Sportsmen Support Wilderness. The River Guide.
I haven’t been to these roadless areas, but the relief of the Scotchman Peaks is some of the greatest in Montana.
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
Wow, not one single comment.
I guess if you can’t say something negative about hunting/trapping/fishing nothing gets said at all.
Cudos to these folks on their efforts! Even though they are nasty “Sportsmen”.
I don’t think that’s the reason. It may be that no one on the forum at this time is familiar with these mountains.
I have never visited them, although I know that they are scenic and notable for their relief above the surrounding country.
People tend to respond to negative or bad things much more than to positive or good things. It is much easier to receive a complaint than a praise. Communications and marketing people know that phenomena very well. It cannot be attributed to lack of interest.
So Pete,
Do you think its a good thing? What these sportsmen are trying to do?
You weren’t interested until I made a negative comment about lack of interest. I guess your theory is correct.
I bet if I made a comment about these sportsmen wanting to preserve the wilderness areas so they could murder defenseless little critters there would have been a resounding AMEN from the congregation. I’ve been reading this blog long enough to “know that phenomena very well.”
Good thing, yes of course. The interest in the story was there before the comment. But the theory with this penomena goes, that you read it, make a positive mental note, and somehow don´t feel you should respond. Whereas with a bad thing you instantly feel “I have to do something”. I´ve encountered this phenomena also many times and “at the receiving end” during my career and always was curious why positive comments or praise are so rare, until a marketing guy explained it to me.
Ralph is correct, I think. Many of us are unfamiliar with these mountains…and frankly, what with the Northern Rockies delisting and public comments due yesterday on a Mexican wolf conservation assessment, some of us in other areas have had our plates full.
However, you may take it as a given that many of us who read and post on this site generally support preservation of all roadless areas. There are too few of them left throughout the country. It’s just that we tend to focus on those closer to our homes–in my case, in the Southwest.
Cord….
I’m for preserving as much wilderness as possible, and then some.
One of the problems I see is that alot of people that spend time in them as I do, don’t trust the “back room deals” that take place. ie..the Beaverhead/Deerlodge deal that was brokered in that fashion.
When it comes to “special interests” brokering these ideas, more are saying…Whoa!…lets be careful.