People who get takeout or fast food a lot don’t. Some people literally just have drinks and maybe a bag of chips and grab pizza or McDonald’s on their way home regularly.

Having a well-stocked kitchen is something you have to learn how to do when you move out for the first time. Some people didn’t have a well stocked kitchen growing up so it doesn’t even occur to them that there are basics they should just have on hand.

Because we like dogs more than cows. They are deeply ingrained in western society as companion animals.

And that’s okay. Caring more deeply for those we have some sort of connection with is normal and natural. The idea that it’s somehow hypocritical for someone to not care equally about all living things has always been so weird to me. That’s not how humans work.

Unfortunately, wolves aren’t going to hunt deer in populated areas. They aren’t as adaptable as coyotes are, whereas deer are perfectly content to hang out in the suburbs.

A lot of people hunt just a few miles from population centers. That’s not the sort of place wolves are going to thrive. Repopulating wolves might work in some very rural areas, but it’s not a solution for suburban and semi rural areas.

Hunting is the biggest form of population control for deer. Deer population has exploded from about half a million a hundred years ago to 30 million today — without hunting those numbers would be even worse. Overpopulation spreads disease. Cutting the population down is the best way to prevent the disease from spreading.

Most hunters I know who get deer in CWD positive zones get their deer tested before eating it. Most of them are old enough to remember mad cow disease and to not want to fuck with it.

Hunters in my state killed nearly 400,000 deer last year. Ban hunting and the deer population will absolutely explode.

Banning hunting is a great way to let the disease spread through the deer population. Hunters do take diseases in wildlife seriously — just look at CWD. We already have testing centers for it — there’s no reason the testing centers can’t just do a COVID swab too, since they have the whole head.

The best way to handle this is to cull local herds, test, and not bait this year until we find out how much of a risk it is.