An Almost Rant

This morning, about 4am, I woke up, and turned on the TV to watch a little news, as I got ready for work… just like normal. Every now and then a story will go by that makes me wince, twitch, or just get down right mad. I guess this morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, cause I heard this story (video) and I wanted to scream at the crap spewing from Bruce Malcolm (R, house district 61, Montana).

They need to fit into the rest of Montana’s wildlife, like all the rest of the wild life.
They’re not sacred.
There is nothing about wolf that’s sacred.
He doesn’t need to be treated that way, he needs to come down off the pedestal and fit into the ecosystem, like all the rest of the animals.

My first knee-jerk reaction was to say “what a fucktard, fit into the ecosystem … just like your cattle do, you twit?” There is a reason the word cattle is derived from the word chattel. Representative Malcolm’s losses over the last few years since the reintroduction of wolves, as an apex predator surely amount to a sum of money that I would not want to loose, ~24 cows since the wolves return. But I question that statement.
After spending a few hours bouncing around a 20 mile dirt road this morning (I forgot my laptop at the hotel and had to return to get it, 3 trips down that road in my jeep), draining the blood from my kidneys, and drinking a diet coke, I calmed down. I no longer think of Rep Malcolm as a fucktard, just a man trying to make a living raising beef, and I know that’s not an easy job, I grew up in a rural area. But the part of his words that appear short sighted to me is this: One, he sponsored a bill to reimburse ranchers for cattle lost to wolf predation (signed into law 4/26/07). Second, how many head has he lost, previous to the reintroduction of wolves, to injury and sickness, and how many lost after? (My money is the rate probably dropped, as wolves tend to go after those they can catch, the weak, young, sick, injured, and old) Those losses before would not have been compensated. And Third, how many cattle does he run, that I have no idea, the losses of 24 head may be major, may be minor compared to his total herd. Anyway around it though, I know it sucks to loose money for your job, I don’t like it when it happens to me, so I doubt he does either. But I think his compensated personal loss of a few head of cattle a year, vs. the return of an apex predator to the wild is miniscule. And that has nothing to do with pedestals.