But the topic here was wolves, and that weaponized everything.

July 5, 2018 4:15 PM

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf Scientist? "Rob Wielgus was one of America’s pre-eminent experts on large carnivores. Then he ran afoul of the enemies of the wolf." (slnyt)
posted by Hypatia (8 comments total)

Ugh this reminds me of the book Coyote America. Just like wolves culling coyotes is super not great because the remaining coyotes after a cull have large litters and kill whatever to feed them, whereas living with coyotes and properly fencing/llaming/guarding your livestock will prevent 95% of deaths. And because that’s also true with wolves and because this guy proved it, he lost his job. Ugh.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:24 PM on July 5, 2018 [11 favorites]

This is a really interesting and nuanced article, thank you for posting.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:09 PM on July 5, 2018

Metafilter: blunt, cocksure, hyperbolic and prone to melodrama.
posted by TheShadowKnows at 5:13 PM on July 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

In the end there were no simple answers. No heroes or villians; only silence.

- A closing line from 1983 film Never Cry Wolf. Based in the 1963 book by another lightning rod, Farley Mowat. Great scenery, story, acting and music. As sad as it needs to be.
posted by Twang at 5:34 PM on July 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

A friend of mine posted photos that she'd seen on a FB page devoted, basically, to killing wolves. Pictures of piles of dead wolves, all sorts of violence, turned into "comic" memes. The sheer glee these people took in the idea of slaughtering mass numbers of wild animals (usually to protect the domesticated animals that they were then going to slaughter) made me physically ill.
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:58 PM on July 5, 2018 [12 favorites]

Wolves carry so much cultural baggage that studying them can be dangerous. I once met a Canadian scientist who received death threats from wolf huggers after he published a paper reporting a wolf attack on his team. (This message cannot be true, so we must get rid of the messenger!)
posted by monotreme at 10:40 PM on July 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think someday long (but maybe not too long) in the future, when the history of the Republican Party is written, it will be subtitled "The Party of Fear". They seem so scared of everything. Terrorists, gangs, wolves, women.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:30 AM on July 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

wolf huggers

Of course this is a thing 🤦‍♀️
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 2:41 PM on July 6, 2018