Man, I come from a rural background and generally feel for the interests of rural folk, but these wealthy ranchers really grind my gears with their entitlement. ‘How are we supposed to ranch and maintain our way of life when the government makes changes’—like using the countryside to pasture livestock as they’ve ‘done for generations’ is an inalienable birth right. Give me a break, everyone has to adapt with the times, ranchers should be no exception. For all their ruggedness they honestly act like spoiled children. ‘Wolves will affect the livelihood of my archaic, wealthy rancher lifestyle’ doesn’t really reverberate with me. Suck it up buttercup.
To put a point on the entitlement, ranching in the midwest is often synonymous with grazing for minimal cost, on federal land. That's basically a giant subsidy.
SO the true cost of meat SHOULD include erosion, pollution, and management of federal lands, antibiotic release into the water table, water use, and GHG emissions. But instead we pay most of those costs through taxes and have lower cost at the grocery store.
IIRC, the BLM charges around 15% of what it would cost on the open market. If the land were sold off like these rugged individualists want, most of them probably couldn't even afford it. Ranchers are usually well-off, but not massively so.
They'd be stuck paying someone else sky-high grazing fees. The market would probably just get taken over by big players just like most of the rest of agriculture has.
They really should include all externalizations in every business. It's the only way to provide incentive to exerting the required effort to create sustainable businesses in a free market.
You realize we are talking about natural habitats here, right? It's not a lawn. Most public grazing land is arid, and quite fragile. Grazing can turn a rich ecosystem into a moonscape very quickly.
> like using the countryside to pasture livestock as they’ve ‘done for generations’ is an inalienable birth right
I understand (and share some of) your sentiment, but it's worth correcting you to say that ranchers (usually) don't feel that grazing rights are an "inalienable birth right". Instead, they feel that grazing rights are a property right, and they should not be deprived of this property without compensation. What may surprise you is that courts frequently agree with the ranchers' interpretation!
Most people don't realize that when a ranch is sold, the grazing rights are sold along with the private land. They have market value, and they are attached to a particular property. Banks treat them as collateral, and maybe more importantly, the IRS treats them as assets for the purposes of taxation: https://famguardian.org/publications/propertyrights/estatax.....
So yes, everyone must adapt, but it's not nearly as simple as the ranchers simply being wrong. The way the US West was settled created a system where private individuals really do have a (some sort of) legitimate property right in the use of public lands. Unless you are willing to give up on private property altogether (personally, I'm more sympathetic than most to Proudhon's "Property is Theft" argument) a more nuanced understanding is necessary.
Here's a good (and reasonably balanced) article that gives more background about the issues: https://www.perc.org/2016/01/21/managing-conflicts-over-west.... The first third is about the Bundy case, the middle about the how we got the system we have, and the last part is about where it might go from here.
> ‘How are we supposed to ranch and maintain our way of life when the government makes changes’
You quoted a statement that isn't in the article.
> like using the countryside to pasture livestock as they’ve ‘done for generations’ is an inalienable birth right.
I didn't get this at all from the article. Where are you picking this up?
> Give me a break, everyone has to adapt with the times, ranchers should be no exception.
Sure, but they have a right to defend their interests. If ranchers voted to allow wolves and bears back into downtown denver, do you think the people of denver have a right to be worried?
> For all their ruggedness they honestly act like spoiled children.
Are you sure you come from a rural background and you generally feel for the interests of rural folk?
> ‘Wolves will affect the livelihood of my archaic, wealthy rancher lifestyle’ doesn’t really reverberate with me.
Once again your quoted text appears nowhere in the article. You are intentionally misleading readers here by making it seem like you are quoting from the article and falsely attributing the quotes to the ranchers.
This is actually in the article.‘Will also fears the initiative lets urban areas make a decision that'd largely affect rural Colorado.’
Why is it that so many comments that claims "I come from a rural background", "I am a resident in X", "I am a blank" go on to attack what they claim to be and mostly in a misleading and sneaky way? I normally see this in vegan related post, "I eat meat" and then goes on list the vegan manifesto, but it is spreading everywhere it seems.
