Recommendation to check out an organization that works with ranchers on non-lethal techniques to manage wolf-livestock relations --- it's called "Working Circle," and they address cow behavior and vulnerability factors, so it's a little different than the classic guardian animals or fladry. Their work is really effective, and I feel they're a really good resource to direct skeptical ranchers to.

https://www.workingcircle.org/

Does anyone else feel this way?

Wolves are one of my absolute favorite animals. They're fabulous, their social behavior is fascinating, they bond so deeply with their family and I love that. I used to watch videos and documentaries and I'd feel so much awe and wonder just watching them.

That's all been ruined. I don't feel that anymore, at all. Instead I feel anger and sadness. I've read too many stories of famous, incredible wolves being shot, legally or illegally - White Lady, 06, Spitfire, Takaya, Romeo, Toklat/East Fork's 2005 breeding pair. I've heard researchers lament having wolves and entire packs they study obliterated, over and over, by trapping and hunting. And then you have the recent events that everyone in the world is outraged about.

I dealt with a coworker over the summer who bragged about poaching deer and wanted everyone to know how they couldn't wait to go hunt wolves - probably illegally.

And I feel loss, too. Loss that so many research opportunities are being lost, that the social structures of wolves in so many places are being constantly torn apart by human-caused deaths. White Lady was possibly days away from giving birth when she was shot. Toklat's breeding pair's deaths caused a complete breakdown in their pack and left yearlings and pups living entirely off of snowshoe hares.

I can't get away from it, either. I follow wolf photographers and videographers on instagram and the comments are full of hatred toward wolves. I follow pages on Facebook and photographers on facebook who are fighting for wolf conservation and everything they post about is disheartening. I love that they're fighting for wolves, but there is nowhere I can turn that I'm not reminded of wolf hunting/poaching/hatred.

I do not feel happy when I think of wolves anymore. They are ruined. Same thing happened when I got really into keeping up with wild horse herds - I started to care about them so I started to keep up with the issues and the efforts to help them, and just like wolves there was nothing but failure after failure to make a change, and...the magic was ruined.

My favorite animals are now a source of stress instead of joy. An actually unhealthy amount of stress.

And on the other side, I was really considering switching to a degree in animal behavior and studying wolves. It was my dream. I don't think I can pursue a career that causes so much emotional distress - I can see it shaving years off my life.

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Any contact information or whatever would be helpful. Trump did not make a good call removing their protections, in my humble opinion. I have time this summer when I'm off and I'd like to do something for the greater good with it...

Thanks in advance :)

Any posts or comments about the Wyoming incident must go in this thread. Any posts outside of this thread will be removed.

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I do not want to suppress posts about the Wyoming wolf incident. However these posts are frequently becoming a hotbed of disrespect and fighting.

Please keep it clean and respectful. Otherwise the ban hammer will come out and be used frequently.

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So, me and my fiancee are planning on moving to North Carolina, and I want to do what I can to get involved with Red Wolf conservation. However, I'm feeling disheartened upon hearing of the near fanatical hatred ranchers, hunters and farmers have for wolves, and I'm genuinely worried that before long, the Red Wolf (and even the Gray Wolf) may end up extinct. Is the internet just blowing the prevalence of these wolf-hating ranchers/hunters/farmers out of proportion, or does pretty much every one of them view wolves as pests?