Love this … why is the camp fire important in expressing your grief? Am writing about fire and this intrigued me! If you have a mo drop me a line - would love to quote you if that’s ok? X
What a good question! I am sure there are a million good quotes about fire and its use as a gathering point as well as for cooking and heat. We dug a fire pit during lockdown (since we only ever had one lockdown, in March/April/May 2020), and have used it extensively since then, for distanced gatherings of friends, for fun, and more often than I would have realized for catharsis. There has been a lot of pain and loss in my orbit over the last couple of years. Fire feels like a necessary action when the weight of grief or loss isn't something our society gives us the time to grapple with. It provides space for tears. Maybe even more importantly, I feel like it provides space for silence that we too rarely allow ourselves. We can talk more about it!
This further demonstrates the inability of States like Montana, Wisconsin and Idaho to 'manage' wildlife under their care. It should automatically set in motion a re-listing and more Federal oversight. (But don't think for a minute that these events (WI going over quota, MT encouraging park border killing, etc.) wasn't orchestrated for that exact response. Because such a response plays to their base - 'see the big, bad federal government is overreaching yet again'.)
I agree with both of those points. I keep thinking obviously relisting (which auto correct keeps changing to "resisting"!) is the only realistic answer, but many of us know exactly how much that will rile up anti-government people. I guess in the short term I'd still want to see it just to try to save as many lives as possible but will it cause more harm in the long term? I don't know. It's clear these states, with their current governments, have no interest in managing these species, only in wiping them out. I kind of wish someone at the federal level would tell it like it is: We don't want to put this species on the list again, but will have to until you can show that you can act like responsible adults.
I'm shocked and not shocked at the same time. Shocked that a government would allow such senseless slaughter for no reason (as you mentioned no discussion on balance, just violence), and sadly not shocked that there are people who love to do this. It's far worse than so called 'trophy hunting' (which I abhor), it's all about just killing. What is wrong with us as a species. I don't know what to, but I feel a sense of hopelessness (your last column). I am glad to see the ongoing discussions about co-existence, this act was not related to that it seems. I just don't understand the people in government in MT (and ID, I think it has similar law)
Idaho and I think Alaska and Wyoming, and I'm not even sure about Washington's approach. And Montana and Wyoming are pushing hard to delist grizzlies so they can be hunted, with I'm sure the same kind of "management" approach.
I don't know, either. But it's why I keep turning to people like Stan Rushworth and Sherrie Mitchell and Pat McCabe -- trying to get at the deeper, longer roots of this sense of separation and domination.
Thanks for those people and their work. Can't shake my feeling of hopelessness about this. Look forward to more of your photos/essays as always. Happy New Year.
As Norman Maclean said in his beautiful outdoor classic, A River Runs Through It, "Even as an old man I stand in the big river in the hope that a fish will rise".
"and a whole lot of barely disguised glee at the prospect of permissive violence, often via explicitly cruel methods, toward a species whom many human cultures have been bent on controlling or eliminating for centuries."
Oh, yes, they are determined to prove the villains for no sensible reason but solely to prove that they can, much the same mentality that accompanies canned hunts conducted with semi-automatic rifles - they aren't going to eat it, it's not particularly difficult (fish in a barrel) but it is supposed to prove some kind of manliness of the sort you go for when you have nothing and are nothing and you have to pop a bunch of viagra to have any fun. The grey wolves were and outside of that locus, mostly are doing much better, but the red wolf is hard against the wall and the eastern puma isn't here at all which is why we have some many goddamn deer. The lupine creatures do the ecological garbage collection, but the ability to appreciate anything beyond the end of one's nose is totally lacking in these chuckleheads.
elm
the pitter-patter of blood drops on the tin roof over my heart is ever constant
Yes this. Just last spring we caught sight of a pair of wolves above the cabin, and when I went outside in my slippers and robe I could hear them howl. To think of their fate, and to worry about snares when walking my dog, and to be living in this state right now, with a death cult in charge. It's beyond words.
That must have been incredible! I feel you, thinking of their fate and the snares (I worry about ours and others' dogs, too). I think this possibly hit extra hard because my daughter is so devoted to wolves and when we went to see them in Yellowstone in September, I will never forget hearing them howl, and her face when she saw one through the scope for the first time. The push to kill them feels like it tears at the heart of our humanity.
I have been wrestling with how to express being wordless with grief for roughly one week now. I have also been wrestling with the intense grief that we feel when something like this happens. I have nothing more, but you're not alone in this.
