"If you hated hunters and wanted to reduce game herds to eliminate hunting the wolf would be the perfect tool to do it. I'm not sure if that was the plan or just a fortunete side effect."
Whether it "was the plan or just a fortunate side effect", the following principle is alive and well.
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
Rahm Emanuel
Now that we've got wolves, the anti's have hitched their wagon to the wolf restoration illusion and building their war chest at a mind numbing rate. It's provide ant-hunters a powerful platform with which to extract resources from millions of conscientious but misinformed citizens. Money they'll use in hundreds of different ways to illuminate hunting and eventually fishing. If they're successful in eliminating hunting and fishing their next target will be hiking and back packing ie: public access.
While it seems ridiculous to consider the thought that the anti's will ever go after non-hunting/fishing access but if they ever loose their ability to generate revenue by attacking hunting/fishing they will go after the next best thing, and that will be the public impact on public lands. Whatever they need to do to continue to raise money is what they'll go after.
Remember, they live by the rule:
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
DC
