I love when Samonella or Dogfish gets their dander up and end up eloquently typing exactly what I feel- compassionate respect for a resource with a paradox between the love of harvest and the regret that comes from ending a life- fish, foul or other.


I enjoy feeling like I am a part of something bigger, savoring an opportunity past, often not killing and equally celebrating success.


Aldo Leupold said that a bird watcher is depriving himself of part of the experience if he doesn't have a chance to feel the warmth of his curiosity, take in the smell and heft of his prey.


Ironically, he also wrote this



Killing the Wolf

[....] 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. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy; how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable side-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 to 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 hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.



I believe his view reflects observation from a different time as I grew up seeing nothing but a maze of deer trails and I have never seen a wild wolf however, I doubt he would disagree with moderated interference in the name of balance when it comes to wolves today with exception of the ludicrous idea of reintroduction (but that mistake has already been made). The severity of interference should be based on science not emotion though and a wolf legally harvested in an area of concentration is expected.



I think Samonella's wolf is incredible and such a rare experience should be celebrated even if it isn't a personal goal of mine.