Booming wolf populations anger hunters

It's well past time wolves were delisted and management of this successfully recovered, formerly endangered species was given to states with responsible management plans — Montana and Idaho. A story in Sunday's Daily Inter Lake examines the growing anger among hunters who are encountering a growing wolf population in the wild. With the population booming and wolf encounters growing exponentially, frustration, and more importantly, opposition to wolves in the wild will grow.

What wolf advocates need to understand is that their knee-jerk opposition to wolf management — including the responsible action taken by FWP to kill an entire pack in the Kalispell region with a chronic taste for cattle — is doing more harm than good for the species. Wolf fans need to come to terms with the fact that wolf recovery will include wolves being killed. Wolves will be killed by hunters and game managers as we work to keep the population at a manageable level.

One of the lessons we're learning with wolf reintroduction is that recovery was the easy part. Management of recovered wolves, now that's another story.