Well, maybe someone should ask Canada to put up a fence to keep those illegal wolves out-the next thing you know, they will be demanding section 8 dens, free emergency vet care, and free elk stamps.
Like I said-a season on animals to manage them and keep a healthy balance...
I was taught to not hunt and shoot a deer or other animal I do not intend to eat, and I do not have any sympathy with those who want to keep up populations of animals for trophy hunting, or by others who do not eat what they kill. There are far too many like that in every state who want to exterminate everything from wolves and bears to crows and vultures with deer and elk running everywhere for them to shoot, after a leisurely walk from the lodge to a heated blind in a fenced pasture with a feeder. That is not what I call “hunting”.
Also-have you never noticed that privately maintained and owned land has plenty of meat animals to hunt, and a good, healthy balance of predator and prey? That is because the fed doesn’t do any better at managing land and animals than they do at anything else they touch-they just screw it up. Most land is in private hands here-you have to lease from the owner to hunt, and so you mind your manners.
As far as your characterization of hunters as trophy-crazy, bloodthirsty rednecks, well, that may be the case in Texas, but not in Idaho.
As far as private hunting leases and preserves go, they do nothing that responsible state game managers can't do, except drive up the price of hunting so that only the well-off can afford it.
The problem with the dwindling ungulate herds in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming isn't public land, it's federal meddling in states' business. Idaho was doing fine before the Klinton administration forced Canadian wolves on us in the 90s. There was a "healthy balance" of wildlife before Canadian wolves were forced on us...not anymore.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!