03/07/2026
The first thing people need to understand about wolves is why hunters have grown to hate them so much, because that hatred did not come out of nowhere. It came from city people voting to put wolves on landscapes they never have to live on, then acting shocked when the people who actually deal with them want them dead. If a mouse gets into somebody’s house and starts eating their food, they do not call it majestic. They set a trap and kill it, and nobody questions that. But when a wolf starts killing livestock, hammering deer and elk, threatening dogs, and taking food and income away from rural families, suddenly the people dealing with it are told they are cruel if they want that predator gone. That is the disconnect. People who never have to hear wolves, see wolves, lose animals to wolves, or change the way they live because of wolves are the same ones demanding that the people who do just tolerate them forever. What hunters hate is not just the wolf. It is being told by outsiders that they are supposed to live with a problem those outsiders would never accept in their own home.
— Stephen Zieegler
Outdoor writer | Owner, DeLong Lures
