To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.
~Aldo Leopold

This quote if referring to how man in "tinkering" with the wildlife today, and they are not taking into account every integral "cog" and "wheel" within the ecosystem. Man is calling for mass exterminations of species without a care for the effects of their action. They rejoice when they are successful and refuse to allow the animal back in when conservation groups try to help the animal. They make up stories about how the animal is hurting man, and man's plight in life. They don't care about how the world is doing without that animal. Man only seems to care about themselves, their life, and how they animal negatively affects them.

The perfect example of this is the lovely cruel state of Idaho. The farmers their created an open season on the Gray Wolf that resided in the woods. They claimed that the wolves were killing their livestock. After the wolf population was destroyed, conservation groups called for assistance. Elk and deer populations were out of control since their predator was gone. The law stepped in and put the wolves back, but the farmers fought them tooth and nail for years. They claimed that they could control what was in their ecosystem. That statement alone shows their ignorance of wildlife management.

The wolves are finally safe back in their home, but still in some states the wolves will never be able to return. The poor Red Wolf will never be able to return to their home in the south. The coyotes have taken over and the wolves are forces to breed with them due to small numbers. In fact, within the next few years, the Red Wolf will become extinct. The only place people may be able to see the Red Wolf will be in zoos, but soon even that will be gone. The Red Wolf is not fairing well in captive breeding programs, which is also leading to their decline.

The numbers of some species of wolves, like the Gray Wolf, are increasing and the population is doing fine on their own finally, but the government can never take them off the endangered species list. The government tried and every state created a hunting season for the wolves. The licenses they sold either set no limit on how many people could kill, or the number was so high it would have demolished the population anyway. In Idaho, they had a population of 7,000 and they sold enough licenses to kill 6,000 wolves. After one year of being off the endangered species list, the government placed them back on for their protection.

The wolves will remain on the endangered species list until people can become less ignorant of old wives tales and other internal fears of these beautiful creatures. It is not just wolves that are suffering form ignorance. Every species on that endangered species list has been hurt by man's ignorance, and every species on the extinction list has the same story. Man's selfish tenancies hurt so many things that people do not even consider. When people "tinker" without thinking they remove important "cogs" and "wheels" from the ecosystem that belong there and when people do that, everyone suffers.