By John Enos,Tripp Middle School

With all of my facts I hope that you feel as strongly as I do about wolves being brought into Maine or protected from Hunting. So while reading or listening, just think about it. I hope that I can change your mind that is if you believe that wolves should be brought in Maine.

Most people don’t realize it but wolves are dangerous to pets. They will kill or maim cats and dogs. Would you want to come home and find your beloved cat or dog on the porch ripped to shreds and strewn all over? Would you want to let your prized coon hound or beagle out to hunt and you don’t find him until there is nothing left of him? You’d only know that it’s your pet by the pieces of collar strewn in the area. These are some of the true stories about what has happened to pets that were attacked by wolves. Wolves run at speeds of 25 to 35 miles per hour. Do you really think that your pet can outrun that unless you have a greyhound?

Against popular belief, wolves do harm people. In India, many children have been maimed or killed by wolves. Would you want to go into your house to go to the bathroom and three minutes later when you come out all that you find is bloody, gnarled mess of hair, flesh, and guts, that had been your precious little two or three year old? Back in November of 2004, in Saskatchewan, a 22 year old was killed by a pack of four wolves. he most likely didn’t think that anything would happen to him when he went for a short walk behind his house. How do you think his family feels now that their child was killed and there is nothing that can be done about it. What if he was your child, husband and or your father?

The United States Fish & Wildlife Department has gotten many complain from enraged farmers and hunters. Why, you might think? Because the farmers have had livestock slaughtered for no apparent reason. Hunters have wounded a deer and the next morning when they went back to find it, there was nothing left but a shredded hide and some bones. Farmers have had whole flocks of sheep and lambs slaughtered with only one or two eaten. In 2004, a Midwestern farmer had 65 cows and calves, 15 sheep, and 101 turkeys all killed by wolves. That right there could have made him lose his ranch to bankruptcy. Each year one wolf will kill and eat 15 to 20 deer. That doesn’t count for all of the small game, birds, and livestock that a wolf will eat. Every wolf eats between 5 to 25 pounds of meat per day which doesn’t sound like much, but that would be between 1,825 to 9,125 pounds per year!

Wolves will fast populate over an area. This is considering that each female has four to six pups every year. Also, each pack has two to five females that are young enough to breed. That is why Mainers should be able to hunt or trap wolves. It is a proven fact that 30 percent of the wolves in an area can be harvested without a rapid population decline. Wolves are also extremely skittish so they are very hard to hunt.

After all of the facts that I have stated, I am sure that there are some questions you might hear about my report. One such thought would be that wolves and only harmless canines that are the size of coyotes and we don’t have any problem with them. This statement is not true because a coyote weighs in at 40 to 60 pounds and a wolf weighs 80 to 150 pounds; the coyotes have significantly decreased the small game populations.

Now that you have read or listened to this article. I hope that you have changed your mind about wolves being brought into Maine. Hopefully, you and I can persuade the Maine State government to waiver their proposal.