The other day I was “up nort” for a family event and I witnessed a conversation that went something like this:

Guy 1: “Do you ever see red fox up here?”

Guy 2: “I’ve seen one sometimes.”

Guy 1: “How about wolves?”

Guy 2: “They’re beautiful.  They have a beautiful pelt.”

Guy 1: “Can you trap them?”

Guy 2:“Not yet, but we’ll see…depends on the damn environmentalists.”

Guy 3: “If they let us hunt ‘em their populations will probably go up.”

Guy 1: “Yeah.”

Guy 3 :“It’s like the bald eagles.  I mean, how many eagles do we need?”

Guy 1: “Keep the roadkill cleaned up good though.”

Guy 3: “Yeah.”

The rewards of lurking near a conversation like this make it worth the effort to not interject your opinion.  Even though I grew up in the area, I’d only ever seen one timberwolf, maybe a handful of bald eagles, and never a fox, and never a trumpeter swan.

Now, after numerous environmental protection measures, they are ubiquitous.

Guy three was right, when a certain population level is reached, there’s some scientific indication that controlled hunting will increase the population, as has been the case with the deer population in the area.  but he's wrong in implying that hunting in and of itself is automatically a forcer for population growth.

The question is what is the threshold?  And no matter what, without the “damn environmentalists” there would be no beautiful wolf pelts to argue about taking or not taking right now.

And yes, I know that if I had pointed that out, the guys would have asserted that the population lows we saw during my childhood were “natural” lows in the populations that would have come back with or without conservation efforts.

However, I think we’ve seen enough evidence to the contrary all over the world where conservation efforts were either never attempted, or were circumvented by market pressure for poaching or habitat destruction.

Another interesting portion of the conversation wandered into the subject of "the damn buck-shooters" and how there weren't very many bucks in the area anymore.  It is important to note that the "damn buck shooters" were probably not being complained about because of concern for the effect that a limited number of males might have on the genetic diversity (and therefore health and stability) of the local deer population, but because of resentment for "six-one-tourists" (tourists from the cities...which used to be dominated by the 612 area code) coming up and sniping all the good trophies.

On a personal note, I don't know if I qualify as a "damn buck shooter" or not.  I grew up in the area, but now I live in the cities (not the 612 area code anymore, though) and I'll shoot anything tastey that comes across my path, doe, buck or itty-bitty fawn.  I hunt to eat, I'm not a trpophy hunter...

...but I have to admit, I was a little proud of the 8-point monster buck I pulled out of the woods a couple of years ago.  As a matter of priciple, I don't take trophy photos, but I was tempted that year.  Sorely tempted.