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Comment by squozzer | Hacker News Reader

Personally I have no opinion on wolves, but I'm a city boy.

The notion that "city folk" have any idea how to manage anything out in the wild probably contributes as much to how people in WY and elsewhere perceive the wolf as any damage wolves may cause.

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I don't understand - where in the article does it indicate to you that "city folk" are managing wolf populations?

And furthermore, if the people managing wolf populations are defined as "city folk," what about this definition makes them ineligible to manage wolf populations?

When I lived in Idaho, my neighbor found his dead dog draped over his mailbox because it wondered onto another neighbors land that had cattle. The law is on their side, and this issue goes back over 100 years, though the details differ.

That's an interesting story, but can you clarify why you mentioned it? I don't understand the relation to my question.

It's the type of story that city people (who spend 0.01% of their time in rural areas) seem to be astonished by because their lifestyles are so different. Trying to impose your will on people in an area you've barely lived seems quite arrogant to those that live there 100% of the time.

Oh. I hadn't found the story astonishing, sorry. To be honest, I feel like you're the one coming off as arrogant, to suggest that there's some impassible divide between those that live in rural communities, and those that live in cities. I don't believe this is the case.

It's not an impassible divide, just a mentality difference. I'm not sure where you live, but my county has ~60k people (well, year round residents).

In western states (like Utah) if you hit a cow on a highway you are going to pay for both, the car repairs and the cow. People die all the time: black cows, open road, after dark, the cows are invisible.

I think the implication is that the various scientists influencing the management decisions are "city folk".

I doubt this implication adds much to the conversation but hopefully unconfuses you.

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