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Yeah this is a bit premature. I dunno why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed (it's pretty rare) and everyone goes home happy?
Apex predator reintroduction is a good litmus test for how much conservation we can stomach, so I think it's important that we get this right.
> why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed
Ah ha. A HN thread close to home (I live within earshot of wolves in Montana). So...we do [1], [2]. Ranchers (generalizing, of course) just don't like wolves. It's a really deep cultural thing. So if you as president want to take some step that will cause a bunch of folks in ranching areas to high five, you'd delist wolves. That they may not in fact be impacted by wolf activity is moot.
[1]
https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-makes...
[2]
http://liv.mt.gov/Attached-Agency-Boards/Livestock-Loss-Boar...
In Norway we pay ranchers for sheep which are taken by wolves. They still really hate wolves.
More sheep are taken by wolverines, lynx and bears yet the ranches are still keen on full extermination of the wolf population.
It's not unreasonable. Wolves are among the few predators that can and will attack _humans_.
That the wolves, themselves, now have a deep-set fear of humanity and would only dare to do so if they're desperate and starving... is a distant second to that same deep-set cultural fear of wolves.
Unpopular Opinion Time: The ecosystem damage from _not having apex predators_ is large enough that it might be worth a few human lives to avoid.
Unpopular Opinion Time the Second: But there are other apex predators, such as the lynx, which can take much the same role without being nearly as dangerous to megafauna like humans.
Though that's only a decent solution if you don't have problems with megafauna like elk.
> Wolves are among the few predators that can and will attack humans
Well...I live in a place where we have (in my back yard, except for Bison) all the megafauna present since the ice age. In order of practical danger (most to least), they rank like this: Moose, Bear, Cougar, Snakes, ... Wolves.
People are regularly attacked by Moose and fatalities have occurred in the past few decades. People are eaten by bears every few years and injured by bears annually. Cougars present a real danger but they're pretty wary of humans so attacks are more a theoretical risk we hear about from reports concerning mountain bikers in Los Angeles. I never heard of anyone being attacked by a wolf nor anyone being concerned about being attacked by a wolf. Same for Coyotes and Foxes.
I don't hear people suggesting that Moose be killed on sight.
One theory is that humans ate a bunch of these animals to extinction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_animals...
(The Holocene is the period after the glaciers last receded)
> Snakes
Virtually every adult killed by snakes in America was asking for it. Rattlesnakes sure as shit know they can't eat humans and would never attempt it. They are named for the mechanism they use to scare us away and bite when that fails. A huge number of rattlesnake bites are to the face or hands because it happens when some moron ignores the rattle and picks up the snake.
Wolves, unlike rattlesnakes do _sometimes_ deliberately attack humans with 'malicious' intent. Rattlesnakes never do.
Rattlesnakes actually don’t rattle that much, they rely a lot on camouflage. Also young ones won’t have fully developed rattles and older ones can lose them.
They will often strike without warning. It’s important to pay attention where you put your hands and feet when you’re in rattlesnake country.
They hide first, but will rattle when they think that has failed. Sometimes they bite first without rattling, particularly when startled, but they are less likely to use venom in those circumstances and those bites will generally be to the ankles or legs. Snakes only have self-preservation in mind when it comes to humans, never predation. They hid because they're scared, and they bite because they're scared. Their venom is meant primarily for catching meals but they'll use it in self defence when pressed.
In the past 20 years in America, 30 men have been killed by snakes, vs 6 women. Dudes trying to be macho by fucking with snakes explains most of this gap; many of them were bitten on the hands and the circumstances of many of the cases make it pretty clear the snake was being fucked with. Only a handful of incidents were likely genuine accidents.
Yeah, totally agree, no doubt macho men will try to play stupid games. That's not a snake problem.
I was bitten on the ankle as a teenager
(luckily as you said, it didn't use venom), at the time I was pretty surprised it was silent.
I'm not sure what constitues megafauna but I believe the two most deadly animals in North America are honey bees and deer. Bees beacuse of alergic reaction/anaphylactic shock after a sting and deer because they tend to dart in front of cars and motorcycles.
~100 lbs body weight is one rule of thumb.
> Unpopular Opinion Time the Second: But there are other apex predators, such as the lynx, which can take much the same role without being nearly as dangerous to megafauna like humans.
They're usually more specialized than wolves, especially in terms of prey, and so the populations of species they don't prey upon are left unchecked.
Wolves by and large do not attack humans:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wolf_attacks_in_Nort...
We might be afraid of them but that fear isn’t grounded in reality.
Is there a citation for a single attack on a human? I'd looked before, some years back, and was unable to find any.
There were a couple attacks here in Canada just this year.
It's very rare but it happens.
One guy was dragged out of his tent by a wolf while camping with his two kids and wife. That's extremely rare.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/wolf-attack-rampart-c...
There are also hunters that go missing in areas where there aren't known to be other predators. Some of those cases might be wolves.
There are also cases where we find the remains of a hunter surrounded by dead wolves that he'd shot in a savage fight to the death that he lost.
Again, it's rare. The most dangerous large mammal apart from us in North America is deer, because of people killed hitting them in cars or swerving to avoid them. More wolves might improve that.
It happens. They are predators and we are relatively defenseless. Given enough motivation and circumstances, it will happen. Not an argument to destroy them, but we should base discussions on reality.
"The first fatal attack in the 21st century occurred on November 8, 2005, when a young man was killed by wolves that had been habituated to people in Points North Landing, Saskatchewan, Canada[46] while on March 8, 2010, a young woman was killed while jogging near Chignik, Alaska."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attack
No. A wolf has never attacked a human. They’re our friends. :)
The wolf is the species of animal that has saved more human lifes also (excepting humans of course). Is also in a really select club of animals deliberately adopting and taking care of lost children. They had a strong desire to protect cubs.
"Solutions" like this are how we destroyed Yellowstone the first time, and why deer now run rampant all over the US, literally eroding forests from excessive grazing. A naive assumption about a complex system has knock-on effects that destroy the entire ecosystem.
Deer herds are managed large for hunting also. We could issue lots more doe permits and make herds smaller right quick.
Taking wolves off the endangered list does not mean open season on hunting any and all wolves with abandon. The wolves of Yellowstone will still be mostly protected.
You're making a naive assumption based on one popular Facebook video.
The wolves didn't make any difference to the deer population.
do you have information to back that claim up?
"It's a really romantic story," Utah State University ecologist Dan McNulty said. "It's a story about a world that doesn't really exist."
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debun...
> "Is a really romantic history"
It still amazes me how often people think that biologists are stupid
Wolves return to Yellowstone has being ruminated, and I say _ruminated_, by scientists for 70 long years
All the possible results were examinated, there were lots of reports evaluating the project and all the benefits and cons were studied for decades, by lots and lots of well trained people. The effect of wolf in environment and its role as key species is described in conferences monographs and books.
Teams of scientists studied the populations of each single big mammal and bird in Yellowstone, before and after wolves. You can find their conclusions in the libraries of all universities specialized in ecology and animal management.
The results were even better than expected, but this was a big success because it was based in a entire life of previous hard work.
We talk about reviewed, easily verifiable and painfully verified facts, not about a pulp novel written on a weekend or somebody tossing a coin. Do you really think that somebody could just upload a fakebook video linking to a fake scientific article in this field without being detected and disclosed immediately?