I don't know if they're all rich. Ralph Lauren certainly is. But I tend to agree. There simply aren't that many ranchers. But there are millions of Coloradans—and visitors to Colorado, outdoor/nature tourism being a much larger business in CO than ranching—who favor reintroduction. If Yellowstone is any kind of guide, ecosystems would benefit. Wolves are all over the Northwoods of Wisconsin now, and the negative side effects are basically nil.
It sounds like the gist of this article is that it is beneficial to add the wolves backs, people support adding the wolves back [1], but people who maintain livestock do not want this for obvious reasons.
[1] "A recent online survey from Colorado State University showed 84 percent of Coloradans support the reintroduction effort."
Coyotes are prolific in places where wolves have been eradicated. If your chihuahuadoodle goes for a walkabout, seems like he's more likely to become coyote food than wolf food.
It's mostly not a thing. Wolves would much prefer to avoid settled areas if they can. If there's no other food in the area, they'll eat what they can get, but as long as there's deer in the woods your dog is safe.
I see wolf tracks and poop in the trails behind my house fairly regularly, there's a couple of wolf packs in the valley. There's also multiple people on my street who have "free range" cats that have managed to stay alive for 10+ years.
The list you liked to has attacks in 2010, 2005, 1996, 1989... then 1943.
Surely an event that only happen 4 times in more than 50 years is not worth mentioning.
Also, I lived in the Yukon for 4 years, roamed all over YK and AK in the summers and winters, saw tons of wolves. Never heard of a single person ever having problems with them, it's simply not a thing.
Surely that's because the gray wolf was all but extinct in the contiguous United States by the mid 1900s. As the "Wolf attack" Wikipedia article says, "wolf attacks are rare because wolves are often subsequently killed, or even extirpated in reaction by human beings." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attack
AFAIU, fear of humans is both a learned and instinctual behavior of large predators. The latter can take thousands of years to develop, but the former requires active management, such as hunting and killing. To the extent that learned element isn't there and wolf populations continue to encroach on settlements, I would expect increased incidents.[1] And that seems to be reflected in the data.
Though, that's a pretty abstract argument. The risk still seems miniscule and inconsequential. OTOH, from a political perspective consequential is defined by public sentiment, not empirical data and calculated risk assessment.
[1] A quick Google search suggests that wolf hunting has been legal and practiced in Alaska since 1994. Though, maybe it's always been legal, even after wolves became protected in the lower United States. EDIT: It seems wolf hunting never ceased in Alaska (https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=intensivemanageme...), though by the 1980s even land hunting (as oppose to aerial) required permitting, which suggests people could freely shoot wolves before then, and presumably did when people felt insecure--see conclusion #5 at the very end of the page.
There's far more moose attacks than wolf attacks. Being afraid of wolves as a human is completely irrational. It's one of the least threats you face in the backcountry.
This is a false problem. If you expect pets having a worse life than now, you could wait for a long long time.
Cats will be much safer. Wolves equal to more saplins alive, thus increase in wolfes = increase in trees, and more trees around, mean cats climbing to safety with just an elegant jump.
Moreover, cats are perfectly able to fight back and they keep routinely german shepperds at bay. An angry cat can scratch a dog eye really fast.
Plus the benefit of 100 coyotes fleeing the area and more bird nests at soil level = Happier cats.
......................
The effect in dogs will be less clear, but will be positive in some aspects at least.
Wolves will put warnings of "do not enter" for dogs to sniff all around the place. Small dogs in wolf territory are not so prone to escape and will remain closer to their human owner. Most dog owners would appreciate that as a good thing.
Dogs close to a human are safe. Wolves will not approach or touch any human with a ten foot pole. Coyotes instead... well is a different history. Coyotes are much, much, bolder and will grab walking dogs practically from the hands of the owner if they have the opportunity.
If you are a responsible owner shouldn't let your dog roam alone in the forest at night. Wolves will not kill them, cars will do.
Small dogs should sleep also inside or in a secure area at night, not chained outside. Irresponsible owners will lose pets, as usual, with and without wolves. This is not the wolves fault.
Wolves in the area mean less dogs lost, killed or severely hurt after being lost trying to chase a deer.
