Yellowstone Park Wolves

Re your Jan. 22 editorial, “A Ruling to Howl About,” praising a court decision to keep the introduced wolves in Yellowstone National Park: You provided only half the story in reporting that in three years the Defenders of Wildlife compensated ranchers for loss of only 63 sheep and seven cattle to wolf depredation. The other half of the story is that ranchers are compensated only when they can produce carcasses of animals killed by wolves. They are not compensated for lost animals whose carcasses cannot be found, or for livestock stressed because of wolf harassment, or for livestock whose roundup by herd dogs is impossible because the animals now think dogs are wolves.

A Montana rancher was not compensated when the Chief Joseph wolf pack killed two guard dogs last year. These problems give ranchers on private land much greater worries than simply requesting reimbursement for animal kills.

Regarding your statement that wolves kill “‘mostly the old, infirm and young” elk: A Yellowstone Park study released last month revealed that four wolf packs in the park’s northern range kill 1,000 elk annually and that 45% of those kills were calves and newborn elk. The cow-to-calf ratios in the affected area are now extremely low. Surveys last winter by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks counted about 12,000 elk in the northern Yellowstone herd, down from 19,000 in the mid-1990s. There were no severe winters during that time period.

BUD KLECKER

Long Beach

* Thank you for the supportive comments regarding the efforts of the Defenders of Wildlife and the Department of the Interior in permitting the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone Park and into Arizona and North Carolina.

This noble creature was here long before we humans began to embarrass our species with quarrels over immigration, affirmative action, sexual orientation and “living” wages. The wolves are much the more noble beast.

The great majority would rather hear “a distant wolf howl” and read of your support of nature than read the “howls” of the politically correct activists and whiners to which we are repeatedly exposed.

T. BRUCE GRAHAM

Port Hueneme