The "research" conducted by these two touch on the loss of livestock to wolves, but fails to address other negative impacts wolves have on ranching, farming, those who work the land, rural residents and outdoor recreationists. In the West, the Echinococcus granulosus tapeworm carried and spread by more than 60-percent of all wolves tested continues to be a bigger and bigger issue. The thousands of microscopic tapeworm eggs deposited in every pile of wolf scat are easily spread by the wind. Cattle, deer, elk and moose ingest those eggs which have landed on blades of grass and other forage - and once inside, those eggs can produced fluid and tapeworm filled cysts on the lungs and liver. This reduces the stamina of animals infected. More and more, hunters are finding these cysts inside game harvested. Humans can also be affected, breathing in or ingesting eggs which the family pet may have brought in on their hair or fur.

Parasitologists have recently found that wolves are also a major carrier and spreader of Neospora caninum, a disease causing organism that can have a catastrophic impact on cattle production. The resulting neosporosis disease causes a high rate of fetus abortion.

One does not even have to read between the lines in the above release to determine that Treves has little regard for hunters - or the hunter's role in wildlife conservation. His remark..."Hunters were some of the least tolerant of wolves among our respondents, and the closer you got to wolf range the less tolerant they were." This very biased release also points out..."Their findings, appearing in the August issue of the peer-reviewed journal Society and Natural Resources, reveal hunter attitudes toward wolves that are largely inconsistent with stewardship."

The University of Wisconsin-Madison should be ashamed to be associated with such biased bigotry. So much for the research conducted by these two radical pro-wolf researchers. If anything, they're simply scamming a living off of Wisconsin taxpayers, while providing less than factual propaganda for those who support a pro-wolf agenda. - Toby Bridges, LOBO WATCH