If he doesn't, we'll be appealing the case. The 10th Circuit, where the case resides, is not friendly to conservation causes. It's not impossible that if this keeps going, it could wind up in the Supreme Court. But there is no way we or the public are going to permit those wolves to be taken out of there. The public loves them.
People seem to really emotionally respond to predators like wolves, big cats and bears.
Yes, I think that's true. Edward O. Wilson, the eminent evolutionary biologist at Harvard, has pointed out that through all but the last minor portion of our existence, we've been so intimately connected to nature that we retain in us an innate need for it. In an increasingly urbanized society, it becomes more and more difficult to satisfy this need. It also has to do with the fact that some of these species, especially the wolf, our signature species, is, more than any other single creature in North America, a symbol of wild nature. Schlickeisen is concentrating on protecting the Yellowstone wolves and building acceptance for the return of the grizzly to Idaho.