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I am prepared for hurricanes and the like. The daily flooding in Miami and Virginia Beach as well as the 12 month Western Fire Season are easy to see manifestations of climate change. If I lived in any of those places, I would be prepared for that too. I don't bother to prepare for a collapse of civilization as we know it. Chicken Little has my blessing to prepare if he wishes.
If climate change caused a bad fire season last year, I wonder what the culprit was in 1930?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DCforever
Wolves adapt to human population just like coyotes.
No, they don't. Guido's post explained their differences pretty well, coyotes adapt and for the most part, live close to humans without causing trouble. Wolves on the other hand, are extremely destructive, decimating herds of elk, deer, bighorn sheep, antelope, and completely destroyed the Selkirk herd of mountain caribou, the last American herd outside of Alaska. They also take a huge toll on livestock, and once they start, they continue to kill cattle and sheep until a rancher takes care of it. A number of western states (and Canadian provinces) have regular wolf hunting seasons now.
The experience in Yellowstone National Park is that free ranging wolves improve the ecology. The elk herds are in fact healthier. Habitat destruction is the main cause of a decline in mountain caribou. Do a little homework.
The combination of drought and bad land management practices aggravate the forest fire problem. I rather doubt a fire starts and runs out of control just because average global temps have gone up 0.5deg in the last 40 years The flash point of wood is 572*F....Droughts come & go periodically. Ask the Anasazi for details.
Wolves have indeed improved the Yellowstone biome ecology, but Yellowstone is a huge reserve with no residences, farms nor ranches. How would you like it if they decided to re-introduce wolves to Virginia & Maryland and wouldn't let anybody shoot them when they caused trouble?
The combination of drought and bad land management practices aggravate the forest fire problem. I rather doubt a fire starts and runs out of control just because average global temps have gone up 0.5deg in the last 40 years The flash point of wood is 572*F....Droughts come & go periodically. Ask the Anasazi for details.
Wolves have indeed improved the Yellowstone biome ecology, but Yellowstone is a huge reserve with no residences, farms nor ranches. How would you like it if they decided to re-introduce wolves to Virginia & Maryland and wouldn't let anybody shoot them when they caused trouble?
I proposed reintroducing wolves to Rock Creek Park to control the deer herd. It's a myth that wolves are a significant threat to humans. More people die from being hit by lightning.
I gotta admit, you're right about the myth: no documented human death from wolves ever reported in N.Am or Europe, although I don't think I'd want to leave a toddler unattended to play in the mud for many hours in wolf country....
The problem is not human safety-- it's wolves attacking domestic livestock. Even putting that aside, human activity has so fragmented habitat & range for the wolves that a pack can quickly grow too big for its range to support. That leads to decimation of the prey population and then starvation of the wolves.
In most of the continental US, the wolf/habitat interaction is artificial, not really natural, therefore we need artificial population controls.
If you over-stocked your "balanced aquarium" with sharks, it wouldn't remain balanced & viable very long.
I'm not familiar with Rock Creek Park. How big is it? How close to human habitation/towns/cities? A pack needs 200-500 sq mi of uninterrupted habitat for its range https://www.fws.gov/wafwo/species/Fa...lf%20final.pdf and they can often travel several hundred miles outside their home range.
If climate change caused a bad fire season last year, I wonder what the culprit was in 1930?
No, they don't. Guido's post explained their differences pretty well, coyotes adapt and for the most part, live close to humans without causing trouble. Wolves on the other hand, are extremely destructive, decimating herds of elk, deer, bighorn sheep, antelope, and completely destroyed the Selkirk herd of mountain caribou, the last American herd outside of Alaska. They also take a huge toll on livestock, and once they start, they continue to kill cattle and sheep until a rancher takes care of it. A number of western states (and Canadian provinces) have regular wolf hunting seasons now.
You are really misinformed about the biome web. You are also mixing up several quite different things: predation on livestock (ie a totally non-natural situation) and the predator-prey relationship as it has evolved over millions of years.
You are really misinformed about the biome web. You are also mixing up several quite different things: predation on livestock (ie a totally non-natural situation) and the predator-prey relationship as it has evolved over millions of years.
If you were lost in the woods for three days and hadn't eaten anything for those 72 hours, and we found you and offered you a Happy Meal or a bow & arrow-- which one would you take?
While Dozebear may have exaggerated the problem slightly, once a lone wolf (not be confused with a loan shark) or a pack finds that it can get an easy meal at a farm or ranch, they take the opportunity and tend to repeat frequently. Losing one calf for a guy raising only 12 is a big deal. They don't have spreads running 6000 head in the Northwoods of WI.
While the web of life has had eons to evolve and fine tune itself in Nature, there is no Nature left in the eastern half of the US-- there are only small pockets of Almost Natural.
If we have artificial constraints on the wolf's range, then we must have artificial constraints on their population.
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