Aerial Wolf Hunting Opinion Paper

Aerial wolf hunting is found in most parts of Alaska. Aerial wolf hunting was made up to help with predation. When people need more moose and other wildlife animals, aerial wolf hunters come and reduce the numbers of wolves in this area. I believe this is morally wrong and unnecessary. I don’t believe that humans are not successful enough hunters to compete with wolves and find their own prey. They did it for years before helicopters and guns were invented. Wolves don’t harm people so I don’t believe they need to be harmed, especially since they are an intelligent species. The four values that I chose to contrast are moral, economic, environmental and recreational.

Economically the amount of predators killing species in a certain area will decrease, allowing hunters to have more prey to hunt, sell and make more money. The population of wolves will decrease over long term, leaving hunters with more prey to hunt and make money off of. I don’t think this is a necessary sacrifice to make. Hunters could work a little harder to hunt a moose and save a species from becoming closer to extinction. Also if all the wolves are killed to quickly it could seriously off balance the ecosystem and cause the prey to not need to come out of the thick forests for food, making hunting more difficult.

When it comes to recreation, I don’t see aerial wolf hunting as a sport at all, but for those that do its way too big of a sacrifice killing off beautiful wolves for amusement. Money is made from killing wolves, and food is gained, but that same money and food could be from a moose, or a wolf that has passed away. It is a harsh way for any animal to die, just for the recreation of people.

Morally aerial wolf hunting is completely wrong. Some wolves do need to be hunted, but this is not the right way to hunt them. Wolves have never or very rarely have harmed humans, and humans torture and kill wolves for a sport. Wolves are a beautiful species and by watching them and hunting them you can learn more about them, but by just watching them and observing them you can also learn about them. Wolves are very intelligent and harmless, they mind their own business and help with balancing the ecosystem, when they are killed for money and pleasure that is one hundred percent morally wrong.

Environmentally wolf number populations will be reduced in the areas hunted but they will never be completely extinct. If aerial wolf hunting continues to become more popular eventually too many wolves will start to be hunted and populations will decrease. Wolves are common predators of moose, deer and caribou. These animals will become overpopulated when all the wolves in the area are killed.

In conclusion, I believe that economically there are other ways of making money by hunting than aerial wolf hunting. I don’t think that aerial wolf hunting can be considered a recreational activity at all. Morally there is nothing right about aerial wolf hunting, chasing a wolf down to exhaustion then shooting it when it cannot run anymore and hauling off its dead body is wrong. Environmentally yes, wolves need to die sometime to balance the ecosystem but they don’t need to be brutally murdered.