Now that group you're talking about on Facebook, I do not agree with. In fact, I highly doubt they are ethical hunters, and I'd be more likely to consider them poachers.

I agree. Hunting them and making their deaths quicker is better than the wolves starving to death because there's too many wolves and not enough food.

The hunters on that page just snare the wolves in traps, and make them hurt for a long time before shooting them. Absolutely disgusting. They don't even save the skin either ;A;

[Sweetfurwolf]

Moonlight Forest, you're not alone in what you think about wolves. A lot of people here share the same opinion as you do, you have to think about the other hundred-or-more people who have a bunch of different opinions on the matter.

But, the comments saying that she is just the same as those hunters/or poachers on Facebook, is a bit over the top.

I as well am disgusted by the poachers on Facebook's actions, and yes, I agree it is practically poaching.

And I thought the statement "I'm hunting them because I care" was a bit absurd when I first read it, but I do understand that now, but I still only half agree.

Edit: Took a gander at the Facebook page once again, and seen a picture of 2 adult wolves, and 6 wolf pups laying down on the ground dead, organised in a line. ;-;
I mean, I understand if the adults need to be killed, but I don't think the pups should.
Although, in general I don't support wolves being killed.

[guroboss]

I mean, I understand if the adults need to be killed, but I don't think the pups should.

Killing the pups is actually poaching, proving that these guys are just really bad actually. In my opinion, hunting (not poaching) wolves is perfectly fine, just like any other animal, for any reason as long as it's legal and with respect as far as killing it ethically goes.

[7_Lone_Wolf_7]

If it is legal then I dont mind it as much. But like yall said, killing the pups is poaching. And there are multiple pictures of entire killed packs! That is what really makes me mad. And thank you for explaining what you meant, Prisoner. At first what you said made no sense.

[prinnie234]

I, prinnie234, will dedicate myself to helping wolves have a better future. I swear to give my all in protecting these beautiful creatures, and will help in anyway I can.

[stxrdog]

If it was possible for their population to stay under control without grabbing guns, then we should take nature's hints to leave them alone.

Sure there is, but it involves much much much more suffering for the wolves themselves, and a million other problems for people and other animals.

It's nature they aren't gonna all die peacefully ...

[Sweetfurwolf]

I'd rather they die naturally then to be killed instantly.. that's just my preference. For the starving factor, maybe guns are the solution, but not always.

[sweater]

I'd rather they die naturally then to be killed instantly.. that's just my preference. For the starving factor, maybe guns are the solution, but not always.

dying instantly is better than suffering a long, slow death from something like a larger / stronger animal attack or a falling rock or something, though, isn't it? that argument actually doesn't matter too much though, because animals can't really comprehend life, death and pain like we do so whichever way they die they'll go out the same way to them.

the thing is, they're killed for a purpose with hunting (safe, regulated and legal hunting, of course) while in nature, a whole litter of pups could be killed by a bear or something and there'd be no purpose. with hunting, the wolf bodies are almost always put to good use for things such as furs, taxidermy and sometimes even meat, which are all beneficial! c: not to mention, no pups are killed (if it's all legal), so it's more... humane, I guess, is a way to put it.

guns are the solution to things like population control, yes. there's simply no other way to do it. nature will not take it's course with population control; in fact, it could even make it all worse! the wolves breed too quickly, the deer die too quickly, and soon enough the wolves are eating up all of the deer. there are now far fewer deer than we began with, and more wolves. the wolves will eat until there's too little left, and then we have more wolves than we know what to do with and no food for any of 'em. what happens next? well, nature can't do anything - that's where guns have to come in. honestly, all wolves will benefit from less competition for food and nature can eventually right itself. hope that made sense, lol.

in situations with wolves eating livestock and such, I realize that most of the time, wolves can be handled without guns and it's sorta sad seeing a wolf die that could've been taken care of differently. people just aren't educated enough yet, I guess, to recognize the different ways to handle wolves and why each way is important.

just my two cents, aha.

[ρ ι η к ι є ρ ι є❤]

I feel like im the only person who understands anything! Im not going to kill you for taking down one or two but ive seen pics where they killed entire packs! And it sounds like you all just dont care about wolves being killed! Those who are truly devoted to them would never hurt them on purpose and would stand up for them no matter what!

I EXTREMELY agree with you on this one. I think starving wolves should be taken to sanctuaries, not killed. Wolves are a lot like us, but do people kill humans because there's 'too many'? No.
Starving wolves should be fed, fostered, tamed if possible. The only time someone should EVER kill a wolf is if the wolf seriously hurt/killed a human. The thing is, you wouldn't be the same if you killed the hunters. Hunters are humans, they are not innocent. Most humans aren't. Like seriously, wolves are not THAT different from us. They eat, they raise families, they have fun. They even communicate with eachother!
Animals DO comprehend pain, sadness, they ARE like humans, and DO feel the same emotions we do!

I believe you are right.

[guroboss]

I feel like im the only person who understands anything! Im not going to kill you for taking down one or two but ive seen pics where they killed entire packs! And it sounds like you all just dont care about wolves being killed! Those who are truly devoted to them would never hurt them on purpose and would stand up for them no matter what!

