Letter to the editor: Corporate interests, not wolves, are the real danger in Wisconsin

By Robert Williams The Capital Times

Oct 26, 2016

Dear Editor: Sen. Ron Johnson, Rep. Sean Duffy and Gov. Scott Walker were campaigning in Wausau this week. Johnson made sure to highlight his current “work” trying to get the grey wolf removed from the protected species list as a way in which he’s working for Wisconsinites. “Just get that gray wolf delisted so that livestock’s safer and let’s face it — I do not want to see a tragedy where a person is killed by wolves,” Johnson said.
Don’t let this fear mongering win at the ballot box, with Republicans winning the Senate and strengthening their hold on the House and state legislatures. There’s no reason for the Republicans to stop, however — right-wing propaganda and Koch-backed conservative groups who favor Johnson and the like have done nothing for Wisconsin except incite fear and hatred of other Americans and of wolves. Scaring the voters, sadly, works.
Anti-wolf campaigns like these are paid for by conservative political organizations antagonistic toward the federal government and portray wolves as preying on children, livestock and decimating the deer herd. It seems to me that removing the grey wolf from the Endangered Species List is the wildlife version of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover early this year. It’s a phony rebellion against an animal that isn’t a danger to people or really even a threat to livestock. And the state of Wisconsin and U.S Fish and Wildlife Service permits any wolf that presents a safety concern to be killed. This scapegoating of the wolves is just humans who have succumbed to their own rage against imagined enemies, when the biggest threat to Wisconsinites is economic degradation by corporate interests.

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Featured image John E Marriott