Letter to the editor: Wolves belong here despite governors’ resistance

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune January 19, 2016

Whose interests are the Four Corners governors looking after in signing a compact stating they don’t want wolves in their states? Certainly not the interests of wildlife, watersheds or the majority of their human constituents.
Most ranchers believe that wolves and humans can’t live together, but wild wolves don’t attack humans (unlike grizzlies, cougars, dogs and bulls). Many organizations compensate for calf losses to wildlife.
Wilderness is the true home of wolves. Utah has a lot. Elk are overrunning ranges in southern Utah. Wolves would bring this into balance. Ecosystems long suffering from predator/prey imbalances are getting healthy again where wolves have returned, most notably along waterways, where willow, cottonwood and aspen forests are regrowing and banks are stabilizing. Wolves are a major missing biological component in our Mountain West ecosystems. We all benefit by their return.
With the governors of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico apparently in the pocket of paranoid ranchers and other public lands users and abusers, scientists will not be allowed to orchestrate the wolf’s comeback. The guvs want more political and industry appointees to call the shots and want to dismantle the current team of world experts recommending more wolves for the Four Corners states.
Our America?
Dan Kent
Moab