I wonder if it could be some instinctual thing. Maybe early humans had trouble with wolves for enough time that we selected for loathing them.
I don't know how that would work with the existence of dogs though, so maybe not.
Yep, is a scapegoat species that always pays for all. Must be noted that the entire population of wolves in Norway comprises 68 animals or so.
Spain has 2000.
From my talks with Montanans, the main reason some of them don't like the wolves is because the Elk population went down after their reintroduction.
Wasn't that the point? The elk were eating everything down to the nubs.
You could also open up more elk tags. Plenty of hunters more than happy to take down a bull and have a packed freezer. Lottery systems to pull tags are not easy, especially for out of state folks.
The difference is that wolves tend to take the weaker members of the herds which strengthens the herd overall, but hunters tend to focus on the stronger members.
Wolves tend to go for the young elk, which are easier prey, because yes, they are slower and weaker. Not sure it strengthens the herd to take out the young that haven't reached maturity yet.
What??? Sure I look for a big bull but I have no idea if the one I took was a "stronger" or "weaker" one. Half the time im just happy to find one. Im sure wolves also go for young bulls or even cows. I also think you are grossly over estimating between the difference between the stronger and weaker bulls in a herd.
So a deeply held cultural point of pride to be leveraged for political points all the same
Here in the Netherlands we also pay farmers for killed livestock. And nobody is happy with the situation we're in now. Not the farmers, not the public, not the sheep and not even the environmentalists. Public support for wolves is growing, but only among people who don't know about the problems they cause.
One of the main reason farmers hate wolves is because it's madness. A wolf kills 14 sheep in one night and only eats one, partly. That doesn't make it a very sympathetic animal.
The Netherlands is very densely populated. Everyone was doing fine without the wolf. Now a couple of environmentalists use public money to try to reintroduce wolves in habitat that isn't able to support them. They got subsidies based on reports that promised no livestock would be harmed. Wolves would just limit themselves automagically to wildlife when there is enough wildlife to support them. This claim is demonstrably false. It's fraud.
On top of that, the environmentalist arrogantly call everyone who doesn't love the wolf stupid, uninformed bigots.
Like that helps.
> the environmentalist arrogantly call everyone who doesn't love the wolf stupid
Taking in mind how well we are doing in the last years, maybe would be wise to stop making fun of the environmentalists for a while.
I'm still expecting the other part proposing a single valid solution that is not based in 'pay me because I'm unable to understand how to use a shepherd dog'.
> a single valid solution
Shoot the wolves is a single valid solution. But you don't want to hear it.
And I think you don't know how shepherd dogs work. Otherwise you would have dismissed that as a valid solution too.
They are more valuable alive than dead.
> You don't know how shepherd dogs work
Sorry but the facts speak loudly.
Last month I had personally visited the area of Europe with a biggest density of wolves (excepting maybe Chernobyl). We tried, and failed, to see a single wolf. There were cows munching all around. There was deer scattered all around the valley. I walked the oak forest alone without any problem.
In this area a single human with a few dogs manages routinely 300 sheep without losing a single one by wolves. Not a single attack reported in the entire year. Humanity has being doing the same for 4000 years. Is perfectly possible.
So you want farmers to return to the practices of 4000 year ago. Please come back to earth.
You really think farmers should go back to being sheep herders.
You really think that’s viable.
Wow.
It’s Europe. The sheep herders you mentioned are heavily subsidized, either by the government or by NGO’s. That’s not a viable solution for farmers at all.
If you want fine sheep cheese, you need sheep herders. Period.
Until today, nobody has managed to teach sheep how to milk themselves in a machine and send the product by certified mail.
That it’s such a deeply cultural thing makes me think that if wolves go extinct they will just choose the next convenient species to focus their ire on. In other words having an enemy to fight against is more important to them than actually protecting their livestock.
Wow, 3 hyperbolic statements in just one comment. To be clear:
-Wolves won't go extinct anytime soon.
-There's no reason to think farmers would pick another "enemy" if they would.
-Livestock is actually important to farmers. No hidden agenda.
If someone was killing my pets, while paying me reasonable compensation, I would also be pissed off at the arrangement.
Some things money can't buy.
Cattle, not pets
My point is the same if it's my car that gets trashed or my internet domains taken.
Even if I get good money as compensation, I'd resent it, and much prefer to have my possessions left in peace.
Many people have animals they have as pets or otherwise are not selling as meat. If you think farms are simply cows you are incorrect.
In the rural parts where I was going when I was growing up the meat animals were not that far from pets.
Weird thing to play with a bunny and eat it couple of months later. First lessons in the circle of life.
> someone was killing my pets, while paying me reasonable compensation
They're not pets. You've just described livestock farming.
Which is like pissed off that an alligator ate your dog when you took your dog to swim in alligator-infested waters.
How dare nature be.... natural! Let's kill all the alligators!
I'm guessing you live in a city :)
A lot of environmentalist are. Nature is to be designed from behind a keyboard, and to be enjoyed from a well maintained trail.
If I chose to live in BFE, I’d accept the wilderness is a harsh reality and be less brittle over what is ultimately a personal life choice
Not up to everyone else to let the ecosystem go cause they want to LARP John Wayne movies
> why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed
This path has been explored in Europe and is a mistake.
1) Killing a few wolves _increases_, not decreases damages (by altering the social structure of the pack). More paradoxical, killing all wolves in an area increases the attacks to small cattle in that area (even if there is not a single alive wolf anymore).
Because wolf attacks are a very special case. There is not a single wolf in UK. Despite that, they still suffer 40.000 attacks to small cattle each year. By abandoned pet dogs, the same species as gray wolf. When government starts paying wolf attacks, suddenly, each stray dog attack (non paid) will be automatically assigned to wolves (paid) and will appear in the newspapers. This creates 'ghost wolves' and panic in the population, and increases the pressure against the environment (that is exactly the opposite that you are paying for).
2) Is an incentive for local corruption. People learn that if they cry wolf receive free money. They became insatiable and will try to game the system again and again. We had documented cases of the same cow "dying" two times, four times in four different places in Europe. By wolves that for some reason always start "eating the cattle tags". We had documented cases of cows dying by a natural accident and being blamed to scavenger wolves visiting the area four days later.
3) Is bad for the real farmers. Losing a cow is not a problem, destroying the cow market with a flood of easy money is. Meat prices are disbalanced by outsiders that release old or diseased cattle in a ranch to die at zero cost and then bill the state for wolf damages. At the end the real farmers figure out that letting the cows die is more efficient than producing meat. Or their activity is destroyed by the spread of new cattle diseases, and are replaced by fake farmers living in a big city.
4) It quickly turns into a sort of acquired right also. People gets upset if you try to stop it (and poison appears).
One of the most bizarre cases that I remember is a family trying to bill a wolf attack to the government showing the rests of a barbecue as a proof of the attack. Apparently the (very smart) wolves managed somehow to shoot the cow in the head with a firearm before to cook it. And this is a real history.
Simply paying for cattle that wolves have eaten isn't enough. Wolves induce panic in herds, causing them to go over cliffs or trample down fences and cross busy roads, causing accidents. In Germany this isn't currently paid for by the state, because the law doesn't say so, the causality is hard to prove (basically you need a piece of flesh with a wolve's dental pattern) and the farmer is often first in line and goes bancrupt, because damage to the vehicles was done by his sheep/cows/whatever, not the wolves directly.
