Author Topic: Wolves in Yellowstone  (Read 13713 times)

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Offline kleinpm

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #45 on: March 07, 2014, 03:19:28 pm »
Patrick, I think it was more a matter of climate for the coastal wolves. That area has a more moderate climate than central Alaska.

That could be it too! Maybe the point is that within the same species there can be significant size variance due to a host of factors.

Patrick

Offline PatM

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #46 on: March 07, 2014, 03:48:57 pm »
 You just have to look at Dogs to see what possibilities the wolf genome can accomplish.

Offline Dharma

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #47 on: March 07, 2014, 04:08:20 pm »
PatM, one difference is that those wolves did not naturally migrate there even if it postulated that they could have. The other difference is that reintroducing a species that once inhabited an area but hasn't for quite some time can be the same as introducing a non-native species because the other species have already adapted to it not being there. The Woolly Mammoth was once native to North America, but what would happen if we introduced elephants and thought it would be the same thing? Or if we cloned the Woolly Mammoth and thought that would be the same as before? Horses once inhabited North America, disappeared due to hunting or other factors, and was reintroduced by the Spanish. That resulted in a paradigm shift among Native cultures who acquired it and thus their hunting strategies. And ultimately culminated in part of the need by ranchers later on to eradicate wolves to protect horse herds from predation.
An arrow knows only the life its maker breathes into it...

Offline PatM

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #48 on: March 07, 2014, 04:44:53 pm »
The species being preyed on wouldn't adapt that fast. Even domesticated animals haven't forgotten their basic fear of predators. I think people forget that the wolves hadn't been gone that long from Yellowstone. Far less than 100 years.
 You can't compare wild horses and Mammoth's to that.

Offline paulsemp

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #49 on: March 07, 2014, 06:57:16 pm »
Glad to read this as I learned a lot. Don't really have any facts to add nor the experience. The one thing I will say is that modern man forgot a long time ago how to live in harmony with the earth. Every thing that we have changed will never be as it was. We can try to play god by reintroducing animals but I don't think the ecosystem will change as fast as we can breed and truck in animals. I guess my bottom line is that we should take care of what we have left and I don't think  mother nature cares what we do to it cause when she is sick of us she'll get rid of humans and then it will be earth + plastic. I don't think we are capable of truly figuring out what best  for a ecosystem that took millennia to develop.


Offline SLIMBOB

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #50 on: March 07, 2014, 08:20:55 pm »
This all sounds good, and I hope that it's true.  Hayden Valley is my favorite place on the planet!  But when something leads people to claim that "man destroys whatever he touches" and "nature will repair what man has destroyed" you've lost me as an advocate.  Pure nonsense on every level.
Liberty, In God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum.  Distinctly American Values.

Offline Dharma

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #51 on: March 07, 2014, 10:47:16 pm »
I'm not saying wolves don't belong there or can't play a part. What I'm saying is this isn't the same as running down to Napa and getting a distributor cap for a 72 Chevy pickup where it doesn't have to be the factory-made original. There aren't drop-in replacements for biological species. Take the honeybee, for example. If that insect went extinct, along with it would go numerous flowering plants, in fact, a great deal of our food supply. We can't think that we can drop in more hummingbirds and call it good. With the wolves, yes, you can drop in an analogue species. But that doesn't make it the same as before. Man, in his hubris, can't assume problem solved, it's all good, we made it all better again, and call it a day. There are unintended consequences. Like Rumsfeld once said, there's things we know, things we don't know, and things we don't know that we don't know. Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

In the case of the wolf, there are, of course, a lot of emotions behind it. One faction tends to romanticize the wolf into something it truly isn't. They see this animal as proud and noble. Like when the Bald Eagle was selected to be our national symbol, it was assumed this was a noble animal that earned an honest living fishing. They didn't observe it long enough to see it scavenging carcasses. And now it'll hang around landfills to garner edibles there. And the wolf occupies a very high place in the human psyche because we tend to anthropomorphize it and assign it human values, as we do with many other animals we see as noble. It's no wonder so many people have this animal as a totem as opposed to a raccoon, squirrel, skunk, or an opossum. All these things that inhabit our subconscious in Jungian fashion combine to create the "perfect storm", as it were, to reintroduce first and ask questions later.

