A Jan. 26 “Local View” column (“Deer population thrives despite wolves, hunters”) definitively stated that snow depth, not wolf population, caused declines in Minnesota’s deer harvest. A cumulative 53 years of independent scientific research informed the conclusion by Michael E. Nelson, formerly of Ely and Duluth, a retired wildlife research biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

The members of Minnesota Deer Hunters Association and Hunters for Hunters would be wise to take note and relinquish any notion of a public hunting and trapping season on wolves.

Wolves are fulfilling their ecological role as nature intended. The same cannot be said for Hunters for Hunters and the deer hunters association, which want to maim and kill these sentient, intelligent, and social animals that happen to be carnivores and predators like their members.

When did deer hunting become sacrosanct? One would think these groups have proprietary rights over Minnesota’s and indeed America’s wildlife.

Hunters for Hunters is pursuing a radical agenda to politicize wildlife management, and an attendee at one of their rallies roused the group to vigilantism following a raise of hands that showed a majority knew a wolf poacher, according to News Tribune coverage. Poaching an animal protected by the Endangered Species Act is a federal offense, and any perpetrator misusing firearms in the act of committing such a crime is dangerous.

It is audacious for anyone to think a hunting license guarantees a bag limit. Furthermore, the state constitutional right to hunt does not privilege those who exercise it over those who don’t.

The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association and Hunters for Hunters are not representative of all deer hunters, but I fear they are reshaping hunters’ norms. Perhaps deer hunters are simply reflecting the breakdown of social cohesion that has pervaded many facets of American life. The difference is that their activities are ultimately lethal and guns resolve nothing.

It is hard for me to disentangle the group mindset of Hunters for Hunters from the societal impact of the liberalization of gun-carry laws, the narcissistic aspects of social media, the sense of self-entitlement engendered by a consumer society, and our culture of violence.

Doug Pazienza is formerly of Duluth and is a member and supporter of the International Wolf Center and an active supporter of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, Timber Wolf Alliance at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, North American Bear Center, and Listening Point Foundation. He has attended international wolf conferences in North America and Europe, joined wolf biologists in field research, and completed a wolf survey course for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. A University of Minnesota Duluth graduate, he lives on the Northumberland coast of England.