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["Gloria Morris" <gloriamorris59 AT gmail.com>]

In my past, as a sheep farmer, I corresponded at some length with a sheep
farmer up North, who had to deal with re-introduced wolves. She called them
the government's wolves. The government brought them in and then failed to
compensate farmers for their inevitable losses. To contend that wolf
re-introduction costs little is to ignore the farmer. In order to continue
farming, the sheep farmer had to get a large pack of sheep guardian dogs.
One or two could not keep the wolves at bay. I believe she told me they had
to have 7 or 8 of the large dogs. These dogs are not cheap to acquire,
and they are not free to maintain. This is a cost, an added burden, borne by
a farmer who is not of unlimited wealth and resources.

I'm not arguing for or against wolves. I'm stating a fact. Re-introduction
costs. If it is a social and governmental priority, if it is something that
we value sufficiently to do it, then society and the government should
fairly compensate those whose property and livelihood is impacted by this
shifting priority. That has never been done. Although we have mouthed the
concept of paying farmers for damage, the government has often refused to
pay where the evidence was clearly in favor of the farmer.

I am a past member of the Sierra Club. I am not anti-conservation, nor
anti-environment. I was disgusted, though, by the anti-farmer attitude that
I found within that organization. I expect that those in the logging
industry, whose livelihoods depend upon tree harvest, may feel the same way.
Not everyone lives in the city, where an environmentalist can ride his bike
5 blocks to his desk job and feel smug about not using natural resources,
and where food magically appears in supermarkets and lumber magically
appears in the Home Depot. There are those of us who face the reality of
utilizing resources for a living. Many of those country people care very
much about the natural world, but they also need to make a living.

Just as I am against taking land for the building of new Walmarts,
particularly without just compensation, I am against governmental action
that harms people without compensating them justly.

Gloria



On 10/9/06, Lynda <lurine AT softcom.net> wrote:
> Well, using that as a basis, you should be going out of your way to help
the
> wolf <g>  Very few are harmed by the wolves, if indeed the harm is by
> wolves.  Most of it is typical hysterical not based in fact.