The statewide Montana Republican caucus has no shortage of reactionaries, including some insidious, unethical wolf murderers, but it appears to me that Lincoln, Flathead, Lake, Sanders, Mineral and Ravalli hold the lion's share. My question is: Are there any competent Republican or Democratic candidates in those counties that can go head-to-head, and win? And will the rank-and-file living there even vote for competence?
I wish I could answer affirmatively. I live in the Flathead and my answer's a pretty immediate "no." Dave Fern is great but next session is his last term and he's only one person. The Regiers (3 of them!) have a pretty strong grip on things politically here. I think Debo Powers could possibly win Columbia Falls with an excellent campaign because the person who beat her last time is like 20 years old and his only bill this last session was one to designate Antifa a terrorist group. John Fuller is pretty much anti-trans and anti-abortion and not much else, and nobody seems interested in voting him out. It's just a really conservative county with (it seems to me) a large population that doesn't have a lot of non-Flathead experience. Like you tell them that cities are crumbling and burning down and full of violence because liberals are defunding the police and there's no reason people have not to believe that.
Our school board elections were a pretty hard fight last spring. Kalispell hung onto most of its good people (and Whitefish all of them, but it's a liberal outlier in the county with a much smaller population) but all around the results were mixed. All we can do is keep working for something better.
I've found everything about this wolf story to be undiscussable because of the horror of it. And now they have grizzlies in their sights too. It is abject cruelty without a filter.
That, and the cruelty extends to people too. I have no doubt most, if not all, of these cowards would treat people with the same violence if they thought they could get away with it.
Very on point. And we all know that Gianforte has already crossed that line with at least one person and I am sure would do more in a heartbeat if he could get away with it.
Love this … why is the camp fire important in expressing your grief? Am writing about fire and this intrigued me! If you have a mo drop me a line - would love to quote you if that’s ok? X
What a good question! I am sure there are a million good quotes about fire and its use as a gathering point as well as for cooking and heat. We dug a fire pit during lockdown (since we only ever had one lockdown, in March/April/May 2020), and have used it extensively since then, for distanced gatherings of friends, for fun, and more often than I would have realized for catharsis. There has been a lot of pain and loss in my orbit over the last couple of years. Fire feels like a necessary action when the weight of grief or loss isn't something our society gives us the time to grapple with. It provides space for tears. Maybe even more importantly, I feel like it provides space for silence that we too rarely allow ourselves. We can talk more about it!
This further demonstrates the inability of States like Montana, Wisconsin and Idaho to 'manage' wildlife under their care. It should automatically set in motion a re-listing and more Federal oversight. (But don't think for a minute that these events (WI going over quota, MT encouraging park border killing, etc.) wasn't orchestrated for that exact response. Because such a response plays to their base - 'see the big, bad federal government is overreaching yet again'.)
I agree with both of those points. I keep thinking obviously relisting (which auto correct keeps changing to "resisting"!) is the only realistic answer, but many of us know exactly how much that will rile up anti-government people. I guess in the short term I'd still want to see it just to try to save as many lives as possible but will it cause more harm in the long term? I don't know. It's clear these states, with their current governments, have no interest in managing these species, only in wiping them out. I kind of wish someone at the federal level would tell it like it is: We don't want to put this species on the list again, but will have to until you can show that you can act like responsible adults.
I'm shocked and not shocked at the same time. Shocked that a government would allow such senseless slaughter for no reason (as you mentioned no discussion on balance, just violence), and sadly not shocked that there are people who love to do this. It's far worse than so called 'trophy hunting' (which I abhor), it's all about just killing. What is wrong with us as a species. I don't know what to, but I feel a sense of hopelessness (your last column). I am glad to see the ongoing discussions about co-existence, this act was not related to that it seems. I just don't understand the people in government in MT (and ID, I think it has similar law)
Idaho and I think Alaska and Wyoming, and I'm not even sure about Washington's approach. And Montana and Wyoming are pushing hard to delist grizzlies so they can be hunted, with I'm sure the same kind of "management" approach.
I don't know, either. But it's why I keep turning to people like Stan Rushworth and Sherrie Mitchell and Pat McCabe -- trying to get at the deeper, longer roots of this sense of separation and domination.
Thanks for those people and their work. Can't shake my feeling of hopelessness about this. Look forward to more of your photos/essays as always. Happy New Year.
