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Wolf defenders offer theory, not science
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| Reg LeQuieu is a long-time Klamath County resident and county assessor. |
published April 7, 2003
By Reg LeQuieu
In responding to my Jan. 6 commentary in the Herald and News ("Wolf Arithmetic"), Andrea Lorek Strauss, information and education director of the International Wolf Center, suggests in her Feb. 19 letter that I should consider some additional "facts" before drawing such dramatic conclusions.
Since publication in the Herald and News, four additional newspapers have published my commentary. Additionally, I have heard from three professional biologists corroborating my research and conclusions and commending my courage in presenting the facts. They have forwarded to me research from Yellowstone National Park, Montana and Idaho.
The research clearly reveals that each wolf kills an average of 18.36 elk, deer, moose, antelope or bighorn sheep per year. The 300 wolves in Idaho killed 5,400 elk in 2002. In Yellowstone they have reduced the elk herd from 20,000 animals to 9,500. They apparently have eliminated moose from Yellowstone. They apparently have reduced the bighorn sheep herd from 300 to 50 animals, and both the mule deer and antelope herds are in trouble. So far only the park buffalo seem to be holding their own. It is nice to have additional scientists further endorse my research.
In the face of these facts, Strauss suggests "elk, moose and deer possess many strategies to survive in the face of predation by wolves." That is true - also irrelevant. No strategy will reduce what a wolf has to eat to survive. No strategy will reduce the kill below 18.36 animals per wolf each year. Interestingly, the research reveals wolf kills consist of 40 percent fawns and calves, 35 percent cows and 20 percent bulls (with 5 percent undetermined).
Drought to blame?
She suggests that the reason for the decline of prey species since wolf reintroduction and the low cow-calf ratios of recent years is due to "the past five years of drought" rather than the presence of predator species.
When the biologists are asked, they respond by saying that the last five years has not been drought, only the last two. However, they add that the mild winters during this time favor elk and calf survival without adversely affecting fertility, breeding, calving or nursing, and the lack of deep snow makes it more difficult for the wolves to successfully hunt - though successful they have been.
The point is that the mild winters favor higher elk cow-calf ratios. It is the wolf that is decimating the elk not the mild winters.
And then she sets her own trap by dragging out the old myth that both predator and prey were bountiful when Lewis and Clark explored the region.
I have read the original journals as well as a biographical account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The reading is both fascinating and instructive, and I would commend it to Strauss. It is true that both prey and predator were plentiful during the early summer as the expedition ascended the Missouri River. But when they reached the Rocky Mountains in late summer, the game began to disappear and, as they crossed the continental divide, the expedition was reduced to eating fish, and sometimes horses and dogs, to survive. They then encountered deer and bighorn sheep along the Snake and Columbia Rivers, but could find almost no game as they passed through the Cascades and Coast Range. Their winter at the mouth of the Columbia would have seen their navels rapidly approach their backbones were it not for the salmon and the benevolence of local Indians.
The reason both prey and predator were so abundant along the Missouri River that summer is that they had just migrated from wintering grounds far to the south and congregated along the Missouri.
According to their history, the plains Indians had (as had all native peoples) also experienced years when game was scarce. Each fall they burned vast areas of the Great Plains to attract the herds of buffalo, elk and antelope to fresh succulent grass. Each year they worried until the animals appeared on the horizon because the animals did not always return. Sometimes the predator species had reduced the great herds. As this happened, then the predator species would begin to die of starvation until its numbers were reduced to the point the prey species could repopulate. As that happened, the predator numbers would also recover, and so the cruel cycle would go.
It appears, from all the evidence, that the Lewis and Clark expedition caught the prey species at the high end of that cycle.
As the mountain men and trappers followed Lewis and Clark west, they extended the years of high prey-species numbers by controlling the predator species better than the Indians could. Then, as we all know, the greatest buffalo herds of all time that resulted from this predator management were systematically slaughtered by market hunters for short-term profit and by Indian haters for long-term control of the plains. But I digress.
Population much higher
The one factor that has changed the most dramatically since the early 1800s, and is undoubtedly the most important to our consideration of wolf-human interaction, is that the human population west of the Mississippi River was about 3 percent of the 150 million people who inhabit this area today. There were very few people to compete with the wolves - to say that has now changed would be classic understatement.
Further, the prey species enjoyed the wide open plains with its abundant grass and browse, which supported a much higher density of prey species than the mountains and western deserts into which they have now been pushed. Now the prey species cannot see the predators from a great distance. The mountains and timber and relatively lower population density of prey species have changed the entire relationship between predator - especially the wolf - and prey (to the detriment of the prey species).
Hunters don't like the growing competition of the wolves for two reasons: It reduces our own recreational opportunities and it increases animal cruelty. Our position is win-win for us and the animals. The position of those who want to re-establish wolves is lose-lose - we lose recreational opportunities and prey species lose humane treatment. And all people will eventually lose the opportunity to see abundant prey species like moose, elk, deer, antelope and bighorn sheep.
Again, the defenders of wolves say their position is scientifically based. Again they offer no science, only theories (and in some cases outright lies) that scientific research over time is disproving.
The fact is that, contrary to my critic's assertions, wolves and current human populations in the United States have never coexisted and, in fact, will never successfully coexist. Hunters, prey species and animal lovers all have too much at stake.