I EXTREMELY agree with you on this one. I think starving wolves should be taken to sanctuaries, not killed. Wolves are a lot like us, but do people kill humans because there's 'too many'? No.
Starving wolves should be fed, fostered, tamed if possible. The only time someone should EVER kill a wolf is if the wolf seriously hurt/killed a human. The thing is, you wouldn't be the same if you killed the hunters. Hunters are humans, they are not innocent. Most humans aren't. Like seriously, wolves are not THAT different from us. They eat, they raise families, they have fun. They even communicate with eachother!
Animals DO comprehend pain, sadness, they ARE like humans, and DO feel the same emotions we do!

I believe you are right.

EDIT: (9/28/2017) This post is from three years ago, and I definitely don't feel the same way now (or at least as combatively). I apologize if I came off a little mean here as well! I was a way different (definitely saltier and more than a little pretentious) person then and while some of my points I still agree with, it's definitely worded a little harsher than I would now intend, and I'm sorry if I hurt any feelings as a result. I'm keeping my response here for the sake of posterity, but hopefully the argument is still relevant in some sense beyond the poor wording and lack of tact.

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while i do agree with a few of your points, i disagree with one or two things, since it's a little extreme (sorry sorry sorry don't take this the wrong way). this is gonna be long, too, sorry!

okay. first of all what moonlight forest described was again poaching, not hunting, which people consistently tend to mix up and vilify on this thread. the main reasons we can't take starving wolves to sanctuaries is 1) lack of resources, 2) general danger for whoever's going out to get the animal, as well as the animal itself, and 3) a general upset of the food pyramid.

money doesn't grow on trees, and if we were to find every single starving wolf, not only would it be far too time-consuming, we simply don't have enough money to feed them .

also, there's simply not enough space, and patchworking packs of wolves together is dangerous for the animals as well, not to mention that you could be basically scooping up an animal (likely part of an existing pack, which could mean taking it away from its family and preventing it from providing food for its offspring etc.), taking it into captivity (which could put even more stress on the animal), and plopping it back (maybe not even in the right area; it might not be able to find the rest of its pack, either).

this also assumes that when the wolf returns, it'd be in the same place of "power" in it's pack, which is not the case, assuming they'd even accept it back.

when an animal is stressed out and starving, as well as a predator, it is not safe for people to go out and track it down. wolves are not going to be magically tame, and putting them together with other wolves that are strangers to them isn't safe either. this is also completely disregarding the point where you said to tame them. as cool as it would be to have a wild animal as a pet, its also really. a "tame" wolf is still a wolf, no matter how docile it seems to be. we can see this even with wolf-dog mixes, which still get a bad rep for being unsafe. you can't just take an animal out of its habitat and train it in a strange place and expect it to be 100% healthy and not stressed out.

on my third point, this is not healthy for the environment. sure, you might like wolves, and you might think having more of them is great, but the food chain doesn't really have that same idea. wolves eat deer, so more wolves means less deer. this isn't a bad thing, but if more wolves eat the deer, there's going to be less deer. this means more wolves go hungry, so let's say we take a bunch of starving wolves out. when the deer and wolf population gets big again, we put the wolves back in. no problem, right? no, big problemo. now, we suddenly have even more wolves than before, but still roughly the same amount of deer. this means that the deer population collapses in that area (no more deer ever) or very little deer. as a result, even if we take out wolves and feed them, not only will they be less prepared to deal with this food shortage, there's also less deer and more wolves to feed, which means it's going to take a lot longer for both populations to get back up again. but what goes down when this happens? wolves start looking for food in other places, which means wolves wander into farms and areas with a lot of people. this means that not only are wolves hurt, but this mean more people could get attacked by wolves. i don't care how much you might love wolves, but if it comes down to pick a wolf or a human being, i'm going to go with the person.

next point, people don't kill people because there's too many because that's really unethical, and as much as you may hate for me to say it, even though wolves are vaguely similar to people in raising families, having fun, et al, people have that and so much more. not saying people aren't innocent, but wolves aren't automatically "better" because of it (wolves are maybe even less innocent?). hunters don't kill just to kill, no matter how heartless you want to make them seem, and hunters are just as human as the rest of us. no matter how similar wolves are to us, it's not "heartless" or terrible to kill wolves legally and ethically. it's more than a little hypocritical to only defend wolves if you're trying to play the "they're just like us!!!" card, too. chimpanzees have around zero differences in the amino acid coding of their hemoglobin (basically what their blood is made of), and have many similarities in their actions (raising families, having fun, et. al) to us, but we don't see people touting that around, even though we are even more similar to them.

animals may have the same feelings we do, but people still have to eat, and there's nothing wrong with killing an animal legally for any reason. people have to eat, people have to pay the bills, people have to raise their own families. even if i kill an animal legally and don't use every part myself (i.e. selling it), i'm still taking care of my own family with the money and honoring the animal to an extent. laws are in place to keep the population stable and make sure the animal is in as little pain as possible (illegal traps are painful or cruel to the animal, that's why they're illegal!), so there is literally no justification that killing a wolf legally is wrong. hunters don't just shoot a wolf and toss out the body, and if you think that's true, you need to check your facts before you condemn a group of people.

TLDR; hunting when you follow the law makes sure that an animal is in little to no pain and that the population is not significantly hurt. taking animals out of the wild is dangerous to begin with, and taking the starving wolves to a sanctuary is not helpful. hunters and humans are not heartless, are not worth less than wolves or any other animal, and should not be killed in favor of wolves or any other animal.