Perhaps i can help explain it a little better this way. I am an old man and i have spent most of my life working in the mountains in one form or another, during that time i never felt the need to carry a firearm to protect myself until now. This is a very rural area with plenty of bears, lions and other creatures. Our families here never had to carry a gun to just go berry picking, or picnic or just take the family hiking in the mountains. Now everybody who isn't interested in hugging wolves carry's a firearm of some type just in case.
We now have many large packs of wolves here in northeast Oregon, so many that as others have stated they have already spread to other parts of this state as well as other states. Not the numbers ODFW states of wolves/wolf packs, but at least twice or three times that. Again this is my observation from working six or seven days a week in these mountains for many years. This started many years before it was admitted that there were any. Yes this is directly about hunting, you simply can't hunt what isn't any longer there. Yes the state will continue to sale tags but after while people realize there's nothing there to hunt and quit buying a tag or license, that is where Oregon is now.
What if your a rancher in wolf country, which we are here. How many calves at $500 ea. can you afford to lose each year ? what about the rest of your cattle and bulls ? A prize bull can be $5000 or more, how much of that can you take before your simply bankrupt ? The ranchers here were promised by the state and the environmentalist's that the ranchers would be paid for all the livestock that wolves killed, ... that lasted about six months before the rules changed making it harder to get paid.
I certainly agree with every ones right to have an opinion on all of these matters, however if you don't live where these things are happening, you simply aren't being told the truth.
jd