Also, grazing cattle outside is desirable for better land use (usually grassland isn't good for much else) and keeping the current state of ecosystems (without grazing, bushes and trees will take over). Also, regions where cattle is grazed are typically also tourist hotspots, but cattle frequently scared by wolves is much more aggresive towards hikers. So basically, wolves screw over a lot more than just the few cows they eat...
In The Netherlands people who "love" wolves say farmers should put up 3m high fences around their fields.
Other people are telling farmers to get rid of all sorts of fences and just use ditches and hetches, because they like to see that on their Sunday stroll.
The amount of criticism and conflicting opinions that farmers face is unbelievable.
> _Also, grazing cattle outside is desirable for better land use (usually grassland isn't good for much else) and keeping the current state of ecosystems (without grazing, bushes and trees will take over)_
This is complete nonsense. Cattle grazing has been devastating North American habitat for a couple of centuries, and current BLM practices just continue the same abuse. The Texas Hill country is badly damaged from overgrazing, this had led to loss of topsoil, massive loss of groundwater, and completely altered habitat for native species.
well, yes, Germany used to be all forrests, around 1BCE. Since then, people changed all kinds of habitats, often in a very radical way (burning and razing down the forest, lots of towns ending in -roth because of that). Nowadays, conservation aims mostly for the status quo, not for 1BCE.
It might be different in North America, it might not. I'm not really convinced that there should be much of a difference just because it happened over the last few centuries instead of millenia ago. Just preserve some small parts of the previous ecosystem, ignore the rest. The whole planet has been terraformed already anyways, undoing human presence is pointless to try...
> I dunno why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed (it's pretty rare) and everyone goes home happy?
I think the answer is that while there is not currently a federal program, many states already do pay ranchers for animals killed by wolves. Searching for "wolf depredation reimbursement" pulls up many details. Here's a High Country News article on the topic:
https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.12/wolves-when-cattle-go-missi...
.
Why should we even pay? There's no constitutional right to be able to leave your livestock basically unprotected on vast tracts of land where they're vulnerable to predators.
I mean, if it makes it more palatable it's probably worth it to pay farmers... but I viscerally dislike the idea that any industry has the right to:
1. Destroy the environment for their convenience
2. Be indemnified by the government for their inability to run an environmentally compatible business
_Why should we even pay? There's no constitutional right to be able to leave your livestock basically unprotected on vast tracts of land where they're vulnerable to predators._
The argument would go: the government does not want the rancher to actually protect his cattle because that would involve shooting the wolves. That's why the wolves on the list in the first place.
If don't want cattle put in a barn all day, then you get cattle out in the fields.
That argument presupposes the right of the farmer to do whatever they want to protect their cattle, which was what I was objecting too.
This ends with "Let's not have ranchers", which is an outcome I'd agree with.
I absolutely don't agree with you. But you're one the few who's honest about his endgame. I see all jabs against farmers in this light though. And they do too.
Reintroduction and protection of large predators has diffuse benefits and concentrated damages. It affects the average rancher orders of magnitude more (and importantly, more negatively) than it affects the average non-rancher.
So you have a group with common interests who are ready to act as an obstruction to the greater social good because it's going to financially harm them. You _can_ tell them to shove it, but that has political consequences and might backfire and undo your whole conservation effort. Or you can help them out financially while they transition to doing business in this new normal where wolves still get to exist.
I don't know if I agree with the first bit. Wolves were reintroduced to my original part of the US to much benefit, not just the conservation of the species. Stupid whitetail deer were running wild, destroying flora and destroying too many cars on the region's highways.
Departments of game and wildlife tried to address this by issuing more hunting permits for whitetail. Didn't work. There are only so many hunters, and they hunt all they can. More permits doesn't do anything for them when the population is booming. They're not hunting anything that exists, they're looking for trophies at this point, and taking the best of the gene pool. A group of vehicle insurance companies were organizing events, leasing hunting land, and paying bounties in a couple counties due to the rampant whitetail population.
Wolves were reintroduced there to much benefit making for a healthy population of whitetail. Also, because the whitetail overpopulation has been curtailed, game law violations dropped in that rural part of the world. It takes a dedicated hunter to actually 'hunt', but attracts any idiot with a rifle when game in an area is rampantly overpopulated.
Yeah, I get the practical argument, but as you say the big picture looks very different.
The argument is that farmers (or anyone else) actually do have a right to protect/defend their property (livestock are property). So when the government says that you can't protect your property if the thing killing it is a wolf, then farmers get very frustrated because they feel like their freedom/rights have been controlled or taken away from the government.
To put the farmer's perspective another way:
Everyone has a right to self-defense if you are being harmed. But imagine if the government says "actually, if the person harming you has blonde hair, then you can't defend yourself because we are protecting people with blonde hair right now. But don't worry we will make it worth your while if you just let the blonde person hurt you."
I know this sounds like a crazy example, but if you have ever spent time around farmers who deal with this issue, it feels exactly as crazy to them.
Now replace blonde person with the police.
That's what fences are for
I think you absolutely, grossly underestimate what kinds of areas we're talking about. Not to mention that fences then stop movement of other animals(also including wolves) which has massive impacts on ecosystems. Also, if you ever had a dog, you know that no kind of fence will stop a sufficiently determined dog unless you make it out of solid metal and 10ft tall(and even then my dog would just dig under it, so be prepared to have to bury it few feet under the ground too).
Large fences big enough to keep wolves out have a lot of other knock on effects and are very expensive. Barbed wire is extremely cheap and is enough to generally contain grazing livestock contained but a lot of wildlife can freely move around them meaning their habitat doesn't get cut up and cut off from itself. A tall fence buried deep enough to keep wolves from digging under would be very expensive.
In Germany they stopped using these fences in a lot places because deer got stuck in them. And wolves just created holes below the fences and still killed lots of livestock.
Empty slogans like "Build the fence" only work for politicians and activists.
Wolves can dig and since ranching in the midwest/northwest requires a lot of acreage, it's difficult to keep a perimeter fence up that's impenetrable by wolves.
No fences in open range areas.
First, they're not farmers. They're ranchers.
Second, it hardly "destroys the environment for their convenience". Where I live the cattle graze down the grasses and prevent fires from spreading. In return, they leave manure which is super useful as a natural fertilizer for gardens and such.
Third, ranching is about food security. The areas where cattle are grazed are typically not much good for food crops, and it's a far more humane way to keep cattle. They got to roam around some pretty vast tracts of land, and you have a really healthy source of locally-sourced protein.
Finally, cattle are property. The idea that you shouldn't be allowed to protect your property is nutty. There are plenty of other wild animals for wolves to prey on, and there's no good ecosystem argument for why they should be permitted to slaughter cattle willy-nilly. Allowing ranchers to shoot wolves threatening their cattle would result in surviving wolves being much more reticent about going after cattle in the first place.
See: why bears and cougars rarely attack humans, even though their populations are healthy enough to be on the "hunt all year round" list for property owners in many areas.
We should pay... the price of cows killed by wolves should be priced in to the sales price of beef, which is way too cheap right now as it is. This is a super simple calculation.
Where is the averaging component in that? If some ranchers affected more by wolves and raise their prices accordingly, they become less competitive.
That's rather the point of a market economy, and this is a small example of the problems with one: it's difficult to face up to powerful industries to force them to price in externalities.