Can fall to mention there that the "but think in the pets!" argument is a litle hypocritical. I don't see any of those people asking for erradication of boars so the pets will be safer. A boar can severe the spine of a dog in no time. A Deer can impale a dog's neck or torax easily also.
> Moreover, cats are perfectly able to fight back and they keep routinely german shepperds at bay.
Not sure why you think ylu are qualified to talk about cats or pets at large. Cats fend off german shepards because the dog wants to instinctually chase and play. Cats are routinely eaten by single coyotes and large birds, much less dedicated packs of wolves (who admittedly rarely bother with cats). Cats will try to stay closer to the home/farm pulled by instinct to roam/expand their territory and chase prey, presenting a perrenial danger.
Reintroducing wolves is reasonable, but dont simultaneously undercut your message with astounding ignorance.
> why you think ylu are qualified to talk about cats or pets
LOL We are not talking about Higgs' Boson. Is because my human brain that I'm qualified (Is awesome that we have evolved this pink thing if we think about it). In the planet earth, even toddlers are qualified to talk about cats. Pretty common stuff.
You admit that wolves will rarely would bother with cats at least. Is a start.
Perhaps this is not practical, but could a company produce a set of medium range drones that use ML to identify cow vs. wolf vs. human vs. vehicle and thus report which section of their range has a wolf or human poacher? A pair of drones patrols the perimeter while a pair charge up, then they swap places automatically and run 24/7. Perhaps these could even report if a rancher or hiker is laying on the ground (injury, medical issue) and send footage to the ranch owners phone with coordinates? Is this feasible?
They might not, that is why I am asking. Maybe prevention of poaching would pay for the system? Maybe they get a discount on insurance? A sheriff or other agency could tranquilize and tag the wolf, then relocate it. It would be great if some ranchers could chime in.
1. The study of wildlife migration patterns has been a thing for a long time. Methods exist, and are always being improved upon with better technology. A well-placed hunting camera could do the same thing without all the trendy Bay-Area BS.
2. I'm pretty sure that if (when?) a company develops drone-powered mass-surveillance technology, they will be doing it for someone other than ranchers.
3. This whole thing is really a non-issue. Individual wolf packs kill few cattle per year, and there are a lot of published papers with similar numbers. In fact, the removal costs of the wolves can exceed the potential lost profits.
Not sure what you mean. I’m talking about raising cattle. They know how to raise cattle. It’s in the stores, they produced it. You know how to produce whatever you produce. They don’t know how to produce what they produce?
Their self interest is that they produce as much cattle as possible. There might be other reasons why wolves would be beneficial, if released into the wild in CO, though. Hence the conflict of interest, on the part of the cattle owners.
This does not fall within the normal range of meanings of "conflict of interest". Cattle owners are not in a position where their personal interests conflict with their official duties. Those are perfectly synched up.
By your standards, voting is a conflict of interest.
If cattle ranchers know there there is a public good for having wolves, yet they argue against them, I'm saying that position is a conflict of interest between them and the public good. They will almost always choose their own self interest.
Voting? Well, people often vote against their own self interest, but it is hoped (by me, at least) that people will vote for their self interest, within reason. That reason is that you aren't voting for something that benefits your group more than another group. That would be a bad use of self-interested voting. A good use would be voting for "medicare for all" because you think it will benefit you and others.
Your interpretation is not a strong or plausible one. It would make the parent comment completely content-free ("cattle ranchers have multiple priorities, and just like everybody else, sometimes they pick one over another one") rather than just wrong.
They may see the costs of wolves without seeing the benefit, whereas other Coloradans would see the inverse. It's hard to say who has the correct full picture.
We are in Idaho. Our last two governors have been ranchers as well and have been "not friendly" to wolves. Idaho motto around wolves is "Shoot, Shovel, Shut up".
I'm an actual Coloradan. Very little livestock grazing is in the mountains where the wolves would presumably be. It's almost entirely out on the plains surrounded my a thousands of miles of barbed wire fences and desolate nothingness.
Even if the wolves do venture out into the plains, it would be much appreciated because my office currently smells like cow shit given that there's a north-easterly wind and Greeley is in that direction with it's horrendous feed lots.
