When the effort to wrest control of the West from the federal government failed, some of the frustrated anti-government fervor expressed itself in darker ways, like the white nationalist militia groups that cropped up, most notoriously in Montana. Overreaching federal judges, restrictions on gun ownership, job-killing bans on logging and mining—the list of grievances was long, and the return of the wolf was seen by many as just one more burden to bear. When politicians like Butch Otter gathered votes by vowing to wipe out wolves, they were tapping into that strain of conservative,
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