Wolf hunters and haters are creating more anti hunters

From the idahostatesman.com 
Some interesting food for thought. It  also seems to be a call for action for more moderate folks on both sides of the debate to come up with some solutions that don't involve throwing the baby out with the bath water!

Another column from New West: Wolf hunters and haters are creating more anti hunters

Submitted by Roger Phillips on Fri, 10/01/2010 - 9:39am.

Here's another side to the wolf debate that comes from George Wuerthner at New West. He says hunters could drive more moderates into the anti-hunting camp with their anti-wolf rhetoric and insistence on killing wolves.
It's an interesting counter to another New West column I posted below by Bill Scheider that said wolf advocates have over played their hands by suing to have wolves relisted and possibly causing Congressional action that will weaken the Endangered Species Act. A bill is now pending that would do just that.

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Read more: http://voices.idahostatesman.com/outdoors#ixzz123IZlBCf

Here is the Wuerthner article:

Wolf Restoration is a Challenge to West’s Old Guard

If hunters succeed in this end run around the ESA, and there is the perception of a widespread slaughter of wolves, they risk long term public opposition and loss of public support for all hunting.

By George Wuerthner, 9-27-10

	George Wallace defying federal officials at U of Alabama

A year ago I wrote a New West column asking rhetorically if hunters were stupid. In that article I wondered if hunters were aware of the fact that shooting wolves is unpopular with most Americans and if hunting of wolves continued, it might create a backlash against hunting. 
To answer my own question I have to say that hunters are not stupid—but most are clueless.  Hunters don’t seem to have a inkling about how non-hunters perceive them.  Public support for hunting is only luke-warm—the majority of Americans grudgingly accept hunting, but they are not enthusiastic about people killing animals. Only 10 percent or so of Americans hunt. Hunters are in the minority and they are largely older white males. In America older white males are in their twilight years.
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