I've actually worked on ranches in Colorado. Ranchers do graze their stock in the mountains. The other side of the coin is that the habitat for wolves is from sea level to approximately 9800' (3000m). They hunt wherever they can find herbivores. One part of ranching people don't seem to understand is that the rancher (by rancher I mean whoever is working on the ranch) is caring for living animals. That means he is looking out for these animals on a daily basis. I know their are ranchers who don't get attached to their stock, but they are definitely the minority. It's hard to care for anything daily and not get attached. I've seen ranchers in tears over the loss of a single cow, because they've cared for that cow since it was born. From time to time I would take a steer to slaughter so that we had meat in the freezer. The last thing I would do after unloading the steer would be to thank him for giving his life to feed my family. When a pack of coyotes take a calf, it is heart breaking to see the reaction of the mama cow. My neighbor last spring came upon a cow that was struggling to give birth and she was down. The coyotes had killed the calf and were eating it even though it was only part of the way out of the cow. Do you think that might have upset him a little? Now they want to release a much larger predator onto the land he is trying to care for. How do you think that makes him feel? There is more to caring for livestock than money.
You could work in Commerce City and be smelling the hydrocarbons all day, and maybe even getting cancer.
They do graze in the mountains, just not much compared to the rest of the state. Not really a fan of that either as the cows leave excrement all over trails and roads. If this prevented the practice and nothing else I'd still be for it. Cows aren't supposed to be part of nature, they're an environmental disaster themselves.
This seems to be mostly just an emotional appeal rather than a practical one.
Also, we should totally get rid of the refinery too, I'm all for equal opportunity environmentalism.
Ever heard of South Park? How about North Park? Kremlin is a Ranching community. So was Baily at one time and some of the ranchers still live there even though it is almost part of the Metro area now. Eagle is a ranching community. I could go on. Cow excrement is only fermented grass. I handle it with my bare hands. How long does an animal have to live in an environment before it becomes a part of it.
When range and wild life management is turned over to voters and the educated managers are ignored, it becomes an emotional issue.
Do you ride a bicycle to the grocery store?
Most of those areas are pivoting to tourism with the exception of maybe South Park which is desolate enough I don't see wolves making a habitat there.
Cow excrement is absolutely not just fermented grass. It contains pathogens that can be harmful to humans and end up in drinking water. Cows have existed in this area for less than 200 years, out of the millions of years the biome has existed. It's absolutely an emotional issue if you don't understand how ecosystems work.
I'd rather not give out too many personal details of my living situation but it's safe to say my little car doesn't get much use at all.
I don't know if you are still following this conversation or not. The snow stopped yesterday and I had to go do my work. In case you are, I found this conversation rather thought provoking and wanted to continue for a while. Here is a link to information on agriculture in Colorado:
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Online_...
It does not break things out by ranch or farm, but it does show that overall in Colorado between 2007 and 2012 there was a 1% increase in farms. If you click on the map you can see the breakout by county. In some of the mountain counties farming has decreased close to 50%. In other mountain counties it has increased. But it does show that farming is still a strong industry in the mountain counties.
I must confess that I have not spent much time studying ecosystems. But I live very close to one. I know this, if it takes millions of years for an eco system to evolve, the eco system in the Western United States is completely non-existent. Agriculture has only existed for 12,000 years or so. Most of the crops grown by humans can be viewed as invasive species, same as you are claiming cattle to be. Some studies conclude that the little ice age was caused by the dying off of native Americans (also an invasive species as so we are) after the arrival of Europeans. They were so devastated that the lack of Agriculture effected global climate, or so the theory goes. Now there are a great many invasive species in both flora and fauna that the ecosystem is not what it would have been even 15,000 years ago. The climate has not even been stable for the past million years. So a million year old eco system does not exist.
There are those that point out that the bovine replaced the bison in the ecosystem of the American grass lands. While I can accept this to a point, I do think it at best a near replacement. This I know from direct observation, if you pull cattle off the land for a number of years, the quality of the flora suffers. I can't offer an explanation. The same can be said for over grazing as well.
One of the gripes I have with climate change advocates is that they want everyone else to give up their petroleum habit, but they themselves still drive SUV's. When I had a city job, to support my ranching habit, I used mass transit, and supplemented it with a (TreK) bicycle. I didn't even live in the city!
