Interesting article about hunting and evolution. (transplants, house, food)

[genmomto5]

How Hunting is Driving "Evolution in Reverse." | Newsweek Project Green | Newsweek.com

I don't want to start any arguments but I am interested in what those of us who hunt think of this article. It is an interesting read to think about.

[Maine Writer]

I don't want the biggest animal, I want the one most fit to eat. I'll take a young and tender moose over a trophy any day. Our house is small. If we mounted a trophy moose and put it in the far end of great room only 50' away, it would look like it was charging you when you came out of the kitchen into the diningroom.

[RANGER.101ST]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

I don't want the biggest animal, I want the one most fit to eat. I'll take a young and tender moose over a trophy any day. Our house is small. If we mounted a trophy moose and put it in the far end of great room only 50' away, it would look like it was charging you when you came out of the kitchen into the diningroom.

that would be awsome.get some 3D glasses and some moose calls.it would be like running for your life.

[Kracer]

You might say modern medicine has done the same thing with people.

Breeders can do it with dogs.

Carl Ichan, the business guru once wrote an article about the reverse selection of intelligent corporate leadership.

You can play with very isolated animals populations and screw with genetics but not in a healthy widespread population controlled through regulated hunting.

The segment of animals removed by hunting is minimal. Each population has a 'turnover' rate which means a percent of the population is naturally lost each year. Hunting losses do not even come close to covering the natural population losses and therefore would have little of no impact on reverse evolution. Hunter success rate is not that high. Not everyone shoots deer with giant headgear. And what about the does, don't they contibute to good genetics?

Nature does a pretty good job on her own. The biggest bucks theoretically do the most breeding, well guess what? They are then in a poor physical state to survive the winter. Their gene pool has been passed on but individually they go away. Those big bucks also stick their necks out by running far and wide across roads and getting injured in fights with other bucks. Nature demands genetic variability to ensure population health and long term survival and does not advocate repetative individual genetic contributions.

Buy all the "Grow Big Bucks Sweet Feed" you want, it doesn't work in that direction either.

[msina]

In populations such as the American Bison that have been hunted to near extinction, yes it does have an effect. When hunting is properly regulated, hunters are just "culling" or "thinning" the population which can actually benefit the species as a whole. Most subsistance hunters, take an animal that presents itself and will be "good food". They don't want an older animal for that.

[dmyankee]

If animals were not meant to be eaten, then why did God make them out of meat?

The article is way too simplistic, just a 2 page editorial on natural selection. In northern Maine. we have a large portion of big bucks in the local population compared to southern Maine. This is precisely because of the harsh climate competition for food during the darker months of the year. It has little to do with trophy hunting and poaching.

Hi msina! You could say the same thing about the pigeons that flew in vast flocks all over the continent in the early Pilgrim and Colonial periods. They were so thick, they would blacken the sky and you could take them with rocks and sticks in flight and from trees.

If you want a good read about wildlife and their environment, in early America, I recommend Rutherford Platt. He was a naturalist and right hand man to Walt Disney.

[tcrackly]

I just perused the article very quickly. It seems to say what the DH and I have been saying for years..."bucks only" laws and popular competition for "trophy" animals are doing just as described: setting up a situation for the lesser individuals to thrive and advance their gene pool.
When someone takes out the biggest most dominant buck(or whatever) in a particular area, there is no guarantee that the individual had the chance to effectively pass on his genes to a new generation.
In my opinion as hunters, we should perform as the natural predators do in a given ecology...the prey less likely to survive, the small, the sick, the weak should be culled out. It's natures way of allowing the most resilient to proliferate and maintain a healthy group.

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by msina

In populations such as the American Bison that have been hunted to near extinction, yes it does have an effect. When hunting is properly regulated, hunters are just "culling" or "thinning" the population which can actually benefit the species as a whole. Most subsistance hunters, take an animal that presents itself and will be "good food". They don't want an older animal for that.

The Native Americans used to have a saying about "hunting the stupid turkey". White hunters misinterpreted this to mean all turkeys were stupid. In reality, the Native people meant to take the unfortunate individual that let himself be seen( also seen as willingly giving up his spirit). In the long run they maintained a population that was more wary. There's always a slower one, deaf or dumb one to harvest.

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by dmyankee

If animals were not meant to be eaten, then why did God make them out of meat?

The article is way too simplistic, just a 2 page editorial on natural selection. In northern Maine. we have a large portion of big bucks in the local population compared to southern Maine. This is precisely because of the harsh climate competition for food during the darker months of the year. It has little to do with trophy hunting and poaching.

Hi msina! You could say the same thing about the pigeons that flew in vast flocks all over the continent in the early Pilgrim and Colonial periods. They were so thick, they would blacken the sky and you could take them with rocks and sticks in flight and from trees.

If you want a good read about wildlife and their environment, in early America, I recommend Rutherford Platt. He was a naturalist and right hand man to Walt Disney.

Pigeons are transplants from Europe. It probably took a while for the predator/prey ratio to stabilze after their introduction. Early Americans ate hawks, too.

[dmyankee]

If they would just go back to taking doe above the tracks like they used to, we would have a chance to fill our tags and our freezers with the does and fawns that would eventually die in the yards. I kicked my way through a lot of carcasses this year!