Hear me out - wolf tours

I’m not a rancher but I do enjoy custom-grinding hamburger for my grill, and most of what I know about wolves I get from periodicals like the Spokesman. I do know something about marketing, so I wonder: Why is there no “wolf tourism” in Northeast Washington?

From what I’ve read, human presence is a wolf deterrent and there are many ‘wetside’ people who would love to hear wolves howling. So why not charge them for a few days stay in the woods, camping in tents near herds and learning firsthand about wolves, ranching and life over here? You could almost guarantee the tourists would get an earful of howling (animal and human) and maybe even sight a critter or two. And since most West Side people will make enough noise to sound like a pair of skeletons wrestling on a tin roof, any sane wolf would want to be somewhere else.

I’m sure there are some outfitters able to host a half-dozen people or so at $250 or $300 a day. A couple of tours a month might cover some predation losses. It just seems like there’s a buck to be made charging people to work for you.

Patrick Conley

Colville