One last antidote. A Business man and a Rancher hit the same jackpot in the lotto. It was a large sum and they were to split it. A reported asked the Business man what he was going to do. He said he was going to retire and and travel the world the rest of his life, living in hotels and being waited on. The reported then asked the rancher what he was going to do. He replied that he was going to keep ranching until the money ran out!
>Assuming that ranchers will want to continue to raise cattle amongst protected wolves is just as irrational.
I wonder how humans living amongst wolves could raise and even create all races of cattle in the last 4000 years.
This a problem that we had solved yet with shepherds and shepherddogs. You can find people raising three thousands of sheep all alone and just with the help of a few dogs. They never lost a sheep and they live in one of the european areas with more wolves.
We solved it by killing the wolves and making them fear coming near civilization.
Reintroducing them undoes that, and if they're going to be a protected species, the same solution that's worked forever no longer will.
Different rules, different behavior.
And most dogs are primarily to alert people. One on one, a wolf is usually going to win. Packs of dogs evens things out some, but it's not a sure thing. Although if dogs end up being the main protection loophole, I'll be interesting to see if people move towards more aggressive dogs.
We have professionals able to cope with they in the best public benefit.
Managing key species as a bussiness only for a minority of the society leads often to lots of money lost for all citizens. We talk of species absolutely necessary for having a healthy ecosystem.
Wolves create economic damages but also pay generously for them. They clean lyme, keep cattle diseases under control in wildlife reservoirs, improve pastures and build forests and rivers. Wolf's work literarily create entire biocenosis with decens of new animals linked.
In Yellowstone the wolf build from nothing a $5000000/year bussiness in a few years. Those new opportunities attract and fix young human population and put children in some states that need it.
Alive wolves trigger a lot of unexpected benefits for both humans and animals. We could never pay its environmental services, or the lifes of humans saved by wolves directly or indirectly
I had to watch this video [1] for my biology class. It's interesting how the wolves changed the entire ecosystem by just changing the behavior of deer (they avoided grazing near the river because that's where the wolves wanted to be). The ripple effects are fairly significant.
This is not debunked. Not peer reviewed from what I've gathered from that article, just a lone voice. Yes, ecosystems are very complex but given that complexity, let's not smear an attempt to describe the cause and effect relationship which is assumed, even with your source.
Wolves had an effect. Is it overly simplistic in the video I linked? Yes. But is it inaccurate? No. Is there more to learn, describe and understand? Yes.
I saw on a Nova program a while back some scientists doing studies on wildlife just being exposed to the sounds of predators. They recorded predator sounds and setup cameras and speakers to play a predator sound when prey wildlife were near.
It changed all sorts of things, including breeding patterns.
Also I know the San Diego wild animal park put predator animals upwind of prey animals and saw behavioral changes / different sleeping patterns and more "wild like" behavior just from being exposed to the smell.
Steven Rinella and the MeatEater podcast[0] is an excellent source of information on Wolves (amongst other things).
They’ve had episode with industry experts on Wolf genetics, conservation, migration, reintroduction, hunting, habitat control and more. Recently they’ve had a running commentary on wolves and Isle Royale[1].
As someone who grew up in a wolf reintro zone I have a few comments and opinions to help others have more productive conversations.
First, not all wolf reintro's are the same. Each ecosystem is different and the scientific justifications need to be done for each, and the papers for one do not necessarily apply to the other. The Yellowstone program may have been a success, but other places are not Yellowstone, and it is a mistake to use it as a way to handwave away criticisms. Also, sometimes the justifications are pretty weak, and could easily be made up with by increase in hunting tags or adjustment of hunting time windows and area restrictions.
