Rather strange wolf hunting logic

So, browsing the youtubes recently, I came across a rather stirring argument in the comments involving the subject of wolf hunting in Idaho.  This led me to some "interesting" arguments given from quite an avid fun of wolfhunting,  ruj1970 .   Now, I'm not going to go ahead and claim that all people that want to kill wolves are like these people, but they certainly do seem to have some support from a handful of other hunters that share his mindset.

Now, here's a glimpse into his mindset and justifications for wolf killing:

"Your claim that wolves only kill the old sick or weak animals is a blatant lie. It's pathetic that you little lemmings believe such propaganda. The wolves favorite meal is an elk calf Very often they will rip it from the mother elk as it is being born then leave the mother to die a slow death. Elk herds need a survival rate of calves 25-30 per 100 cows to sustain their numbers. Thanks to the wolves in most areas of Idaho that number is in the single didgets. All you are doing is repeating...."

"I'm making rugs out of the wolves that I killed. I will proudly hang them on my wall so all can see that I saved hundreds of elk from a meaningless slaughter."

"The USFWS has done nothing but lie from the beginning of the wolf recovery project. You think they are going to tell the truth now? LOL, you are a lemming."

In response to a video showing the shooting of a wolf, the description for the video made by  Rockholm66:

"Our Game agencies have been working to destroy the North American Model of Hunting. They infested us with wolves, and we will never hunt our way out of this massive problem. We need to fire the vast majority of these welfare biologists who have conducted fraudulent science. Idaho Fish and Game commissioner, Tony McDermott is the only reason Idaho has more than the 10 breeding pair, and now we have thousands."

says user wildcountry270 :

"Wolves have never been endangered> The illegal wolf introduction is all about agendas, killing off the wildlife to end hunting, killing off livestock to end ranching, ruining country life and heritages in order to condem land for the WIldlands project. Environmental groups lie about the real wolves and appose films such as this that tell the real story. Go visit the land of bones, once known as the Yellowstone. Good Job Scott!!!"

From AntiHuntersLoveMe :

"The wolf disaster will come to be known as how not to manage wildlife and how dispicable the intentions are of the pro wolf cult. It warms my heart to see all those dead wolves and true sports men and woman fighting for our wildlife....our future...our country!"

From furtaker101 :

"shoot those mother fuckers then pull that electric collar off and throw that shit in the water!"

This idea of a massive conspiracy by the US government to get rid of hunting baffles me.  So is the idea that all biologists are in on it.  But really, that's just the thing; this is really what demonization is all about, and once you go full-scale, it's really hard to go back.  For instance, take all those arguments above and assume that you believe in them fully.  What are the results?

Well, basically, there is literally nothing that can possibly dissuade you from your mindset.  The wolves are monstrous animals; every snarl, every gesture, every movement is going to denote that to you.  The government is against you; every law that they pass that promotes wolf conservation is naturally spawned by an innate desire to work against you, and any defense or argument they make is obviously a sign of that.  Biologists that study wolves are "bought" by the government, meaning that anything and everything they say is in support of The Lie.

Now, I've seen this logic before, and I think we all have at one point or another.  It's conspiracy theory logic, but you could also say it's witchhunting or devil-fighting logic.  As Aldous Huxley wrote in The Devils of Loudun (which I am paraphrasing, not quoting), an introspective morality based around desiring to do good leads to virtue, but an external morality centered around defeating evil leads to doing bad things.  Doing good for your own sake is not going to lead to harm as much as intending to fight those that you view as evil, to whom you can justify doing anything and everything, since they're pure evil and anything you do will simply be a "necessary evil" done for good reasons, and we see this in witch hunts; anything the accused says is, naturally, a lie, and anyone that supports the accused are either heretical, sorcerors, or possessed and influenced by demons.  The more "power" you give evil, the more you can justify against that evil, and the more you can close your ears off to it.

Witch hunters employed such tactics when hunting witches; if you're accused, you better hope you have the right connections, or you might as well be guilty.   Conspiracy theorists employ such tactics to support their theory.  Conspiracy theorists start off small enough, really; they see a video or hear an idea and think, "That can't be right", then they look for data that specifically supports that initial presumption.  The thing is, when you start cherry picking data, that can accumulate, and spurious claims can be build on spurious "evidence" that neglects everything that contradicts it, building a house of cards.  Anyone that seeks to topple that house of cards can succeed to the eyes of a layman, but it won't to the conspiracy theorist, because any "debunkers" are with the government or they're "sheeple" just repeating what the government tells them.

That is exactly what is being done here.  Biologists are being paid by the government, so any evidence they give is going to be seen as false.  The US government is after the wolf hunters, so any law it passes must be unjust (unless, of course, it supports the hunter, and then it was passed by a lone hero in the corrupt system).  The wolves themselves will be cherry picked as well; every snarl, every gesture of dominance in the pack, every kill, will have all the bad taken out and none of the good added in.  The wolves kill for sport and target children, they're evil, they're vicious, and they'll kill humans (as many anecdotal cases with little support will be shown).

Now, I am not saying that the wolf is a docile creature that would never ever hurt a human.  Of course that's not true; a starving wolf will do anything it can to survive, as will a human being.  As far as large predators go, wolves are one of the less dangerous predators, but they're still predators that are large enough to do damage to a human being.

However, wolves have a very large part to play in ecology.  For instance, one of the reasons for the ballooning populations of foxes and coyotes was primarily thanks to the eradication of wolf populations thanks to human settlement -- and ask any rancher how big a pest coyotes can be.  Wolves also keep populations strong.  While it IS true that they would kill a young animal if they had the chance, it's also true they kill the sick and wounded.  It isn't a willful choice on their part, but simple hunting logistics; you go for the animals you can catch, and you prefer the animals that fight back the least.  This strengthens herds while human hunting weakens them; with the firearm making killing healthy game easy, and the hunting score system, the killing of large healthy animals is prized, leading to further harm to prey populations.

But still, all of this is based on observations, some logic, and simply put, how ecologies actually tend to work.  It's easy to remove these observations once you discredit those that make them.  Already, biologists that study wolves are discredited; government programs are discredited; what's left?  Well, the wolf hunters. Everyone else are sheeple or in on the conspiracy.  It's as simple as that.

That's what's wrong with this mindset.  But as difficult as it is to argue with it, most conspiracy theorists are pretty harmless.  In this case, wolves are being killed in large quantities because of that very mindset. It can't be shuffled under the carpet and ignored, I think, but at the same time you can't argue and convince these people over the internet, or even face to face.  But this mindset has to be understood, and maybe someone will find a solution for it.  Ultimately, I don't know; I can only watch the images of killed and skinned wolves, I can only see tips made openly on how to poach wolves, and shake my head and wonder... what can be done?