Another faction believes the wolf was wiped out for valid reasons and bringing them back presents the same challenges that led to spending so much time and resources to accomplish that goal. They tend to romanticize their own role as stalwart defenders of order and civilizing factors. They settled the land and made it safe for farming, ranching, and picnicking in the woods without Little Johnny being carted off for a midday snack by a pack of wolves. Nature has extreme limits and man has dominion over it all and, thus, we can and should do anything we want because we have the guns and brains.

Another faction seeks to bring science into the fray, forgetting that science also brought us nuclear weapons and is, ergo, not infallible in being able to recognize unforeseen consequences of allegedly good science. This faction also forgets that Nature does not necessarily follow what we believe to be science because science does not hold all the answers as to how the planet works, much less the entire universe. What was science 500 years ago isn't science now in many cases, but superstition and wrong conclusions based on what they knew or thought they knew at the time. When the hydrogen bomb was being developed, some scientists feared a cascade reaction that might destroy the planet but went ahead and developed it anyway. This is important to remember. Science doesn't necessarily act in humanity's---or the ecosystem's---best interest. Enter into this equation game management officials who believe in "scientific game management" strategies as if the planet limped along bereft of guidance, balance, wisdom, and direction for billions of years until fish & game agencies manifested. Of course game agencies protect the wilderness areas. But they are not always the final words of wisdom on the matter when these agencies start being staffed by people with a political or emotion-driven agenda. Then these people shoehorn science (or what passes for it, truth be told) into the debate to support their own personal wants and desires or to support those of various political officials who seek to get involved and whose wildlife knowledge descends from having seen Bambi and various other Disney interpretations of the natural world. If their funding is increased by supporting, say, introducing Meerkats into the Sequoia National Forest, they'll dig up some scientific tidbit to support that. One also has to question what the actual agenda and goal of wolf reintroduction is. Is this an effort to restore an area, or the ham-handed attempt of anti-hunting factions to manage game without human hunters? This is a valid question that needs to be asked. Who drives these efforts? Who funds them, aside from the game agencies? Who is getting together the petitions and why?

Finally, we have to ask the questions of what happens when the experiment (because that's what it is, really) goes pear-shaped? Do we just wash our hands of it, or not? Do we keep trying it if it fails? Or can we accept that we acted perhaps wrongly in the past and decide to put more effort into protecting the species that are in danger right now that we can---and should---save? Not to say we shouldn't act to save the wolf. We should and must. But we need more than emotion from all the factions involved. 
An arrow knows only the life its maker breathes into it...

Offline PatM

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #52 on: March 07, 2014, 11:59:51 pm »
The honey bee is an introduced species itself. If it was gone, things would be "back to normal".
 One thing we certainly blow out of proportion is the cost for these reintroductions. After all the money spent it seems like we still got it wrong.
  The actual cost of just trapping a bunch of the Rocky Mountain variety of Wolves and dropping them in the park could certainly have been much cheaper.
 The world we live in today demands that about five levels of authority are required to be paid before something gets done incorrectly.
 It's mostly about creating jobs or making jobs justifiable.

Offline Dharma

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #53 on: March 08, 2014, 12:34:44 am »
Correct, PatM. Once a species is introduced, nothing goes back to what one terms "normal".
An arrow knows only the life its maker breathes into it...

Offline bushboy

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #54 on: March 08, 2014, 12:24:11 pm »
on a lighter note. :)
Some like motorboats,I like kayaks,some like guns,I like bows,but not the wheelie type.

