This from Tim:

Hi,
I got this message from Tundra Tom. It seems the NWT gov’t is doubling the wolf hunt quota while reducing caribou hunting. Hmmm, sounds like an organized wolf cull to me, aimed at pleasing the old boys club of trophy hunters. This is pretty damn archaic wildlife management. I think you would be hard pressed to find scientific justification for it! One of Tom’s clients was so angry at this decision that he created www.tundrawolves.org to spread info and motivate people to respond. I havn’t read the whole thing yet, but check out the current issues section. After watching these beautiful and intelligent animals last summer I think it is the least I can do to write a letter on their behalf and spread this info. Wolves are only protected in something like 2% of their range in Canada and have been largely erradicated elsewhere in the world where they once roamed. We shouldln’t shoot em for fun.
tim

And here’s the website link again: www.tundrawolves.org

This notwithstanding, it’s long past time we stopped commericial culling of wolves. Honestly, what’s the bloody point? Sure, commercial trophy hunters bring in a little tourism cash to the communities it’s based out of, but why do we still assume that only hunting-based wilderness tourism is economically viable in the face of all the studies and experience that show it just isn’t so? And if non-destructive wilderness tourism can be a replacement for hunting, shouldn’t we stop the hunting before it eliminates the option of having non-hunting tourism? I mean, wolves do actually have some value outside of tourism economics. Perhaps we would like to preserve both those things.

But no. Just to recap: this is a doubling of the commerical, non-local kill qouta of the nearly eliminated wolf population in the North West Territories.