ozyclint
WKR
Controlling wolves is a fantasy.
what caused the local extinctions then?
i'm not being smart, just trying to compare this issue to similar issues we have here for my own sake.
Controlling wolves is a fantasy.
In my opinion ozyclint, before man was here there were millions of buffalo, elk, deer, pronghorn, moose all that when man came we began hunting for our own food. This is where things did go haywire, the populations could not stand human and wolf predation. One had to go, yes part of it was humans taking all they wanted much like the wolves do.
Yes most was for profit mainly the buffalo.
what caused the local extinctions then?
i'm not being smart, just trying to compare this issue to similar issues we have here for my own sake.
ozyclint, Rinella has some good discussions on Wolves in several of his podcasts including episode 1 of the Meateater podcast. He knows several biologists around the US, including his brother and he is pretty well versed on both the historical aspects and differing regional issues. He, like myself, is all for hunting them as a big game species where the population can support it. The extirpation of the wolves from the lower 48 was state sponsored and usually involved poisoning a kill that they knew the wolves would scavenge.
Having a predator in an ecosystem performs a key role in controlling disease in the prey populations as they will most often pick off the weak, diseased and genetically inferior individuals. They are far more effective at this than us and pretty much the exact opposite of what the average hunter is after. I (and many biologists) would argue that things like [FONT=Open Sans, Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]bluetongue and chronic wasting disease (CWD) and other diseases currently occurring in ungulate populations would be controlled by an efficient predator.
Granted when you just introduce an apex predator into a population that hasn't faced danger in generations you will probably see a dramatic dip in populations as the prey learns to adapt to their new environment. Think of it like taking a bunch of Californians from Orange County and dropping them off in Kandahar. Yes, a lot of them will die pretty quick; but over time the smart ones will adapt and future generations will eventually thrive in their new reality. But, from the guiding and hunting aspect you will also have to adapt as their behavior patterns will be way different from what you are used to and they will most likely become harder to locate. But there are advantages to this too as their standard defense against humans (going nocturnal) doesn't really work for wolves, so they may become easier to find during daylight for example.[/FONT]
The difference of course being that when you cut a species' population drastically, the remaining animals are not only stressed with reduced pregnancies but their low numbers cannot begin to offset the damage already done by wolves.
The difference of course being that when you cut a species' population drastically, the remaining animals are not only stressed with reduced pregnancies but their low numbers cannot begin to offset the damage already done by wolves.
I too have long suspected the wolf project to be part of an anti-hunting agenda designed to bring ungulate numbers down to justify restriction of tag issuance however...if that's true the ungulates will be done for because the wolves will wipe em out before dying of starvation or turning to domestic animals, trash and ultimately human prey (as they have in India). Controlling wolves is a fantasy.
CNN - Man-eating wolves terrorize Indian villages - July 22, 1997
I'm much more concerned about access for places to hunt than I am wolf/ungulate numbers.
Elk seasons in Montana and Idaho are still just as long as they were prior to wolves.
Well that concern is valid and that's where Agenda 21 plays a massive role. But Agenda 21 is far more sinister than mere allocation of space and restriction of access...it involves depopulation. I won't derail this thread with that issue but there's plenty of information available for those who use Google.
Regardless what various researchers claim and believe, there is no argument that wolf and elk populations rise and fall based on numbers. In the past two years the wolves have been in decline in Yellowstone and the elk population is growing instead of shrinking for the first time since the wolves were planted there decades ago. Updated: Yellowstone elk increase as wolf numbers decline | The Spokesman-Review
Bottom line, since the 90s (thru 1015) the elk populations are in freefall, beaver, willows and marshes have not sprung back as predicted. Impact on elk is more than double original projections. Wolf project is an epic fail!
I guess there's two kinds of wolf huggers. Those who would plant a breed in areas where they never resided naturally before calling it a "'reintroduction" and this kind.
I guess there's two kinds of wolf huggers. Those who would plant a breed in areas where they never resided naturally before calling it a "'reintroduction" and this kind.
Large or small-kill em all. The only good wolf is a dead wolf.
Talking about wolves as some super predator that can kill all of its prey and still exist by moving onto some other territory is just plain nonsense. That's us, not wolves, and it is not possible to sustain that long-term. The other main points also missed in all of this discussion of the impacts of wolves on prey is that: 1) wolves and their prey evolved together over much longer time periods than even human presence in North America; and 2) weather, mainly winter severity, is a much more important mortality agent than predation. Talking about wolf predation in isolation from winter severity isn't valid. Only under very specific conditions can predators keep prey populations suppressed at very low numbers, and it typically takes a series of severe winters to drive prey numbers that low in the first place; not predation by itself.