Offline H Rhodes

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #55 on: March 08, 2014, 01:02:35 pm »
Howard
Gautier, Mississippi

Offline Tom Kurth

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #56 on: March 09, 2014, 10:14:56 pm »
Someone stated that they had learned a lot from this thread. Be careful when you assume that anything you have read here is factual. I will not call anyone out as I am no expert on wolves, but some very quick research contradicted some of what I read. Not trying to stir trouble just prefer to get facts from authoritative sources.
Best,
Tom

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Offline mullet

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #57 on: March 09, 2014, 10:41:53 pm »
Someone stated that they had learned a lot from this thread. Be careful when you assume that anything you have read here is factual. I will not call anyone out as I am no expert on wolves, but some very quick research contradicted some of what I read. Not trying to stir trouble just prefer to get facts from authoritative sources.
I'm with you, Tom. Hopefully, everyone knows what, "assume", means? They are introducing Red wolves down here,, in the largest area of cattle ranches in Florida. Sounds like a waste of Tax dollars to me.
Lakeland, Florida
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Offline paulsemp

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #58 on: March 10, 2014, 01:04:38 am »
Someone stated that they had learned a lot from this thread. Be careful when you assume that anything you have read here is factual. I will not call anyone out as I am no expert on wolves, but some very quick research contradicted some of what I read.ot trying to stir trouble just prefer to get facts from authoritative sources.

When I said "I learned a lot from this thread"  it was geared at all the opinions out there. It nice to hear from people that live and see what the media and government won't say. I am no expert on this topic by any means but can't imagine one could come up with a cut and dry answer of reintroduction of spieces being a success in a short period of time.





Offline bowsandroses

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Re: Wolves in Yellowstone
« Reply #59 on: March 10, 2014, 01:11:10 am »
Trouble is the way I see it there is way to many people get involved with people and areas and echo systems they know nothing about. You see it all starts with an idea and that idea is passed on to others through avocation and soon it is a group that advocates the idea further(not normally so much with the locals). This Idea gets crammed down a bunch of peaceful hard working hick folk(like myself) This idea has already spread like a cancer and before we know what hit us we are in what seems like inoperable stage 4. The people on top really don't care a lot about what happens in the long run because by God it was there idea and they now have the support financial backing via followers of the idea to pay the lawyers and politics who follow money not right or wrong. As long as the followers pay they continue the fight and those that manage the fight weaponry(money) rake it in. Out here in the west we see it with Oh so precious mustang, the timber, the cougar, the bear and now many parts the wolf. What we the people who truly live and work these rural vast area see is the wild life is minimal compared two twenty years ago in places beyond belief. we have less live stock on the forest we have fenced huge riparian areas along the creeks and rivers to keep the live stock back lost water rights literally bent over backwards to please the masses and the nation which by large we feed. thus resulting in less live stock less agriculture higher food prices less of which are grown locally and more that comes from other countries, Many of whom would rather see us Americans dead than alive. Fish and wild life agencies still sale a high amount of tags for the animals disappearing we have far more baron black skeletons' of what was once a mighty forest than we ever logged and still the owl has faired not better but worse. We see a lot more bear and cougar especially in towns and around homes because pets and live stock are easier pray than the scattered scared of their own shadow wild life. Still those who venture out once in a while or not at all pay the bill to keep the fight going. We are few they are many our resources like wise. But I must ask when we grow our last crop, slaughter our last steer prepare our last supper do you think we will send it to you. When you open your imported fruits, vegetables, meats do you ever wonder did they know it was headed to America did they add something other than a blessing do you know? My bottom line is if you don't live and partake in an area you should not advocate what happens in that area. I don't say or advocate what goes on in Main, Florida or even the Willamette Valley in my own state. It is a different area than east of the Cascades climate, water, entire echo system different. If every body had this common sense then things would go far better.
My two cents worth of wisdom
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A man who speaks to critters is a man with an audience who listens
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