I know a lady who was ordering t-shirts for the family retail sales business. She chose a head-shot of a wolf to be printed on the shirts, then paused. "I'd better clear this with my husband -- see if he approves."

"The only way I'll agree to that," he growled, "is if it's overlaid with a target."

Meanwhile consider this:

A U.S. District Judge ruled that Canadian wolves introduced to Yellowstone National Park at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars was illegally planted and must be removed. The ruling (at that late point akin to a court order not to get pimples) was in the process of being appealed.

During the appeal a conservation group toured America in company with a leashed wild wolf to demonstrate the creature's placid temperament. They planned, of course, to win public support. At least their endeavor wasn't taxpayer supported.

Not to be outdone by Federal courts or either supporters or detractors, Yellowstone's administration planned to dart a few score Park wolves from helicopters. Then, while the animals were tranquilized, fit them with radio transmitter collars in order to better monitor wolf packs. This effort was propped up by tax dollars.

One wag said that putting the radio collared wolves in a holding pen for future deportation might be a better way to monitor them.

Meanwhile the cost goes on and on. A few million here, a few million there, and like one infamous Congressman once said, "Pretty soon you'll be talking about 'real' money."

"The only good wolf is a dead wolf," muttered the wholesale buyer's husband who wanted a target superimposed over the wolf's head. The guy probably never realized he was paraphrasing a famous Union Army general who said the same thing about native American aboriginals who rode from the Black Hills to give some of his underlings fits along the Little Big Horn.

The wolf imbroglio, should it continue for another decade or two (and it will), bodes fair to overshadow the Spotted Owl donnybrook on the West Coast. "Spotted Owls -- Everybody Should Eat One," blazed one popular bumper sticker during that protracted conflict. Owls were targeted, too, on t-shirts, window posters, and even billboards.

A case might arguably be made that the owls won, however. And the bulk of their living rooms -- remnant old-growth forests -- were preserved in their behalf.

Judging from that experience, it's probable wolves will stay in Yellowstone despite targeted t-shirts and reversing court orders.

The grizzly bear is another creature for whom sword lines have been drawn in the dust: i.e. reintroduction of the animals to Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains and Washington's North Cascades. But the odds are all previous wildlife wars will pale in comparison with the impending one involving anadromous fish (salmon and steelhead) and the dams on the Columbia River system.

It's like Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

 

Next week? Another walk on the wild side.