At last week’s federal court wolf delisting hearing, Montana’s attorney argued that wolves in Montana should be delisted, complaining that there is no remedy for Montana if Wyoming continues to adhere to a wolf plan that established roughly 90% of Wyoming as a free-fire kill zone for wolves – a plan that the federal government has rejected as inadequate. He said, “It’s like the story of Sisyphus. We [in Montana] just feel like we’re pushing the boulder up hill, and it only comes rolling down on us again.”
Well maybe there’s a reason that some wolf managers in Montana feel like Sisyphus—and maybe that reason is imbedded in the original Greek myth. A clever and arrogant king from Corinth, Sisyphus fought with the gods, and twice defeated them by outwitting death. For his hubris and failure to play by the rules, Sisyphus was punished in the underworld, where he was tasked with pushing a stone up hill, only to watch it roll downhill upon him, and do the same thing again and again—for eternity.
Teklanika Nature Photography 