Battleangel

Fear can make people highly irrational. Just look at what is happening to the predator populations of Scandinavia. Just today, some uninformed peasants killed yet another wolf, illegally, in the north of Sweden. And we have all read about the outrage over recent events in Norway regarding wolves and lynxes. There are even those, on a governing level, that would like to see wolves exterminated altogether.
It’s hard to believe that we are seeing these attitudes even today. Granted, people are irrational and there is a long history of fear and misinformation over predator issues. But it belongs in the folk lore of the dark ages and not in any kind of civilized society. I don’t know what aggravates me the most. That endangered species, wild animals are being killed or that the basic premise for doing so is flawed. Probably the latter.

From another perspective it is interesting to ponder from where these attitudes arose. And why we still carry them. In many ways, wolves were the ‘Arab terrorists’ of the rural communities centuries ago. Just as elves, fairies, trolls and gnomes have been replaced by UFOs, abductions and X-Files-type government experiments. Also, society moves slowly and information and trends are not equally divided along its strata and over geographic areas. It also helps a great deal that people are just so irrational, petty and looking for the supernatural and implausible amongst several much more probable explanations. Hate and fear are particularly appealing concepts. I ought to know. They (the myths) don’t just die gracefully but linger on in modern folk lore, childrens’ stories, legends, fairy tales, awkward socialization. Whatever you call it.
The point is that it has to end now. No amount of excuses or fear mongering will save you. If this continues we will have to do some irrational and illegal hunting, of humans, of our own. As I have pointed out before, any who is an accomplice to this kind of gross and direct abuse of nature, has relinquished all rights. People do have a choice after all. Animals do not. This is not unlike the bizarre medieval animal trials that used to take place. So I say hunt the fanatics down and let them bleed to death in the woods. After all that is only fair. And we’d be rid of some backwards and conservative people at the same time.
Generally I’m surprised to find this awkward world view among country folk. That the one thing they do no understand is their own environment. I myself am peripherally from that cultural background. As for cliches, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Leave nature to those that have the wisdom to appreciate it.

See also this rather interesting thesis on international attitudes towards wolves have been transmitted and shaped over the years. It deals specifically with U.S./Japanese attitudes toward wolves since 1868 and how the introduction of American ranching and agricultural techniques to Hokkaido, also introduced American anxieties toward wolves and resulted in the extinction of the Hokkaido wolf shortly after.