courtesy of The Missoulian
by Rob Chaney
Two of Montana’s biggest hunting advocates are in a dogfight over how best to control wolves.
For the past week, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Montana Wildlife Federation have been trading insults and accusations about whose wolf-management strategy best serves hunters in the Rocky Mountains.
The groups’ letters left many in the conservation community disturbed over what some called a battle for the loyalty of Montana hunters, and what others suspected was an early exchange of fire in the U.S. Senate race between Sen. Jon Tester and Rep. Denny Rehberg.
Wildlife Federation habitat committee chairman Skip Kowalski’s Feb. 1 guest column in the Missoulian started by questioning the motives of “some wolf-obsessed hunters and their politically incompetent organizations” who hurt hunting “with hot-worded hip shots and potshots of contempt for the values of the millions of non-hunting American people who care deeply that endangered species should be preserved.”
Teklanika Nature Photography 