Not if the wolves are reintroduced and protected by the government.
Because the alternative is to say that ranchers need to protect their livestock from wildlife, and then wolves end up back on the ESL.
Wolves are definitely NOT a big problem for bovine cattle.
Cows with calfs can join together and be defensive and pretty letal also if upset. If there is a bull protecting the whole herd wolves had nothing to do.
Wolves are a problem for sheep and goats, but will be need to be really desperate for attacking a group of healthy cows. The races of cows able to pass months alone in the mountain are perfectly able to hold their ground against a wolf.
Unless you are for the reintroduction of wolves where you live your opinion on this is selfish. Too many wealthy urbanites and subutbanites have a not-in-my-backyard mentality about wolves.
I live in a rural area with lots of coyotes, and I'd welcome a return of wolves to deal with the over-abundance of deer.
Plus the benefit of deterring coyotes from the area
When I spent time in DC, I never noticed any predators on K street or any of the locations further afield in the NW quadrant where wildlife lobbyists operated. However, wouldn't doubt that they would be the first people to dial if there were a threatening animal anywhere near them.
"Leopard suspected of eating 15 people in Nepal"
https://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/03/world/asia/nepal-leopard-...
If it's such a rare occurrence, is there an opportunity for insurance companies to provide solutions instead of the government?
I don't think so - because the ranchers would still bear all of the costs of the problem of having wolves exist. Insurance doesn't transfer costs to the whole group that benefits from the existence of wolves. Having the costs come from the public purse seems like a good way to do that fairly. Although in the case of wolves, it seems like politics seem to play as much or more of a role than fairness.
Farmers receive huge services from wolves, maybe they should pay for them also.
Wolves remove wild grazers increasing the amount of pasture available for cattle. Wolves clean scabies in deer, lyme disease, and bovine tuberculosis in wild boars that would otherwise end in the cattle or the farmer. Wolves reduce the coyotes population. Reduce the car accidents against deer crossing the road. Wolves protect trees and allow forests to grow. Without mention that wolves provide huge and easily measurable economical benefits to tourism.
Who pays the premiums?
Just say you hate farmers man, I mean it's very obvious.
Well, my understanding is that there is no covenant on that land which protects the wolves, so the farmers have some right to shoot them. The states technically own all wildlife within their respective borders, but they’re reluctant to exercise
that right against a large and influential lobby. It may also be that harm caused by a re-introduced species is a taking.
Reintroducing gray wolves to Colorado is a statewide referendum on the ballot this week [0]. Part of the ballot language requires paying ranchers for livestock killed: "...requiring the commission to fairly compensate owners for losses of livestock caused by gray wolves".
[0]:
https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Proposition_114,_Gray_Wolf_...
First, I think ranchers are paid.
The US has around 18,000 wild wolves. And another 60,000 wolves in Canada. In comparison, all of Scandinavia has maybe 400 or so. IOW, US+Canada has 200x the wolf population in 17x the land area (human population density is roughly the same). While apx 80,000 wolves does not seem enough to be considered "thriving" IMO, they're in no danger of extinction anymore. So while some care should be taken to maintain populations, it seems reasonable to take them off the endangered list.
There are also 10's of thousand mountain lions, 10's of thousand bears, and millions of alligators in the USA. The USA/Canada is not exactly lacking in dangerous apex predators.
That would be wealth redistribution, which a critical mass of Americans are pathologically opposed to.
The federal government gives farmers a lot of different subsidies already. If we can pay someone to not grow corn, we can pay them for a cow that got killed by a wolf.
Things like that have bad incentive structures and will be gamed
You have to understand farmers and farming. Do you think a true farmer is more dedicated to completing government paperwork or more dedicated to raising another head of livestock? For the gamers/hackers, this is why we fund judges, prosecutors, investigators, and the rest of the court system. You cannot make the case that 5% of those with bad intentions ruin it for the 95% of those with good intentions.
Not saying the policy will ever be correct, but this is why you introduce thresholds, limitations, and requirements. For instance, using donkeys in the pasture to combat predators should be required. Promote smart farming, not just a pocketbook.
I've never heard of co-pasturing donkeys to combat predators before. How does that work? That's neat.
My grandparents did some (mostly subsistence) livestock farming when I was a tiny kid. Donkeys are extremely territorial, and snap into this fit of pissed off rage when an intruder threatens their territory or what they identify as 'their' herd. Usually a well-acclimated herd will understand the donkey as their protector. If being ran down by this raging anger-beast doesn't spook a predator enough, a donkey will stomp it bad enough to bring new meaning to the phrase 'ass-kicking'. I've never seen a pasture-mated donkey scared by much of anything other than loud noise, they're brave and loyal to a fault.
Great Pyrenees dogs are amazing defenders as well. I've seen those put the brakes on some prowling coyotes and put a chase on them so hard that they defy physics to get over a fence. Exceptionally friendly to humans, and other dogs, outside their pastures. One of the good boys used to visit for pets and treats. :)
And weirdly enough, frequently ones that receive the largest proportion of it are the ones most against it. Both at the federal level, where generally the money is redistributed from the coasts to the "heartland", to at the local level where the cities heavily support the rural schools, roads, and general infrastructure. Even semi-private industries like telcom services are heavily funded through things like the universal service fund. In areas where there is less support, like healthcare, you see rural hospitals struggling to stay open and maintain staff. And this continues get worse, as noticed by the recent "trade war" where a large proportion of the returns from the increased tariffs were just given to farmers, while the main goal of increased domestic manufacturing were further collapsing.
Let's assume that everything has a price, including one's adherance to a political philosophy.
Then isn't is obvious that people with a political philosophy of limited government would demand a higher payout to abandon the idea of limited government? And that people who favor government involvement would go along with government involvement even if they end up footing the bill?
>And weirdly enough, frequently ones that receive the largest proportion of it are the ones most against it
Why is it weird for someone to resent regulatory conditions that necessitate dependence on a handout?
This is actually not true, most Americans support higher taxes on corporations and people with high incomes, and a more even wealth distribution:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1714/taxes.aspx
Except they're not really there's all sorts of subsidies in the US economy propping up various industries; oil, farms, manufacturing, etc.
It's the specific phrase and label of wealth redistribution/socialism that the US is allergic to the policies are generally individually pretty popular if they're broad based.
> which a critical mass of Americans are pathologically opposed to
Presumably this is a joke?
it is not.
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/job...
I'd take this with a massive grain of salt.
Rasmussen has the highest right leaning bias of any major pollster accounted for in Five Thirty Eight's pollster ratings:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/
Beyond their biased election polls the site seems tailor made to provide links presenting cheap talking points as majority percentages. I won't bother linking anything else on their website.
That link isn't directly about wealth distribution, more about how its distributed.
And given my own biases, I'm not surprised about the results. The Works Progress Administration built a lot of infrastructure we still depend on today with unemployed people. Until we get to the point where all our roads, bridges, airports, etc are looking as good as the ones you find in other parts of the world, underpaying healthy people to run asphalt machines for 20 hours a week (or whatever), or provide childcare, gives us a return on the basic societal need to keep people from starving.
Obviously nuts. Almost all Americans are beneficiaries of some sort of wealth distribution. Heck wealth distribution is at the core of western civilization. Pretending that a majority is against it is surely delusional.
In that case, I guess these people have nothing against the government taking away all of their farm subsidies, too. Better safe than "socialist".
