Bullshit killing the Wolves

The same old refrain.  The same old, excuse the pun, bullshit!

The same old, State of Jefferson bullshit:  city slickers don't understand us, so leave us alone to make bigger profits by killing the herds of cattle by killing anything that gets it our  way.  Profit trumps morality and good sense!  

The same thing happened in the not so distant past.  

In 1850 California became a state, part of the land grab of the Mexican War.  

There were thousands of immigrants (that's right immigrants) who came for gold.  Unfortunately making money gold panning was not easy or very lucrative except for large companies.

So many 49ers lost (another bad pun) and had to do something else, since it was a long way to simply go home.

So they took land that was someone else's, and ranched.  The white population of California was booming, and there was a need for meat that far exceeded the wild game.

In those days barbed wire was not invented, so open range ranching was the established practice.

But, someone was on that open range: deer, wolves and people.  

The deer were shot by the thousands since they ate the grass the cattle needed. The wolves were exterminated by bounty hunters since they preyed on the cattle since the deer were gone.  And finally, the people were hunted for bounty because in desperation they killed a steer or two  to keep from starving.  Most Native American hid in the hills, venturing into the valleys to foreage for food. The 49ers had chased them off their ancient bountiful streamside  lands. 

It all came down to the bullshit (pun) cattle!  One steer killed by starving Indians meant ALL the wolves and native people had to die.

Anti-government ranchers led the charge to get the fledgling state government to form militias to hunt people because of cattle killing.  Funny how government is used to make them money?  Subsidies anyone? 

The wolves and the people were nearly completely exterminated in thirty short years.  The same bullshit was used to justify killing wolves AND people; everyone didn't understand, the ranchers knew best, the poor cattle. 

One bounty hunter, a Methodist Minister, bragged how he had been "humane"  because when he cornered a mother and two small children in a cave near Old Shasta, California, he "shot the five year old in the face with my pistol rather than use my buffalo rifle; I didn't want to hurt him".  

He shot a whimpering five year old in the face "humanely"?  What kind of human being was he....oh...a "Man of God"....

The wholesale slaughter of animals and human beings was led by ranchers!  It was all bullshit, the fact was the cattle loss from wolves and people was minimal. What was not bullshit was the justification for genocide, exterminating ALL the major predators save the white man. 

Some of the ranchers we hear now are descendants of the killers who murdered thousands.

And now the same old bullshit....the poor calves...right?

What they don't tell you is they kill ALL  those calves ultimately anyway. .  Unless the cows are milk cows, they all are butchered so we can have our Big Macs!

And it all comes down to PROFIT.   And killing boosts rancher's profit.   

It is profit that drove the last great genocide..  

Keep the wolves, fight for the environment...save yourselves and your children from the Reckoning that most assuredly is coming!