Autumn means climbing into treestands and bowhunting rutting whitetails, right? Yes, but in this election year, it also means that politics and wildlife management will become inextricably entangled. We've seen it many times in the past, and it will continue into the future.

For example, the federal government finally transferred management of wolves in the West to individual states – Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Of course, this happened six years after wolves had reached the prescribed population levels. Still, it happened, which opened up the possibility of wolf management, including limited hunting. But no. Some people refused to accept that, courts intervened, and once again wolf management is on hold.

Then some so-called experts decided that global warming was endangering polar bears, even though bear numbers are stable or increasing in some areas. It seems clear to me that politics played a larger part in that decision than did biology and facts.

Along with those decisions came Ballot Measure 2 in Alaska. At stake were predator control programs initiated by the state game and fish agency to promote recovery of caribou and moose herds in selected areas of Alaska. Measure 2 would have allowed aerial shooting of wolves, but only after the Commissioner of the fish and game agency determined that a "biological emergency" existed. The definition of such an emergency was that the prey population would irreversibly decline unless wolves were taken.

Proving that caribou or moose would "irreversibly decline" could take years, if it could be done at all. Thus, Measure 2 would have removed management from biologists and placed it in the hands of animal-rightists. Fortunately that won't happen because in late August 2008, Alaskan voters killed Measure 2, allowing wolf and bear management to continue.

Political court battles revolving around deer farms seem to go on forever. As you know, game farming has been linked to the spread of CWD, and many states banned transporting deer or elk to and from game farms in other states. In Kentucky, the North American Deer Farmers went to court to overturn the ban. In September 2008, a federal judge dismissed their suit, stating that they must wait until a state case was concluded.