Everyone is fine when it's distributed to them; half the population will not tolerate it distributed elsewhere. Which means that the only kind of redistribution that's politically feasible is the kind that ends at about half the population. So this plan to pay farmers would likely have broad support.
Wolves do relatively little predation of livestock.
https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS-...
I’ve also seen it said that wolf populations do two positive things for livestock: keep grazing wildlife to manageable levels (so that fields are replenished for livestock) and outcompete coyotes, who are more likely to prey on livestock than wolves.
What effect do wolves have on wild hog population?
In Germany, none. Domesticated animals are easier prey (fenced in, not used to predators), and hogs are breeding like a plague, it would take unacceptable amounts of wolves to make a noticable dent.
They would probably start killing their stock themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
Every killed sheep in The Netherlands is tested for wolf marks and DNA.
it more fun to hunt them with helicopter and night vision gear, than to pay for the losses.
Most wolf attacks are not reported. Wolves don't just attack once and leave. They come back.
Sometimes it's not livestock. Many have horses or donkeys, or goats and sheep that they don't turn into meat.
Also it's about the rights of your own land. If wolves kill the lives you take care of, they cannot be allowed to continue. The fact they are killing your animals means they're not finding other prey and are overpopulated at that location.
I agree. Reintroduce them to Times Square. Until then, why should rural residents have to fear for their children’s and pet’s safety?
Do you understand that there is nothing in Times Square that is anything like natural wolf habitat?
I’m sure a coyote can survive in Times Square. Make it illegal to shoot a wolf, and they’ll do fine in Times Square too.
Here in Colorado, we have a ballot measure on reintroducing them in the state:
https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Proposition_114,_Gray_Wolf_...
It's arguable that, based on continuously declining trends in wild species, wild areas, and biodiversity, we should reverse our 19th-century policy default and apply blanket protection to all wild species. If we find compelling reasons they should be culled or impacted, then that can be done with specific regulation or legislation.
We've gone so far down in wild species and areas, and these are things that we absolutely cannot get back when they are gone.
> to all wild species
To all native wild species. Very big difference. This combined with a larger budget to fight invasive species and plants would be amazing.
Unless you are for the reintroduction of wolves where you live your opinion on this is selfish. Too many wealthy urbanites and subutbanites have a not-in-my-backyard mentality about wolves.
I know you're being downvoted, but I agree with you. People from other areas seem have very strong opinions but have never actually seen wolves in the wild and will most likely never have wolves in their areas. Honestly, it is also is becoming the same discussion with brown bears where I live. I question how educated they are in wild life management.
In Idaho a wolf tag is 11.50 and you can legally harvest 15 wolves a year. You can even get wolf bounties of up to $1,000 per wolf in some areas, $500 in any area! You do have to be a member of the foundation for wildlife management, though. Idaho Department of Fish and Game is partially funding these bounties.
So, you have online folks (urbanites and suburbanites you mentioned, I assume) fighting to keep them on the endangered species list. All the while you have state government departments that 100% exist to manage wildlife paying hunters to harvest them. What a contrast.
That is the hilarious part of the urbanites. They clamor for more legislation and regulation when they've A) never gone through the process of applying for a tag and B) tons of regulation already exists
I'd be overjoyed, frankly.
we have _way_ too many deer in new england.
I would be fine with wolves living my area, but the wolves would not, so it's a moot question. We do have a growing population of coyotes nearby, and it's fine.
I have a hard time understanding why anyone but ranchers would object to having wolves around at all. They don't prey on people.
No you wouldn't be fine. Wolves are very dangerous animals. And, assuming your area has a lack of game for them to hunt and eat, they most certainly would prey on people if they were in your area.
Wolves fear humans _because_ humans kill them. If we weren't doing so, they would lose their fear within a few decades at most and hunt humans. Coyotes have never hunted humans, they're too small.
Real nature is not happy fluffy bunnies and cuddly wolf pups. It is heartless and uncaring. And majestic, awe inspiring and wonderous.
> Real nature is not happy fluffy bunnies and cuddly wolf pups. It is heartless and uncaring. And majestic, awe inspiring and wonderous.
Right, which is why I like it.
I don't live on the east coast because I'm afraid of wolves or nature. I've done a lot of things in my life that were far more dangerous than living near wolves.
Dogs don't prey on people either. But still lots of people get bitten by dogs.
I live in a suburb in southern California and we don't have wolves, but there are mountain lions around here. They're planning on building a wildlife crossing near us so they can get across the 101 freeway to have a larger range. Which I think they should do.
Here in Wisconsin the wolf argument is a wealthy vs poor issue. Specifically, it is mostly the southern wealthy urbanites and suburbanites dictating to the poorer northern half of the state that they must put up with the re-introduction of wolves.
It would be much less of an issue if the wolves were also introduced into the county forests and state parks in the southern half of the state where the wealthy urbanites and suburbanites live. However, the southern Wisconsinites like the idea of having a wolf population but do not want to actually have to deal with the risks and hardships that come with them.
The median household income of milwaukee county is less than the median household income of nearly every single county in the northern half of the state, and as you go further north, the median household income goes higher. What are you talking about?
Certain groups paint themselves as poor victims no matter what the reality of the situation is.
The wolves are naturally moving into open territory as their numbers grow in Wisconsin at least. Why do you think this is a class issue?
False, they are being introduced into forests in the northern half of the state but are not being introduced into the forests in the southern half of the state. Also, when wolves are found close to the suburbs they are relocated to the north.
This is a class issue because most of the state's wealth is located in the southern half of the state and it is mostly the southern half of the state that is forcing an unwanted wolf population on the northern half of the state.
Are they actually being human-introduced, or are they migrating south from Canada? It's not exactly shocking that migrating wolves would appear in the northern half first.
Google seems to indicate they are simply migrating.
It's just weird how Republicans find the dumbest shit to feel oppressed over, this and motorcycle helmets...
Oops I said Republicans I mean conservative marginalized people!
You are dramatically overstating the north-south divide in Wisconsin and the idea that “Southern Wisconsinites like the idea of having a wolf population” is the primary concern here is just insulting. In particular, while rural people are (quite understandably) more anti-wolf than urban people, the difference is not nearly as large as you suggest. And a huge part of the existing difference is about deer hunting competition rather than personal safety or protecting livestock. Further, it’s difficult to disentangle that rural whites are more right-wing than urban whites and likely to oppose federal endangered species protections in principle.
Via
https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/WildlifeHabitat/wolf/documents/Wolf...
“We found that state residents held attitudes toward wolves that were more favorable than unfavorable— by a small margin within wolf range; and by a larger margin outside wolf range.
- Survey respondents across the state endorsed six separate statements as reasons for sustaining wolf populations in the state (p. 25-26)
- For example, 84% of respondents outside wolf range agreed that wolves are “important members of the ecological community;” 67% of range residents agreed (p. 26).
- Also, 83% in non-range agreed that “wolves have a right to exist;” 69% of wolf range residents agreed (p. 26)
- On an overall wolf attitude index score that ranged from -12 (very negative) to +12 (very positive), wolf range residents averaged a score of 2.5 indicating a slightly positive attitude (p. 29).
- Outside wolf range, average wolf attitude index scores (mean=4.8) were significantly higher statistically than scores of residents within wolf range (p. 28)
- A relatively high percentage of respondents throughout the state (31% non-range,
24% wolf range) had neither favorable nor unfavorable feelings toward wolves (p. 24).
