Hunters were the problem

As a commercial pilot flying ski planes in Canada, I enjoyed watching wolves run wild and free across the frozen north.

Big game outfitters complained to Les Cox, then game warden in Smithers, British Columbia, that wolves were killing too many moose and it was hurting their guide business. The B.C. Game Department decided to do a moose count. On Feb. 29, 1969, I began flying Milt Warren and Bill Russell of the Game Department on a moose count in an Omineca Air Services Cessna 185 ski-plane.

Day after day, we flew grids, back and forth, low across the frozen wilderness, counting moose and recording those killed by wolves. The Game Department discovered those moose killed by wolves were old, and their teeth well-worn. An official of the Game Department concluded the declining moose population was a result of too many hunters, and the wolf was not the problem.

Since the introduction of the gray wolf to Yellowstone Park in 1995, plant life along the creeks that were badly overgrazed by elk herds have returned to a normal healthy state. Studies have shown these wolves primarily kill old and sick elk and the elk herds are healthier now.

Larry Whitesitt

Fairfield