me to .
just out of curiosity , what/how do you see the wolves benefiting??
I ask because I see zero positive to them being introduced but many negatives.
Coyotes are out of control here in CO, so much so that it's a 12-month season with no bag limit. They don't even go that far for the second most hated game here: the snow goose. Coyotes are a problem for a lot of ranchers and game species - even though they don't really go after full grown elk, they'll definitely harass fawns and calves, and some livestock.
Why are we here? Well, like wolves people tried to eradicate them, but they're wilier and more adaptable so that failed. And since their only natural predator IS the wolf, their population exploded after that. Hunters aren't controlling them because they're not worth a damn to eat, their fur is gross, and they're full of mange and parasites. I once saw a guy pop two and go pack up his truck, he didn't even go check to be sure they were dead. I wouldn't do that with a squirrel.
Nothing is simple. To be honest, I don't fully buy the arguments from either side here. It's like House said, "everybody lies." On this forum I've seen crazy statements like "wolves were never native here." That's totally untrue, they were native until as recently as 1940 when the last ones were eradicated. But that doesn't mean we aren't all working with what information we have, and sometimes that information is wrong.
CPW gets it right a lot, I value and respect what they do. And they get it wrong sometimes too. When I did my hunter safety program, there was this big fuss over the Kaibab Plateau deer population. They're still using it as gospel, about how too much conservation can destroy the environment - "WHAT WE NEED IS RESPONSIBLE STEWARDSHIP! Conservation AND hunting coexisting!" And all that. I felt like I was at a sermon.
The Kaibab Plateau is the story of the Kaibab deer herd, and how after Teddy Roosevelt declared the area a preserve and hunting the herd was stopped, the population exploded, they ate all the food, then they nearly all died of starvation in the following years. "Oops, guess we shouldn't have stopped the hunters." Now, it's what we all want to hear, so it's easy to believe, right? The first few Google hits seem to support it too.
But if you do a little digging you'll find the real story is much more complicated than that. In 1973 CJ Burk re-examined the story and re-evaluated some additional data that people who tell that story don't tell you. His conclusion speaks for itself:
What actually happened to the real deer out there on the Kaibab is not, apparently, quite so well understood as the myth would lead us to believe. Caughley (1970), reviewing ungulate irruptions, in general, within a more specific study of the Himalyan thar,' concludes, "data on the Kaibab deer herd . . . are unreliable and inconsistent, and the factors that may have resulted in an upsurge of deer are hopelessly confounded."
Readers should consult the Caughley article and its sources for full details of the sequence of oversimplifications and distortions which have resulted in the Kaibab story as it now exists. Reinspecting the original documents and publications on the topic, Caughley discovered that the extent of the initial population irruption is not clear. Without question an increase in deer occurred, followed by overgrazing
and decline. During 1924, however, the period when the deer were presumably most numerous, various observers estimated their population as high as 100,000, as low as 30,000, with guesses of 50,000, 60,000, and 70,000 bridging the interval. A dramatically explicit graph, reprinted in many textbooks, the latest to cross my desk being Invitation to Biology (Curtis 1972), is based on the maximum estimate and evolved by unjustified tamperings with an original which was itself based on a number of speculations and dubious assumptions.
Moreover, while pumas and coyotes were, without question, removed from the range throughout the crucial period, sheep and cattle were also banished; the reduction in sheep alone from 1889 to 1908 might have totaled 195,000 animals, more than the mule deer at the height of their profligacy. Hence the irruption of deer, whatever its extent, may in large part have resulted from an increased food supply after removal of other herbivores which had competed with the deer for browse. A description of the fate of the Kaibab deer as "a well-documented example of what can happen when predators are removed" (Platt and Reid 1967) or "a case where the role of the predator is plainly seen" (Johnson, Delaney, Cole, and Brooks 1972) is scarcely justified.
Despite this, it's still used as educational material. It's easy to believe because we want it to be true.
"Trust, but verify." -Reagan
Actual source: old Russian Proverb
"Trust, but verify. Even when people say what you want to hear." -Me.
Actual source: Me.