- Among the survey respondents within wolf range, “maintaining the same number of wolves” was the most frequently selected response (26%) for a statewide wolf population goal (p. 31). - 17% checked “Don’t know” as their statewide wolf population preference; - 15 % indicated that they wanted “more” wolves in the state; - 15% wanted “fewer” wolves in the state; - 12% wanted “many fewer” wolves; - 11% wanted “zero” - 4% wanted “many more.”
- Among the survey respondents within wolf range, most people (40%) wanted wolf numbers to be “maintained” at current levels in their county of residence (p. 32).
- 18% wanted wolf numbers “decreased” in their home county in wolf range; - 15% wanted wolves “eliminated” from their county;
- 13% wanted to see an “increase” in their county wolf population:
- 14% were “not sure
- People outside of wolf range—who reported less experience with wolves than rural residents of wolf range— were generally more positive toward wolves, perceived fewer risks from wolves, and were statistically more likely to favor maintaining (29%) or increasing (27%) wolves in the state than were people were people residing within wolf range.
- This finding is consistent with other research that finds people with less exposure to wolves tend to view them more favorably. - Less than half of residents (43%) living outside wolf range counties have ever seen a wolf in Wisconsin, even while vacationing or recreating in parts of the state where wolves live; by contrast 62% of wolf range residents have seen a wolf at least once (p. 37). - 28% of non-range respondents indicated “Don’t know” when asked for their statewide wolf population preference (p. 31).
- In addition to the living in a county that has wolves, two other factors emerged from the study which account for many of the differences among respondent attitudes toward wolves and their preferences for wolf management goals. These factors are:
- living and/or growing up in a rural area (p. 42-43)
- being a deer hunter (p. 48-52).
- Consistent with prior research conducted both nationally and internationally, rural residents in wolf range expressed less support for wolves than did people living in non- rural areas of wolf range, including those respondents residing in small and large towns.
- Forty-seven percent of current rural, wolf range residents wanted to have fewer (33%) or no wolves (14%) in the state; 24% the same number of wolves; and 16% wanted more wolves in the state (p. 43). - Among wolf range respondents who were raised in a rural area and continue to live in a rural area, 57% want fewer wolves in the state (p. 43).
- Current rural wolf range residents were split on their willingness to have wolves living near them; 49% were not willing and 45% were willing (p. 45-46).
- Among those wolf range residents who grew up in a rural area, willingness to have wolves living nearby drops to 40% and the frequency of those who would prefer to not live by wolves increases to 55% (p. 40). - Two out of three people living on farms within wolf range were unwilling to live near wolves (p. 121). - About half (49%) of all residents in wolf range said they are willing to have wolves live near them compared to 43% who are not willing (p. 40).
I think city people should keep their opinions to themselves. You don't ask people in rural areas how cities should be organised either.
We do ask the federal/national government how cities and rural areas should be organized in a broad sense, which is really what’s going on with grey wolves in Wisconsin. More to the point: rural and urban citizens have the exact same interest in protecting endangered species.
Making this a city-slickers vs country-bumpkins debate is just an exercise in resentment politics that obscures the actual debate.
I agree. But somehow city people have lot of opinions about farmers, what they should do, how they should think, how they should live their life. And I never see it the other way around.
Somehow my next door neighbor never illegally dumped 15,000,000 tons of pig shit, contaminating my drinking water for the next generation.
Hope they continue to do well, and are added to a limited hunting season in my state, creating a balanced population and a new game animal.
Why your first reaction to the recovery of this species (that your own hunter breed almost completely erased), is to think about them as moving targets?
Can't you find something more productive to do than to shoot innocent animals?
They were not erased by the modern hunter, but by farmers who didn't want them eating their sheep and, in many cases, by professional wolf-killers _hired by states_. The renowned conservation writer Aldo Leopold's earliest work was killing bears, wolves, and mountain lions for the forest service.
Unfortunately it wasn't until we'd nearly erased wolves and grizzlies (cougars have always been too wily to be wiped out) that we decided it was actually good to keep them around. Now we've got them back--but being back, they _will_ need to be managed, and that includes hunting. Not wanton extermination, but rather a season tailored to remove a specific number of wolves in order to reach what the state fish & wildlife department considers appropriate.
While you are correct that modern hunters are not to blame. Eradication by farmers was actually the _final straw_ to an otherwise stressed population that had already lost a majority of it's natural habitat.
A farmer that protest his livestock is, guess what, a hunter. What is up with the semantics on murdering livestock?
Wolves are not livestock, which is a term for animals useful to humans.
Wolves murder livestock. Perhaps we should get rid of all the guns and forget history so wolves can murder again huamns again
Murder? Really?
I am using the language of GP, but you are attempting to use it to undermine my point. So... really?
Human hunters are, as of right now, an integral component of keeping wild animals from overpopulating. If you pull the human hunters, the herd sizes will explode (since we've driven away/contained their natural predators), and many of them will starve to death.
Whatever your thoughts on hunting, it's part of the predatory/prey cycle throughout the world. It's also a not-so-distant tradition from our history that goes back millions of years.
Eh, a hunter spends hours or days to kill one animal reasonably quickly. A farm slaughters thousands of animals after raising them in absolutely cruel conditions. If I had the goal to make animals suffer fewer creature-hours of pain then faced with the choice to either ban hunting or ban livestock, I'd go with livestock.
However if you're vegetarian, vegan, or raise your own livestock then I salute you as having a consistent stance on the issue.
Wolves are not livestock.
No they aren't. What's that have to do with anything?
A human can eat any animal. A human can't eat any vegetation. What point are you trying to make exactly?
That people don't kill wolves to eat them. So it makes no sense to compare killing wolves for sport to killing livestock.
The semantics is strong with this one. Livestock is a word, it doesn't change what it is. Killing for sport, population control, or any other reason is hunting.
Personally I only aim for the guilty ones, but occasionally wildlife court takes too long and I have to make snap judgements.
This season I bought a license to shoot one deer. It was somewhat expensive. Without limited hunting the sides of highways would be knee deep in killed animals and wrecked cars. Something has to keep the population in check. Wolves might help do this, but then they would overpopulate and have no predators.
I'm not a hunter, but hunting does provide a revenue stream for wildlife protection & management. Presence of wolf tags might also make the presence of wolves more acceptable to both hunters and ranchers.
Hunters aren't a breed. I don't understand these comments more than I don't understand a human's desire to hunt
Stop killing animals.
Give me free food
Commenter told me to "grow a fucking vegetable" but I can't because a wolf keeps eating it. So now I have to murder a wolf or my family starves.
See how this (aka life) works?
Yes, that is how life works.
I have a fence around my garden/orchard. It is tall enough to keep the deer out, electrified to keep the bears out, netted to keep the birds out - but ground squirrels leave me no choice but to eliminate them from the area.
If they would stay away, I wouldn't have to "murder" them. At least they don't go to waste, there are plenty of hungry things out there to move them up the food chain!
I can't fathom how people enjoy killing for sport (for food, sure, but solely for pleasure?). That must be some kind of pathology?
Hunting is a practice as old as mankind itself. And in many parts of the world, it's a tradition that's been handed down from from parents to children even today.
It also helps keep the various wild herds/packs from exploding in size, reducing the number of wild animals that die from starvation.
