Wolf Pack Special

It would seem that just about anything that happens in Idaho County involving wolves stirs up a lot of commotion on the internet, and nearly anywhere else you might look. When the county commissioners issued their Wolf Resolution, we suddenly became well known around the country as those “anti-environment rednecks” according to the tree hugging crowd. (For the most part those are the folks that don’t live in areas impacted by either a timber harvest or wolves, and really don’t know anything about them either.) ‘Course the Governor’s efforts to gain local control of the wolf infestation just added fuel to the fire, and now it seems that Idaho is populated by bad guys because we’re not all tree and wolf huggers. Oh-well, I never let the environut’s opinion worry me anyway.

The latest (and rather humorous) installment of the ongoing environmental saga is Sheriff Doug Giddings “.308 SSS Wolf Pack Raffle”, which has generated nearly 700 internet stories in just the last week. If you’re not already aware of it, the Sheriffs Department is raffling off a Winchester model 70 .308 rifle, with the proceeds to benefit the department’s Community Projects Fund. The hysteria comes with the name, the “SSS Wolf Pack Raffle”, and the shovel. Apparently, based on our local “shoot, shovel, and shut-up” joke about the best way to handle wolves, the wolf huggers are somewhat hysterical, and naturally Doug’s the bad guy. The first thing we hear from the environmental community is the plaintive wail that Sheriff Giddings is advocating we violate federal endangered species law by running out and eradicating all those poor misunderstood wolves. For the most part the news articles are being pretty fair about describing what the Sheriffs Dept. is trying to accomplish, and some of them do mention the “Three Ess’s” witticism, explaining that it is a joke after all. The scenario according to many self proclaimed environmental experts is a little different however: “An Idaho sheriff holds a raffle for a .308-caliber rifle and a shovel. He promotes the raffle as the “.308 SSS Wolf Pack Raffle, and he wants us to believe that the SSS stands for “safety, security and survival” in an area where the letters SSS in the wolf-plagued area stand for “shoot, shovel and shut up. Suuuuure that’s what the good sheriff means.” It would appear that these folks can’t take a joke, and misunderstand the semantics involved. “No, we’re not advocating shooting wolves,” Giddings said. “Safety, security and survival, that’s kind of an Idaho County thing. That’s who we are. It’s to get people’s attention. It means something to us up here.” I ‘spect it’s a good thing the model 70 is a bolt action rifle, were it a semi-automatic Doug would probably have the Brady Bunch claiming he was handing out assault weapons!

Anyway, if you happen to be an environut and are all upset by the issue, hear this! First off, I know all three of our County Commissioners, and I know Sheriff Giddings. Adding to that, I attend most of the weekly commission meetings, particularly those that involve wolves in any way, and occasionally I’ll even throw my two-bits worth in. Finally, I have never, ever, heard ANY county official advocate breaking any law from any jurisdiction. Certainly there are laws on the books that aren’t very popular in these parts, but nobody thinks we should just ignore them even if we’d like to. As far as I’m concerned, whoever makes such an accusation definitely needs a Plexiglas belly button so they can see where they’re going! Dave Cadwallader of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game Department said it quite well, "We are a state of law abiding citizens…” "We are frustrated, beyond frustrated, but we have to follow the rule of law." Idaho Department of Fish and Game managers no longer perform statewide monitoring of wolves, conduct investigations into illegal killings, provide law enforcement when wolves are poached or participate in the program that responds to livestock depredation. Evidence of wolf poaching is turned over to federal authorities.

Sheriff Giddings said he knew the choice of “SSS” would stir up some interest. It certainly did that, and naturally public interest is something you want if you’re going to run a raffle. Tickets are on sale for $1 each, or 11 for $10, and the drawing is planned for March 8. Money from the raffle will go to a food bank, alcohol and drug awareness programs, and local school equipment fundraisers.