Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

City should focus on wolves

To the Editor:

First, I would like to say that I am a deer hunter and have been since the late 1960s.

Let me ask all of you a question: “What should the city of Ironwood do if a child predator moves into the city?” Do any of you think that the city should get rid of all the children in the city in hope that the child predator will go away?

That is what the city is doing to combat the wolf problem. They want to slaughter as many deer as possible in hope that the wolves will go away. Let me tell you that it will never happen. It’s time to target the predator (the wolf), not the deer.

Not once have I heard of anyone trying to trap these animals. If that does not work, then how about poisoning them? Now that we are going to have a wolf hunt, then try shooting them.

There are so many wolves that they are in every part of the county. They will always be coming into the city, no matter how many deer the city wants to slaughter. You can’t shoot them all.

The deer we have in the city are used to being around people. Even when walking with my dog, I can still get a few feet from them.

Another reason for being against the deer hunt is that fawns born this year need to be with their mothers to give them a better chance to survive our winters. I had one city deer hunter say to me, “You don’t even have to go into a tree stand, you just walk up to them and shoot them.”

The deer have always been in the city because of the food we have for them, like the apple trees we have. I think it is nice to see deer that we can no longer see in areas we hunt in.

The city should focus on the predator (the wolf) — our real problem — and stop the slaughtering of deer that are trying to survive from the wolves.

Michael Ceccon

Ironwood