Second, there are jurisdictional and public control issues at the heart of the matter. There are people who actually have to live in these areas and they are major changes. I strongly dislike the attitude of some that locals should have no say. The people in our area voted against the reintro program and it was done anyway, with the governor saying "I don't care what the people want, the reintro program is happening". That is a problem. I have also seen the effects of fresh Forest Department/BLM phd types ignore the locals wisdom and advice and pay the price for it, and the same "We know better than you back country bumpkin" condescension tends to be at play in the reintro programs. These things have real consequences. For example, as a kid my grampa who was a logger in the area in the 70's and many other loggers were saying the Forest Service needed to let the loggers thin the forests out and to do more control burns. I being young thought the old loggers were just old-fashioned and the PhD's knew what they were doing, until reality happened. The holier than though attitude of the credentialed people prevailed, then the pine beetle infestation hit, and within a decade we had two ~500,000 acre forest fires that the forests are still recovering from.
Third, there are often claims that wolves never attack humans, and those claims are blatantly false or are using very carefully selected statistics (North America only, etc) to craft a narrative. Beyond that, it vastly changes the safety profile of being in the forests, in a way that discourages people from experiencing it. Many locals from my area have posited that this is an intentional side-effect. Even more so when the rumors of a grizzly reintro program started floating around (I don't know if these are just rumors, but who can blame the locals for being afraid of an unelected unaccountable bureaucracy who already ignores them from doing something else against their wishes). We used to be able to only have to worry about bears or mountain lions, who both have pretty easily avoided confrontational profiles, but now locals don't go anywhere without being armed.
Fourth, the dismissal of the cattle ranchers is far overrated. Cattle ranching, especially in this day in age, is a science in itself, and in the forest is a vital part of forest maintenance. Silviopasture/agroforestry is also often studied by the kids of the old ranchers who then come back and apply that knowledge. Thoughts of the ranchers as dumb hicks is a foolish and insulting stereotype. Not only that, but often the forest service and BLM are underfunded and undermanned, and many of the ranchers who are paying public land leases do a good job assisting in maintaining the forest, and unlike the new kid who just got shipped in from across the country after getting a degree, they live there and have passed down local knowledge for decades if not longer.
I know it's easy to see something like a wolf reintro program and assume it's a great thing and just jump on the bandwagon, but maybe a perspective from someone who grew up in one and have heard out the locals on the issues might help color your view on the topic a bit.
Otherwise you just end up with a bunch of locals that around the campfire say "It's all about the three S's... shoot, shovel, and shhhhh".
> Third, there are often claims that wolves never attack humans, and those claims are blatantly false or are using very carefully selected statistics (North America only, etc) to craft a narrative.
This smacks of fear-mongering. I wouldn't say never, but I can count the number of wolf attacks in the lower 48 states in my lifetime on one finger. Furthermore, that one wolf attack was by a captive pet wolf[1].
The entire point he made is that it's a bad comparison.
You're saying wolves don't attack often by citing numbers in an area where they've been mostly killed off in populated areas.
There aren't many tiger attacks in North America, but that also has little bearing on future attack numbers if introducing a wild population. The comparison makes little sense.
Appreciate your input. As somebody with a house near a Colorado National Forest, I can corroborate that it is over-choked with fuel and a fire catastrophe waiting to happen. Not burning for decades will do that. As for the wolves, I think you have to offer something more around your wolves-attack-humans point. I've only seen statistics that say otherwise. What data are you drawing your conclusions from?
The problem with everyone talking about NA statistics is most of the people who moved into the forests in the 1800's killed most of the wolves and so using NA as a statistical basis to say why reintro programs are ok and assuage fears of attacks is disingenuous at best. It would be much better to compare to countries/places where wolves have had a sizable population for a long time. Thus, see:
"Third, there are often claims that wolves never attack humans ..."
I find this hard to believe - who would make such a claim ?
One would have to be almost entirely illiterate in both historical accounts of American settlement and rural accounts of frontier areas in Europe and middle-Asia and many, many well-respected fictional accounts of wolfpack/human interactions all over the world.
The wedding story from _My Antonia_ comes to mind ...
You'd be surprised at how often it is heard when discussing this topic (edit: see comments). My grandfather used to visit Alaska and talked to them about it and not only did they just laugh when he told them that was what the forest service "down here" said, but they said "you should talk to the Siberians!".
I'll admit the statistics of wolf attacks in NA are small, but they fail to take into account many things, for example the high number of national forest disappearances a percentage of which could have been animals attacks we don't know about. Also, just from personal experience, when in wolf territory statistics are hardly a comfort when you hear the yips a ridge over...