As Norman Maclean said in his beautiful outdoor classic, A River Runs Through It, "Even as an old man I stand in the big river in the hope that a fish will rise".
I hope sanity will arise.
I'm with you, both on the intractable hopelessness, and on looking for rising sanity.
And ... trying to remember I wanted to do more fishing this year :)
YEA on the fishing..please let us all know how it goes!
Will try!
Thank you, Nia. I walk with you in a sense of grief. We are not being good ancestors.
That is deep truth, and a source of grief in itself. We can at least try for better on our own.
"and a whole lot of barely disguised glee at the prospect of permissive violence, often via explicitly cruel methods, toward a species whom many human cultures have been bent on controlling or eliminating for centuries."
Oh, yes, they are determined to prove the villains for no sensible reason but solely to prove that they can, much the same mentality that accompanies canned hunts conducted with semi-automatic rifles - they aren't going to eat it, it's not particularly difficult (fish in a barrel) but it is supposed to prove some kind of manliness of the sort you go for when you have nothing and are nothing and you have to pop a bunch of viagra to have any fun. The grey wolves were and outside of that locus, mostly are doing much better, but the red wolf is hard against the wall and the eastern puma isn't here at all which is why we have some many goddamn deer. The lupine creatures do the ecological garbage collection, but the ability to appreciate anything beyond the end of one's nose is totally lacking in these chuckleheads.
elm
the pitter-patter of blood drops on the tin roof over my heart is ever constant
"To prove that they can." That seems to be the long and short of it. (That line about the tin roof over the heart . . . ouch. Yes.)
Yes this. Just last spring we caught sight of a pair of wolves above the cabin, and when I went outside in my slippers and robe I could hear them howl. To think of their fate, and to worry about snares when walking my dog, and to be living in this state right now, with a death cult in charge. It's beyond words.
That must have been incredible! I feel you, thinking of their fate and the snares (I worry about ours and others' dogs, too). I think this possibly hit extra hard because my daughter is so devoted to wolves and when we went to see them in Yellowstone in September, I will never forget hearing them howl, and her face when she saw one through the scope for the first time. The push to kill them feels like it tears at the heart of our humanity.
I have been wrestling with how to express being wordless with grief for roughly one week now. I have also been wrestling with the intense grief that we feel when something like this happens. I have nothing more, but you're not alone in this.
💕💕💕
The statewide Montana Republican caucus has no shortage of reactionaries, including some insidious, unethical wolf murderers, but it appears to me that Lincoln, Flathead, Lake, Sanders, Mineral and Ravalli hold the lion's share. My question is: Are there any competent Republican or Democratic candidates in those counties that can go head-to-head, and win? And will the rank-and-file living there even vote for competence?
I wish I could answer affirmatively. I live in the Flathead and my answer's a pretty immediate "no." Dave Fern is great but next session is his last term and he's only one person. The Regiers (3 of them!) have a pretty strong grip on things politically here. I think Debo Powers could possibly win Columbia Falls with an excellent campaign because the person who beat her last time is like 20 years old and his only bill this last session was one to designate Antifa a terrorist group. John Fuller is pretty much anti-trans and anti-abortion and not much else, and nobody seems interested in voting him out. It's just a really conservative county with (it seems to me) a large population that doesn't have a lot of non-Flathead experience. Like you tell them that cities are crumbling and burning down and full of violence because liberals are defunding the police and there's no reason people have not to believe that.
Our school board elections were a pretty hard fight last spring. Kalispell hung onto most of its good people (and Whitefish all of them, but it's a liberal outlier in the county with a much smaller population) but all around the results were mixed. All we can do is keep working for something better.
I've found everything about this wolf story to be undiscussable because of the horror of it. And now they have grizzlies in their sights too. It is abject cruelty without a filter.
That is exactly it. The wordlessness might be a mix of the grief and the reminder that this is the world they want.
That, and the cruelty extends to people too. I have no doubt most, if not all, of these cowards would treat people with the same violence if they thought they could get away with it.
As someone who has been menaced by them in their big pickups, yes, the violence is the point. Scaring "the libruls" in their Subarus is the point.
Very on point. And we all know that Gianforte has already crossed that line with at least one person and I am sure would do more in a heartbeat if he could get away with it.
Yup. Exactly that. It’s a reflection of how they view other life, including our lives.
The wholesale killing of wolves is just blood lust, and it illustrates our separation from nature.
My feelings exactly.