Carter Niemeyer: Wolfer

"Packs that are continuously trapped and snared and hunted, the packs are smaller and things are a lot more chaotic in the pack because you're killing uncle, you're killing dad, you're killing mom. The pups may get good leadership training and learn how to hunt or the family could be broken up and the puppies never fully learn how to hunt.   And so all this hunting and trapping  lowers the pack size, fragments them often and might cause a pack to break up, and those broken packs can actually send out more wolves in more places.   So, all this intense wolf killing, in my opinion, it's not justified and it's unnecessary because what it's creating now, instead of biological carrying capacity, they're managed politically on social carrying capacity. How many wolves will people tolerate?" - Carter Niemeyer     Carter Niemeyer is a wildlife biologist who has been working with wolves since the 1980s. Afetr decades as a trapper of wolves (and many other predators) he transformed into one of their biggest champions.   He worked as a state trapper and conducted wildlife studies for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and by 1990, he was a full-time wolf specialist, negotiating situations where wolves were in conflict with people.   In the mid 90s, he became a core member of the Wolf Capture Team in Canada. They were there to capture and bring wolves back to the US for the Federal Wolf Reintroduction Program.   Carter's stories are seriously astonishing stories and span more than five decades of work with large predators. He's been a naturalist since he could walk and his love of nature and the outdoors are at the core of his very being.     I spent the afternoon with him at his house in Idaho. I wanted to better understand the wolf hatred and hysteria that's been going in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana for centuries - but currently seems to be at an all-time high.   I wanted to hear Carters perspective, the thoughts of a former trapper on the wolf massacre that's taking place today in the Northern Rockies and, also to ask him if there's anything that we can do to stop it.   LINKS: www.carterniemeyer.com