The news from Mexico never seems to be good. Illegal aliens, drug cartels, gun running and killing of tourists are just a few of the negative phrases linked to our neighbors south of the border. But, finally some good news – a victory of sorts, if you will for animal rightists: The Mexican Environmental Department has released five Mexican gray wolves just south of the U.S. Mexican border in an effort to re-establish the species in its historic range.
The hope of supporters is that the release will provide the impetus to develop a thriving population of wild canine carnivores in New Mexico and Arizona.
What we have found in the U.S., however, is that it is much easier to start the snowball rolling downhill than it is to stop it near the bottom. Similar efforts begun in 1998 have resulted in not only the re-establishment of wolves in this country, but fully recovered packs of wolves surpassing goals throughout its range.
Disputes over wolf populations between cattle ranchers and environmentalists have resulted in court battles that never seem to end. This past week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for an emergency injunction that would have stopped wolf hunting in the Rocky Mountains.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians have challenged a congressional rider passed last spring that delisted the gray wolf and prohibited further court challenges. But, here we are, still slugging it out. WildEarth Guardians, for example, began fighting logging projects in 1989 and began to take on public lands livestock grazing.
The dichotomy continues.
With animal rights groups such as these, there will never come a point in time in which hunting could ever be a viable means to control wild game populations. To them, hunting, as we have known it, since the beginning of man, is inhumane.
Friends of Animals defines hunting this way: “Hunting is cruel. It is deceitful. It is socially unjustifiable. Friends of Animals opposes hunting in all its forms. The cruelty of hunting involves the gratuitous pain caused to wild animals. True, wild predators also hunt, but their killing is not gratuitous. Only humans kill for pleasure.”
To whackos like these hunting is synonymous with sport. Never can it be to curb animal populations nor can it be to put low-fat, high-protein, natural food on the table. But, what really grinds these lunatics is that a hunter can actually find pleasure in the pursuit of his own meals apart from the supermarket.
Oh, but there again, the dichotomous relationship between animal rights and the rights of us at the top of the food chain is evident. In the Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) own words, “A civilized society should not condone the killing of any sentient animal for sport.”
Although there are certainly sporting aspects of legal hunting, it is not the ultimate goal. In fact, HSUS aptly defines the essence of a poacher with such inflammatory language. But to paint hunting with the same brush is simply disingenuous.
So, if and when these recently introduced Mexican wolves invade our country and proliferate, the struggle between traditional values and those of the far left will manifest itself in more legal wrangling at the expense of taxpayers.
