The government of British Columbia (Canada) has loosened their already lax wolf hunting laws in a move that will encourage the wholesale slaughter of wolves. Why? It turns out that wolf predation was found to be one of the causes of the decline of the endangered Mountain Caribou. The major cause of the decline is habitat loss, primarily through the logging of old-growth forests. Were any of the other (and more major) causes of caribou decline addressed? No. So one of mankind's favourite scapegoats - the wolf - is singled out for persecution again!!
More details on my website's blog (see entry of September 5).
What is more preposturous about that, is that in Canada, we have plenty of examples that showed that targetting wolf is not only targetting the wrong target, but is counter-productive, and bring much inbalance in the long run.
Here in Quebec, in the "Grande noirceur" era (before the 60's), we have hunt down the wolf to near extinction in the south. The people of the time tought (mostly from folk tales) that it was the thing to do to protect farms, and humans. At least in thoses times, becauses of many reasons, folks had an excuse: ignorance (from economical reasons but that is another story). But to promote this in 2007???
How goes the saying again? Thoses that ignores Hitory's lessons are bound to repeat them (the mistakes)? When will we learn...
Well a point to remember about wolves: -Unless they are in overpopulation , and/or that ressorces becomes really scarce, they hunt mostly old or sick deers and caribous. In fact, if you see it from an almost emotionless scientific point of view, they serve evolution and also protect the species from sick "individuals".
Sorry to pick up this theme after such a long time, but ... I think it is worth to talk a little more about that.
Basicly ... if wolf and cariboo and moose and whathever elk or deer survived till now ... there must be a very special relationship between all those animals, that makes it impossible to one of them to eradicate the other ones.
Even more: there are good reasons to think, that all those animals subsisted ... because of the other ones. Preys subsit because of the predators (at the long term). Crazy, no ?
Not so difficult to understand: a prey-species, is forced to be healthy, to resist to the predators ... and a healthy prey-populations, forces the predators to stay healthy also.
To say that predators only kill weak and sick preys is not exact and may lead to false conclusions. There are documents enough, that show wolves, lynxs and other predators kill apparently very healthy preys. No doubt about that. I have seen a lot of videos about lynx doing this. I heard an read a lot of stories about that too. No problem.
Pretators will kill healthy animals whenever they can. And that does depends of a lot of factors: wrong place, wrong time, wrong circumstances of the prey ... and healthy or not, it will be killed. A healthy moose, that is trapped in a deep ravin ... will be killed by wolves ... no doubt about that ! A big snowfall, and special snowconditions ... will allow wolves to kill healthy deers, that can not move, because the snow can not wear their weight ! But thing can be arranged differently too ... !
One thing is sure: never ever, a predator killed all of his preys in the ORIGINAL environment! If human beeing changes the environment ... the whole relation prey-predator can be changed also ... and things can come out differently, dramaticly !
O.k. I stop here for today ... but there is much more to tell about that ....
Posted by Brad Hill on September, 05th 2007 at 06:03 PM ▲ Top ▼ Bottom
The government of British Columbia (Canada) has loosened their already lax wolf hunting laws in a move that will encourage the wholesale slaughter of wolves. Why? It turns out that wolf predation was found to be one of the causes of the decline of the endangered Mountain Caribou. The major cause of the decline is habitat loss, primarily through the logging of old-growth forests. Were any of the other (and more major) causes of caribou decline addressed? No. So one of mankind's favourite scapegoats - the wolf - is singled out for persecution again!!
More details on my website's blog (see entry of September 5).
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Posted by Catherine Lanneluc on September, 05th 2007 at 06:44 PM ▲ Top ▼ Bottom
I'm afraid we've got the same type of problem everywhere...
Habitat loss is of course the first cause of decline of wildlife.
But it is a temptation to point other animals instead of Human kind...and very easy when wolf is concerned, as its reputation is not so good
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Posted by Xavier Blanc on September, 05th 2007 at 07:07 PM ▲ Top ▼ Bottom
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Posted by André Bosmans on September, 06th 2007 at 07:54 AM ▲ Top ▼ Bottom
Save a wolf, shoot a politician.
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Posted by Jacques Cabana on September, 06th 2007 at 11:24 AM ▲ Top ▼ Bottom
What is more preposturous about that, is that in Canada, we have plenty of examples that showed that targetting wolf is not only targetting the wrong target, but is counter-productive, and bring much inbalance in the long run.
Here in Quebec, in the "Grande noirceur" era (before the 60's), we have hunt down the wolf to near extinction in the south. The people of the time tought (mostly from folk tales) that it was the thing to do to protect farms, and humans. At least in thoses times, becauses of many reasons, folks had an excuse: ignorance (from economical reasons but that is another story). But to promote this in 2007???
How goes the saying again? Thoses that ignores Hitory's lessons are bound to repeat them (the mistakes)? When will we learn...
Well a point to remember about wolves:
-Unless they are in overpopulation , and/or that ressorces becomes really scarce, they hunt mostly old or sick deers and caribous. In fact, if you see it from an almost emotionless scientific point of view, they serve evolution and also protect the species from sick "individuals".
Reply Cite
Posted by Jean M. on April, 10th 2008 at 11:45 AM ▲ Top ▼ Bottom
Sorry to pick up this theme after such a long time, but ... I think it is worth to talk a little more about that.
Basicly ... if wolf and cariboo and moose and whathever elk or deer survived till now ... there must be a very special relationship between all those animals, that makes it impossible to one of them to eradicate the other ones.
Even more: there are good reasons to think, that all those animals subsisted ... because of the other ones. Preys subsit because of the predators (at the long term). Crazy, no ?
Not so difficult to understand: a prey-species, is forced to be healthy, to resist to the predators ... and a healthy prey-populations, forces the predators to stay healthy also.
To say that predators only kill weak and sick preys is not exact and may lead to false conclusions. There are documents enough, that show wolves, lynxs and other predators kill apparently very healthy preys. No doubt about that. I have seen a lot of videos about lynx doing this. I heard an read a lot of stories about that too. No problem.
Pretators will kill healthy animals whenever they can. And that does depends of a lot of factors: wrong place, wrong time, wrong circumstances of the prey ... and healthy or not, it will be killed. A healthy moose, that is trapped in a deep ravin ... will be killed by wolves ... no doubt about that ! A big snowfall, and special snowconditions ... will allow wolves to kill healthy deers, that can not move, because the snow can not wear their weight ! But thing can be arranged differently too ... !
One thing is sure: never ever, a predator killed all of his preys in the ORIGINAL environment! If human beeing changes the environment ... the whole relation prey-predator can be changed also ... and things can come out differently, dramaticly !
O.k. I stop here for today ... but there is much more to tell about that ....
Regards,
J.M.
Reply Cite