Some have said it's fear mongering...I wonder is there such a thing as statistics-mongering?
1. I think everyone gets that different places are different places.
2. Locals have say, but they don't have the final say. They get to vote like everyone else so it is ridiculous to say that. Also, anecdotal is not the best.
3. Umm... who claims that? It feels like you made a straw man just to fight against.
4. I have no clue why you even brought that up. It seems like you are just ranting.
So much for anyone trying to raise sheep or cattle. They did this in parts of England, and if you follow sheep farmers on Twitter, the gore was tremendous. Guard dogs can handle foxes, even coyotes, but not wolves. But hey, I guess we’re not supposed to eat meat anymore?
Yeah, man, so much for them. Just like "so much for the lumberjacks, they can't cut down a sequoia". Sometimes the cost someone imposes on the rest of us is too much.
> So much for anyone trying to raise sheep or cattle. They did this parts of England, and if you follow sheep farmers on Twitter, the gore was tremendous.
What if the flock was protected by a pack of large herding dogs, like German Shepards?
My dad used to spend summers in Armenian country side where his grandparents had livestock. They had a pair of Armenian Gamprs as guard dogs. According to his anecdotal evidence a single Gampr would get torn to bits by a pack of wolves but 2 of them would often keep a pack away and were even used in wolf hunts. These are some giant and vicious dogs though. I think they're much larger than shepherds.
Can’t play this video now, but would be neat. No idea. Just seems unlikely. Wolves are master collaborative hunters. Dogs are... dogs. But I’m no dog vs wolf expert.
Watching the video a little further, it describes a time in the early 90s when the Caucasian sheepdogs were nearly extinct, "poorly bred," and "food for wolves." It looks like there was a breeding project to make them fit for purpose again.
It also looks like the dogs have to stick to the right tactics and have limitations. The dogs stay put in defensive positions and defend the flock as a pack. They'll kill a wolf that gets too close, but they usually just chase them away. They can't chase too far or go out individually or they risk being killed by wolves. They're also more effective when the weather is such that they can use their sense of smell.
Edit: I posted this upthread, but apparently guardian dog is the term for dogs defend against predators (but they do not control its movement), herding dogs control the movement of a herd (but do not typically defend it well).
My old neighbor had one, and prior to meeting him I had heard from others the he owned a 'bear'. One of the biggest dogs I've ever seen, and all muscle.
It's not about not eating meat, diet has nothing to do with this question. Who are we to enter an ecosystem and kill/exterminate its inhabitants just so we can do whatever we want there? Why must we bow down to an extremely small number of cattle farmers so that our entire ecosystem is skewed away from its natural state?
There are breeds of dog that are larger than wolves and were bred specifically for the purpose of protecting herds of livestock from wolves and other such large predators. They're not necessarily cheap to own though, and a fair number are needed to protect against packs.
They have found that small strobe lights mounted along fence lines work reasonably well. The lights are solar powered and free to ranchers... Oddly the ranchers that keep having run ins with wolf packs activity refuse to use any deterrents whatsoever. It would appear, here in Washington, that the ranchers don't care about their livestock at all, they actively refuse to protect them until there are issues then they get the state to spend a $100k on a helicopter based hunt. They won't take any free help, not employer range riders, very irresponsible.
At this one the ranchers using public lands are nothing but a lazy welfare case from my point of view.
Hunters and ranchers benefit from having no wolves around, but everyone else takes a hit as a result. There's a lot of costs related to deer damaging crops, and managing all the hunting required to keep the population down.
Besides, you can just run a compensation program to offset the damages. If you scroll down in the article you'll notice they already have an estimate for that.
I’m seeing the “ranchers should deal with it because they graze bellow market rate on federal land argument” thing is that 68% of Colorado is government owned, so there isn’t much of an alternative. And the percentage of federally/public owned is even higher in other western states. Maybe offer these ranchers a chance to buy the land they graze on? That should adjust grazing rates back to market price in time.