(Bias disclaimer: I don't hunt, but I live in a state where I'm a minority)
The purpose of hunting is to acquire food. Wolves are not food animals, nor are they any longer competition for us.
There's no evidence that wolf populations would explode if not managed by humans, so controlling them seems premature. There is plenty of evidence though that wolves help manage ruminant populations which do explode out of control without their natural predator, which just so happens to do a better job at it than us (see deer populations in eastern US).
> The purpose of hunting is to acquire food.
Not solely. Humans have been hunting non-food targets for about as long as they've hunted food targets.
> There's no evidence that wolf populations would explode if not managed by humans
They (and other predaceous species) currently being managed by humans, just by the government and not hunters at large. The bureau of Fish, Wildlife, and Game has long set poison traps for the express purpose of killing wolves, coyotes, and wild dogs.
Wolves are at the top of the food chain. They would manage deer population down to a certain level, which would stop their own population growth, except, they would then start going after cattle, which is how we got where we are now. Hunting is the final critical piece of management that will keep them thriving.
Ive been hunting my whole life. I've still yet to encounter someone who did it for the 'killing'. It's about fresh food, cultural traditions, and conservation. The modern hunter does more for the environment than most who sit behind a computer all day. You should take a intro course on hunting and understanding the carrying capacity of an environment impacts how tags are issued.
Sidenote => I also love to fish. I find it odd how much flak hunting gets over fishing. I guess people feel a stronger bond to an animal vs a tuna.
> It's about fresh food, cultural traditions, and conservation.
You don't eat wolves. No one you know grew up hunting them. Killing a (still) endangered species is not about conservation, in fact, it's closer to the opposite based on everything we know.
I'm talking about killing for sport, which is what wolf hunting is all about on an individual level (on a government level, it's about the political showmanship of protecting rancher interests).
And as a sidenote, I live in Montana; I am very familiar with hunting. To generalize hunting without considering the animal being hunted is disingenuous and entirely self-serving. Should we talk about hunting horses and dogs in the same breath?
Fair point. Ive never hunted wolves, nor do I plan on it. I subscribe to the eat what you kill mentality. However, I will not judge someone for the 'trophy kill' if the environment allows for it. If there is a tag for it, I trust the people in charge of regulation to make the correct decisions on issuing tags. I will also not judge a rancher protecting their livestock which is their food/source of income
I enjoy hunting to eat deer, but yeah, I also don't get why you'd kill just to kill.
>I also don't get why you'd kill just to kill.
Hunting is an important part of modern conservation, and human hunters are the _only_ controllable element in the predation cycle. Hunting wolves in the way the gp is referring to would be a set season with a specific number of wolves of a certain sex and size in a specific area. These numbers are determined by conservationists in the USFS among others, in order to keep a reasonable and sustainable number of wolves.
In my experience the killing part is not what hunters enjoy. There is a lot more to hunting then pulling the trigger...
I could enjoy the research, stalking, and viewing parts of the experience, but I'd personally rather do it with a camera than a rifle.
Do it! Though it ends up being far easier with a camera as you aren't restricted by seasons and locations. I think part of the fun in hunting is that most of the time you turn up empty handed, so the one time you get it is special. Certain tags can take decades to acquire, then you have to actually kill the animal in the right (potentially quite small) location, in the right (potentially quite narrow) time frame, using a single shot from potentially hundreds of meters out. Compared to with a camera you can walk onto a wildlife preserve, find a watering hole, and shoot away all year round.
100,000 years of human history would disagree on your pathology diagnosis. Humans have been killing for sport, for food, and for war, since before we were humans.
We are literally the best hunters in the known universe. Its not a pathology.
By what metric are we the best hunters? I'm no animal expert, but eagles, sharks, lions, etc. seem pretty good it!
Humans could hunt any of them to extinction. The reverse could not occur.
They are good. We are just better. And I'm sure there are many other civilizations in this galaxy that are much better than we are.
all the metrics. saying otherwise is just foolishness.
hunting laws are actually designed to limit our ability to hunt because we are TOO good at it. There are limits on ammo size, on weapon types, on times of year you're allowed to hunt, etc.
For a really cool explainer about the human-wolf relationship in North America I highly recommend this video from The Brain Scoop, the YouTube channel of The Field Museum in Chicago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA-QINoEEwQ
As detailed in the video, the endangered species act is built upon the idea that there is a clear line between species, but in the case of grey wolves there are a lot of coyote-wolf hybrids out there, which aren't well studied because the funding is mainly available for 'The grey wolf'. Nature is fuzzy while the law is less so.
I've never understood why ranchers get so much clout in the US.
Mostly because we have 325 million people to feed on a daily basis. Not arguing right/wrong.
I think it has more to do with people believing disinformation campaigns stemming from ideologically motivated activism. Much like antivaxxers.
They might equally be wondering why city dwellers have so much say over how ranchers should tend to livestock.
You can't graze your livestock on public land and then act confused when the public has a say.
The "public" is not an abstract noble concept. How would you feel if the "public" wanted to tell you what programming language you had to use? The public doesn't like bugs, and they heard that Java is safer, so you have to use that now.
If I was coding my private program to run on a publicly owned & operated supercomputer, I expect I would say please & thank you.
Like city dwellers limit their criticisms to the ranchers that use public land.
Because they make food. They are the first part of the supply chain; a chain that is a massive industry.
Sure, and teachers nourish the foundations of our next generation. And construction workers, aren't they literally the backbone of infrastructure? The farmhands in the fields, the masses of immigrants, aren't they also part of the foundations of food? Do these groups have lots of clout?
What explains the variation in clout?
It think it's mostly because of disinformation campaigns rooted in ideologically motivated activism. Someone felt morally superior, convinced other people that they can be morally superior too and then it spread from there.
I don’t really understand your context. Could you explain further?
I wonder if it’s property ownership? I’m not sure. But their work certainly supports many small townships and economies and I imagine that’s worth something.
To your examples I’d say maybe construction workers are more analogous to butchers. Cement and steel manufactures more to ranchers. Farm hands again, workers where as big Ag certainly has clout. Immigrants mainly can’t vote and once again, further down the supply chain and without property, so interchangeable.
Not sure though.
There is a large population of wolves where I live, in Idaho. Wolves are a controversial subject amongst hunters, who believe that they are a reason for the decline in big game (elk/deer) in the state, especially in remote locations.
To assist in the management of the gray wolf population in the state, the IDFG allows any hunter with a wolf tag to harvest, by both hunting and trapping, 15 wolves per year.
If Idaho can already do this now, how does that mesh with the argument for reducing federal protection of wolves? Seems like current regulations are not preventing Idaho from managing their population.
Looks like the number is now 30.[1]
As I discovered, they also allow the thousands of out of state hunters that come in with OTC elk/deer tags to harvest a wolf (or black bear or mountain lion) instead.
Predation of big game is a planned for event and IDFG in Idaho and equivalent agencies in other states work to find a balance because at the end of the day - conservation is the goal.
This isn't necessarily how hunters and trappers have been historically portrayed in the media but I think we're at a turning point. For any readers that are interested in learning more about how hunting and trapping as a crucial component of conservation. Do read up on the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.[2[
PS: Idaho is beautiful!
[1]
https://www.livingwithwolves.org/2020/03/03/wolf-hunting-rul...
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Model_of_Wildli...
