All creatures great and small

As the great wolf debate rages on in court today I am saddened by the thought that by tomorrow hundreds of thousands of hunters may converge on the packs that have now made Idaho their home.

I myself have yet to encounter a wolf in the 'wild' here although I spend almost every day out there; whether it be for work, pleasure or just obligation to dog I walk hundreds of miles and spend thousands of hours throughout south central Idaho many places of which the wolves call home. Someday I hope to encounter one or more here however I fear that if the wolf harvest does come to fruition I may never have the chance.

I don't know what the answer is in regards to humans and wolves coexisting in the same place. Our management of the wolves and their reintroduction into Idaho has gotten us where we are today and today there are many very angry people on both sides of the debate with I believe humans and wolves both suffering.

I wish I had a photograph or two of a wolf to share but since I don't I will substitute other various photos of numerous creatures that I have come across here in Idaho all of which have caused me to pause and be thankful. (The photograph of the moose was taken in Maine though but I couldn't leave it out as it is the most magnificent creature I myself have come across in the 'wild'.)











































































Saving the best for last. A coyote that dog and I ran into two weeks ago. A very fat and happy one. We ran into it as we were hiking into a stream bed for work and it took pause before it continued down the slope ahead of us. We saw it again a few hours later tracking us from above.

In closing an excerpt from A Sand County Almanac,

“Thinking Like a Mountain”, by Aldo Leopold

"We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white-water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings...

In those days, we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf...When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes–something known only to her and the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter's paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view."