Life in the woods

Life in the woods

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Gary Edinger is a wilderness kind of guy. He is a professional logger who lives in Wisconsin and he spends almost all of his life out in the woods harvesting timber. And every year he goes on vacation in the Selway Bitter Root wilderness of Idaho. He has a take on the wolf population slightly different than a marvelous woman I know named Suzanne Stone who believes we're too hard on wolves. I call Suzanne the Wolf lady and I call him the wilderness man. "We go out every summer for a trip into the Selway Bitter Root wilderness, out in your country, and go back in the fall. Either I take a friend elk hunting or elk hunt myself. I have my own horses and mules and I pack way back into the wilderness. Have you been successful getting an elk out here? I was until last year, the wolves beat me out last year. What do you mean by that? The wolves have decimated that area, they haven't really hit it hard. Interestingly I just talked with a woman the other day why call the Wolf lady and she is adamant that wolves belong in our wilderness. I am not anti-wolf. They did not get a handle on them in time, what with all the court cases, there got to be too many. And it's not just the elk. I don't know how many years I have spent out there during summer trips and elk hunting and the moose population is gone. We saw moose every summer feeding in those high mountain lakes in the evening. Something happened to them. There is no question that wolves have tipped the scale as far as the game populations. I don't mind a few wolves but they are going to have to figure out a better way to control them, that's for sure.
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