Re-reading the IDFG big game regulations[1] on page 78, a wolf hunting tag has a limit of 15, and a wolf trapping tag also has a limit of 15.
[1]
https://idfg.idaho.gov/sites/default/files/seasons-rules-big...
Getting close to Deer season. I hunt in northern Minnesota, and have really seen the wolf population take off. Watched a big one walk under my stand a couple years back. The coyote population is gone and you can hear the howls all around you as they feed on the gut piles. Nice to see them make a come back. Seen them up in the BWCA area too - they are making a come back.
Copying from an old comment of mine:
"As someone who grew up in a wolf reintro zone I have a few comments and opinions to help others have more productive conversations.
First, not all wolf reintro's are the same. Each ecosystem is different and the scientific justifications need to be done for each, and the papers for one do not necessarily apply to the other. The Yellowstone program may have been a success, but other places are not Yellowstone, and it is a mistake to use it as a way to handwave away criticisms. Also, sometimes the justifications are pretty weak, and could easily be made up with by increase in hunting tags or adjustment of hunting time windows and area restrictions.
Second, there are jurisdictional and public control issues at the heart of the matter. There are people who actually have to live in these areas and they are major changes. I strongly dislike the attitude of some that locals should have no say. The people in our area voted against the reintro program and it was done anyway, with the governor saying "I don't care what the people want, the reintro program is happening". That is a problem. I have also seen the effects of fresh Forest Department/BLM phd types ignore the locals wisdom and advice and pay the price for it, and the same "We know better than you back country bumpkin" condescension tends to be at play in the reintro programs. These things have real consequences. For example, as a kid my grampa who was a logger in the area in the 70's and many other loggers were saying the Forest Service needed to let the loggers thin the forests out and to do more control burns. I being young thought the old loggers were just old-fashioned and the PhD's knew what they were doing, until reality happened. The holier than though attitude of the credentialed people prevailed, then the pine beetle infestation hit, and within a decade we had two ~500,000 acre forest fires that the forests are still recovering from.
Third, there are often claims that wolves never attack humans, and those claims are blatantly false or are using very carefully selected statistics (North America only, etc) to craft a narrative. Beyond that, it vastly changes the safety profile of being in the forests, in a way that discourages people from experiencing it. Many locals from my area have posited that this is an intentional side-effect. Even more so when the rumors of a grizzly reintro program started floating around (I don't know if these are just rumors, but who can blame the locals for being afraid of an unelected unaccountable bureaucracy who already ignores them from doing something else against their wishes). We used to be able to only have to worry about bears or mountain lions, who both have pretty easily avoided confrontational profiles, but now locals don't go anywhere without being armed.
Fourth, the dismissal of the cattle ranchers is far overrated. Cattle ranching, especially in this day in age, is a science in itself, and in the forest is a vital part of forest maintenance. Silviopasture/agroforestry is also often studied by the kids of the old ranchers who then come back and apply that knowledge. Thoughts of the ranchers as dumb hicks is a foolish and insulting stereotype. Not only that, but often the forest service and BLM are underfunded and undermanned, and many of the ranchers who are paying public land leases do a good job assisting in maintaining the forest, and unlike the new kid who just got shipped in from across the country after getting a degree, they live there and have passed down local knowledge for decades if not longer.
I know it's easy to see something like a wolf reintro program and assume it's a great thing and just jump on the bandwagon, but maybe a perspective from someone who grew up in one and have heard out the locals on the issues might help color your view on the topic a bit.
Otherwise you just end up with a bunch of locals that around the campfire say "It's all about the three S's... shoot, shovel, and shhhhh"."
I lived in NE WA and still have property there (working our way back out there). The hubris and ignorance displayed by many wolf management critics often knows no bounds. They are often completely unaware of how range land is priced and managed nor how the wolf management program works.
However, with all the concern expressed for the gray wolf, I have yet to see wolves re-introduced into the many acres of protected greenspace on the west side of the state.
I am sure the western side the Cascades can use more wolves to cut down the deer overpopulation and coyotes.
Well, it seems like education on the topic would be a good start. Do you know of any good introductions to the topic for laymen?
Here is the State of Washington's wolf management portal. Lots of good information here:
https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/at-risk/species-recover...
Washington State Dept of Natural Resources - Grazing (Leasing/Contracts)
https://www.dnr.wa.gov/programs-and-services/product-sales-a...
Some Indian tribes (maybe just the Colville Confederated Tribes) have their own rules for range area management but they are similar to WA state rules.
From NPR: "After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery," said Interior Secretary David Bernhardt
And who is this Secretary judging biological metrics?
A former coal and oil industry lobbyist and lawyer, no biological training.
He was on the board at CESAR, which is a purportedly "scientific" organization that takes huge donations from fossil fuel and conservative interests. CESAR is known to have funded climate denialism, and they seem to be intent on filing lawsuits against environmental causes.
Why is it that conservatives are so motivated to not conserve the nature they see around them?
That's a pretty ad hominum argument. Do you have anything to offer regarding the facts? If you think the gray wolf has not exceeded all conservation goals for recovery, what are the reasons?
FTA
> In 2013, the Obama administration also proposed to delist gray wolves, saying that the species had rebounded to the point where they were no longer at risk of extinction and should be managed by state and tribal governments
Do you have an attack to make against Obama's interior secretary too?
Criteria for listing a species as endangered:
https://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa-library/pdf/listing.pdf
What are the criteria for deciding whether
to add a species to the list?
A `species is added to the list when it
is determined to be an endangered or
threatened species because of any of
the following factors:
destruction, modification, or
curtailment of its habitat or range;
recreational, scientific, or educational
purposes;
* the inadequacy of existing
regulatory mechanisms;
* other natural or manmade factors
affecting its survival.
Sounds like gray wolves no longer meet the criteria. In particular, states that lack sufficient current wolf populations can protect them within the state (California and the northeast come to mind).
Personal bias: I'm glad they are part of the ecosystem. I'd like to see one sometime, but probably more comfortable while I'm in a car rather than a tent/hiking, though I understand they are still pretty wary of humans. I do miss seeing the Yellowstone elk herds that have become much more timid since the reintroduction.
Yet another reason to vote Biden.
This is part of the Trump administration's agenda to remove or dismantle anything they can that the Obama administration implemented or put in place. It is the same with all the other environmental regulations and protections they are removing such as the prohibition on drilling for oil in the arctic wildlife refugee, etc.
It's very unfortunate for Americans that this administration's policies are not based on rationalism.
Please VOTE on November 3rd.
Please make sure you are registered to VOTE.
The article clearly states that Obama also attempted to de-list the gray wolves. The wildlife biologists and managers out there consider them safely recovered, it is primarily people in distant cities with vague warm fuzzy feelings over pictures of wolves who consider them still somehow critically endangered.
While there may be some packs up in the northern Rockies, when was the last time you saw a wild wolf in Texas? Admittedly I'm no wildlife expert, but I believe there's also a distinction between the northern (doing OK) and southern (non-existent) subspecies.[0]
[0]
https://www.wolfquest.org/wolfopedia/Wolves/Gray-Wolf-subspe...
I mailed in my ballot, voting for the first time ever this year! Voted for President Trump! Would encourage everyone else to as well, it's a good feeling to exercise rights that many in the world unfortunately do not have.
Thanks for voting!
Edit: if you downvoted this comment, you're the problem.
Well, it is pretty off topic for this discussion.