In France hundreds of sheep are killed after bear chases them over cliff

[rc508pir]

See dennishoddy's post above about the effects of reintroduction, particularly the bit about the restoration of habitat. With abundant food, species' populations grow, to the detriment of the food source. That's what happened with the elk and the local flora, and it's what's happening with the wolves upon those same elk. When the elk are reduced, the wolf population will also decline. Then, with reduced predation pressure, the elk population will rise again, leading to an increase in wolves, and the cycle repeats. We even have a mathematical model for it: its called the Lotka–Volterra equations, sometimes called the predator-prey equations.

I'm still not seeing where restoring a balance to an ecosystem that we deliberately unbalanced is a bad thing.

No, the population wont decline, because then they go after cattle. There is a hell of a lot more cattle than elk so they have no reason to go somewhere else.

 

[dennishoddy]

You're painting this like it's an all-or-nothing situation. It's not; there's room for the wolf there as well.

There's an interesting video about that study:
(The narrator incorrectly refers to the elk as deer, though they are both cervids. He's British; he's probably not familiar with the American Elk.)
I suggest watching it fullscreen, at high resolution (yes, Dennis, I know your internet connection precludes video; I'm sorry, but I can't help you there). The video discusses not just the effect on the elk, and on vegetation, but on coyotes (reduced due to predation from wolves), foxes, rabbits, mice, bears, bald eagles, beavers...even physical changes to the land. Erosion declined as trees became better-rooted, and rivers became more stable.

This is a very complicated system, but I'm not prepared to say that restoring it to its natural, balanced state is anything but a good thing. And I suspect the tourism won't suffer one bit for the change.

I'm doing no such thing as an all or nothing.
NOBODY is more aware of conservation issues than an outdoorsman, or outdoorswomen, and as a farmer, soil conservation and the environment continues to be important to me.
The Wolves are just as important to the environment as a coyote is around here until they become overpopulated and decimate a specie like they have the Elk in Yellowstone.
Cyclic rates of animal population is nothing new. Rabbits have a typical 7 year cycle. Predators reduce their numbers, and a few of of them die off, but when you consider rabbits, one of the biggest predators are avian.
Yep, a government protected specie that has once again wasted a typically annually healthy population of rabbits.
Dammit I hate it when that happens!!

See what happens when the dammed government gets involved?
Physical changes in the land occur with rainfall and nature. This stretch to lose some aspen trees is a total stretch.
Anybody want to describe how the canyons and craggy mountains came to exist before wolves and aspens?

 

[Rooster1971]

Lets see some pics of the big time hunter and your harvest.
I can tell your not familiar with conservation. The proper term is bison, not buffalo. There are several free ranging herds in the US and Canada now. New Mexico, Alberta, Arizona, and other places. They are so populated, they are offered for sale and one is allowed to hunt them as well in the free range areas when their population overcomes the ability of the habitat to support them.

Bison or buffallo? Prick or dick? Everyone knows it's the same.

 

[dennishoddy]

Bison or buffallo? Prick or dick? Everyone knows it's the same.

Got it. I know how to address your conservation issues now.

 

[Dale00]

Herbivore populations require healthy predator populations or adequate levels of hunting to keep their numbers and impact under control. Uncontrolled herbivore populations grow in numbers until they overgraze the plant community, greatly reducing their food supply. The result is starvation typically leading to massive disease outbreaks. In a well balanced predator prey situation, predators benefit the health of herbivore populations by taking sick and aging herbivores. This is fundamental wildlife management biology that goes back to Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife management. Leopold was a conservationist not a tree hugging preservationist. He started out supporting the elimination of predators but saw up close the disastrous results of doing so and reversed his opinion.

Predators do cause harm to livestock producers.

 

[rc508pir]

Bison or buffallo? Prick or dick? Everyone knows it's the same.