That's essentially technocracy. I think some amount of technocratic decision-making is good in a government, but at the end of the day you still need that government to be informed by the needs/desires of the people (democracy, more or less). Democracy should be informed by the technocrats, not replaced by technocracy. In this case, I think voters should be listening to ecologists to understand the effects that reintroduction of wolves will have, but it's good that it's still up to the voters to decide whether to prioritize restoring the ecosystem versus making life easier for those in the agriculture industry.
"The term is used to refer to suboptimal traits that such a process may produce as a result of having to compromise between the requirements and viewpoints of the participants, particularly in the presence of poor leadership or poor technical knowledge, such as needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision"
So they can only make part of the decision correctly: that there should be some sort of reintroduction, and what aspects of it are scientifically/biologically required for success. They are not a good sole party to address the economics, social/cultural/community issues, or a number of other aspects of programs like this.
Wolf reintroduction is major change with the potential for disproportionate impact on a small group of people (or at least there's a huge fear of it), and combined with a very real sense that some outside elite authority is just autocratically dictating without listening there is great potential for it to go sideways. (Keep in mind that centralized power structures dissipate with distance/isolation - witness rural sheriffs refusing to enforce specific laws in some states, etc.)
In general there should be a second angle: how to support the community, make the program successful, and have buy-in. This means maybe there should be some combination of communication, support, insurance, or grants to mitigate community concerns, and that it should be treated as an ongoing back-and-forth that tries to balance concerns for long term success, not as a dictate to people who are ignored.
We wouldn't be without a ballot initiative anyway. The article clearly states that hunters and powerful lobbying interests are fighting tooth-and-nail against re-introducing wolves. So, this isn't just down to biologists, there are interest groups coming in from multiple angles.
Wildlife management is a direct consequence of environmental laws. Laws are created (normally) by Politicians. The majority of american politicians with any relevance in the last 100 years supported fire weapons, therefore hunting (because weapons were created to allow good citizens to hunt vermins and game. Aren't they?). I assume that for a politician in US, to reject weapons in public 50 years ago would have been social suicide.
Ecologists and biologists did what were allowed by the current laws to do, and what were hired to do. Not more, not less. There are around 22 american people trying to save the last 15 american vaquitas or so. Their ships are shooted and harassed rutinely for removing illegal nets.
When the animal will go extinct in a few years, we all will see how some people still blame on they. I'm 100% sure of that.
That's a very appealing idea — after all, biologists and ecologists are the experts at biology & ecology. But what if the biologists and the ecologists disagree? E.g. maybe the wolves would be great in one biological aspect but bad for the ecosystem?
Of course any decision has multiple impacts: even if biologists and ecologists agree, what about stakeholders? Should farming and ranching experts have a seat at the table? What about climatologists (after all, maybe wolf flatulence better or worse than deer flatulence)? What about mining interests, who might need to adjust physical security? What about suburban homeowners, who might need to do likewise? What about urban renters, who might really want to see those suburbanites move into the city?
And of course even if we limit the discussion strictly to scientists who can be strictly objective about the decisionmaking, they can still be wrong, because the settled science at any point in time can be incorrect (cf. phrenology, the safety of leaded gas and the immediacy of self-driving cars).
At the very least, if we make the vote democratically, whatever happens can be blamed on everyone collectively.
Uhhh, no. Why would we? Their interests aren’t the only interests in the world. We live in a democracy not some sort of Orwellian world where we just do what the experts say. That would never work out well.
Don't do it. The ecosystem has evolved around their absence and introducing a new predator back into the mix after the fact is going to cause problems elsewhere.
You are making a scientific, ecological claim: "The ecosystem has evolved around their absence."
Zero evidence, zero citation. Where is your data that this is going to harm the ecosystem? I could spout off an opposing view easily, that apex predators enhance ecosystems by culling herds and allowing balance between herbivores and their plant-based food sources.
Your comment highlights the very real and interesting problems of democracy...simply turning over this issue to voters (the vast majority of which have no first hand knowledge of the issue).
That comment is asking for data. At least from that text I don't see them arguing for a vote or not. So that's not a democracy issue, that's someone asking for information.
It's true. Democracy is the worst form of government...besides all the others. Dictatorships and monarchies typically don't place a priority on educated governance either (even if they claim to).