Bout the best explanation I have ever heard LOL

 

[rc508pir]

I'm doing no such thing as an all or nothing.
NOBODY is more aware of conservation issues than an outdoorsman, or outdoorswomen, and as a farmer, soil conservation and the environment continues to be important to me.
The Wolves are just as important to the environment as a coyote is around here until they become overpopulated and decimate a specie like they have the Elk in Yellowstone.
Cyclic rates of animal population is nothing new. Rabbits have a typical 7 year cycle. Predators reduce their numbers, and a few of of them die off, but when you consider rabbits, one of the biggest predators are avian.
Yep, a government protected specie that has once again wasted a typically annually healthy population of rabbits.
Dammit I hate it when that happens!!

See what happens when the dammed government gets involved?
Physical changes in the land occur with rainfall and nature. This stretch to lose some aspen trees is a total stretch.
Anybody want to describe how the canyons and craggy mountains came to exist before wolves and aspens?

Its a double edged sword. When the guberment gets involved, they muck it up. When they don't get involved, greedy developers muck it up

 

[dennishoddy]

Herbivore populations require healthy predator populations or adequate levels of hunting to keep their numbers and impact under control. Uncontrolled herbivore populations grow in numbers until they overgraze the plant community, greatly reducing their food supply. The result is starvation typically leading to massive disease outbreaks. In a well balanced predator prey situation, predators benefit the health of herbivore populations by taking sick and aging herbivores. This is fundamental wildlife management biology that goes back to Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife management. Leopold was a conservationist not a tree hugging preservationist. He started out supporting the elimination of predators but saw up close the disastrous results of doing so and reversed his opinion.

Predators do cause harm to livestock producers.

The purpose of current wildlife conservation is to balance the predator/prey balance that puts the environment into harmony.
When a predator specie is introduced into the picture like wolves and avian predators that cannot be controlled they become a detriment to the overall wildlife in the area they live in if allowed to repopulate unchecked like Yellowstone.
Deer can over browse their habitat requiring hunting to thin the herd to keep them in check with their food sources. There are more deer in the US now than when the pilgrims landed. Some areas like mine are overran and need extraordinary controls. We do spotlight surveys at night every september, count the deer and separate by does, bucks and fawns. The ODW looks at the data and says you need to kill this many to maintain a healthy herd that won't suffer malnutrition issues because of the available habitat.
We do 35-40 does a year with a few mature bucks.
Not an ounce of meat is wasted. We have outlets that will take every one we kill and ask for more.
Conservation is not all about hugging trees, some times its about helping nature keep balanced.

 

[dennishoddy]

Its a double edged sword. When the guberment gets involved, they muck it up. When they don't get involved, greedy developers muck it up

The world is changing. We can't go back to loin cloths and knapping points to hunt with.
We have had huge projects stopped by trying to preserve the spotted owl.
Now they are killing the spotted owl's because they are predators of other owls!
The dammed snail darter minnow was a huge issue.
There are thousands of specie that go extinct every year by natures hand. Man causes some, but when does a minnow make a difference?

 

[Dale00]

The purpose of current wildlife conservation is to balance the predator/prey balance that puts the environment into harmony.
When a predator specie is introduced into the picture like wolves and avian predators that cannot be controlled they become a detriment to the overall wildlife in the area they live in if allowed to repopulate unchecked like Yellowstone.
Deer can over browse their habitat requiring hunting to thin the herd to keep them in check with their food sources. There are more deer in the US now than when the pilgrims landed. Some areas like mine are overran and need extraordinary controls. We do spotlight surveys at night every september, count the deer and separate by does, bucks and fawns. The ODW looks at the data and says you need to kill this many to maintain a healthy herd that won't suffer malnutrition issues because of the available habitat.
We do 35-40 does a year with a few mature bucks.
Not an ounce of meat is wasted. We have outlets that will take every one we kill and ask for more.
Conservation is not all about hugging trees, some times its about helping nature keep balanced.

In a situation where hunting can harvest enough deer and where the decision has been made that livestock production is important, excluding wolves is reasonable. Rightly or wrongly, the national parks do take a preservationist approach to management and want to replicate "historical" patterns and view hunting as undesirable, perhaps partially in response to public opinion. This creates problems for livestock producers in the surrounding area. ...Some people love wolves and coyotes. Others view them as calf-killing vermin. It makes for a charged debate.