By Reg LeQuieu
In responding to my Jan. 6 commentary in the Herald and News ("Wolf Arithmetic"), Andrea Lorek Strauss, information and education director of the International Wolf Center, suggests in her Feb. 19 letter that I should consider some additional "facts" before drawing such dramatic conclusions.
Since publication in the Herald and News, four additional newspapers have published my commentary. Additionally, I have heard from three professional biologists corroborating my research and conclusions and commending my courage in presenting the facts. They have forwarded to me research from Yellowstone National Park, Montana and Idaho.
The research clearly reveals that each wolf kills an average of 18.36 elk, deer, moose, antelope or bighorn sheep per year. The 300 wolves in Idaho killed 5,400 elk in 2002. In Yellowstone they have reduced the elk herd from 20,000 animals to 9,500. They apparently have eliminated moose from Yellowstone. They apparently have reduced the bighorn sheep herd from 300 to 50 animals, and both the mule deer and antelope herds are in trouble. So far only the park buffalo seem to be holding their own. It is nice to have additional scientists further endorse my research.
In the face of these facts, Strauss suggests "elk, moose and deer possess many strategies to survive in the face of predation by wolves." That is true - also irrelevant. No strategy will reduce what a wolf has to eat to survive. No strategy will reduce the kill below 18.36 animals per wolf each year. Interestingly, the research reveals wolf kills consist of 40 percent fawns and calves, 35 percent cows and 20 percent bulls (with 5 percent undetermined).
Drought to blame?
She suggests that the reason for the decline of prey species since wolf reintroduction and the low cow-calf ratios of recent years is due to "the past five years of drought" rather than the presence of predator species.
When the biologists are asked, they respond by saying that the last five years has not been drought, only the last two. However, they add that the mild winters during this time favor elk and calf survival without adversely affecting fertility, breeding, calving or nursing, and the lack of deep snow makes it more difficult for the wolves to successfully hunt - though successful they have been.
The point is that the mild winters favor higher elk cow-calf ratios. It is the wolf that is decimating the elk not the mild winters.
And then she sets her own trap by dragging out the old myth that both predator and prey were bountiful when Lewis and Clark explored the region.
I have read the original journals as well as a biographical account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The reading is both fascinating and instructive, and I would commend it to Strauss. It is true that both prey and predator were plentiful during the early summer as the expedition ascended the Missouri River. But when they reached the Rocky Mountains in late summer, the game began to disappear and, as they crossed the continental divide, the expedition was reduced to eating fish, and sometimes horses and dogs, to survive. They then encountered deer and bighorn sheep along the Snake and Columbia Rivers, but could find almost no game as they passed through the Cascades and Coast Range. Their winter at the mouth of the Columbia would have seen their navels rapidly approach their backbones were it not for the salmon and the benevolence of local Indians.
The reason both prey and predator were so abundant along the Missouri River that summer is that they had just migrated from wintering grounds far to the south and congregated along the Missouri.
According to their history, the plains Indians had (as had all native peoples) also experienced years when game was scarce. Each fall they burned vast areas of the Great Plains to attract the herds of buffalo, elk and antelope to fresh succulent grass. Each year they worried until the animals appeared on the horizon because the animals did not always return. Sometimes the predator species had reduced the great herds. As this happened, then the predator species would begin to die of starvation until its numbers were reduced to the point the prey species could repopulate. As that happened, the predator numbers would also recover, and so the cruel cycle would go.
It appears, from all the evidence, that the Lewis and Clark expedition caught the prey species at the high end of that cycle.
As the mountain men and trappers followed Lewis and Clark west, they extended the years of high prey-species numbers by controlling the predator species better than the Indians could. Then, as we all know, the greatest buffalo herds of all time that resulted from this predator management were systematically slaughtered by market hunters for short-term profit and by Indian haters for long-term control of the plains. But I digress.
Population much higher
The one factor that has changed the most dramatically since the early 1800s, and is undoubtedly the most important to our consideration of wolf-human interaction, is that the human population west of the Mississippi River was about 3 percent of the 150 million people who inhabit this area today. There were very few people to compete with the wolves - to say that has now changed would be classic understatement.
Further, the prey species enjoyed the wide open plains with its abundant grass and browse, which supported a much higher density of prey species than the mountains and western deserts into which they have now been pushed. Now the prey species cannot see the predators from a great distance. The mountains and timber and relatively lower population density of prey species have changed the entire relationship between predator - especially the wolf - and prey (to the detriment of the prey species).
Hunters don't like the growing competition of the wolves for two reasons: It reduces our own recreational opportunities and it increases animal cruelty. Our position is win-win for us and the animals. The position of those who want to re-establish wolves is lose-lose - we lose recreational opportunities and prey species lose humane treatment. And all people will eventually lose the opportunity to see abundant prey species like moose, elk, deer, antelope and bighorn sheep.
Again, the defenders of wolves say their position is scientifically based. Again they offer no science, only theories (and in some cases outright lies) that scientific research over time is disproving.
The fact is that, contrary to my critic's assertions, wolves and current human populations in the United States have never coexisted and, in fact, will never successfully coexist. Hunters, prey species and animal lovers all have too much at stake.
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| Do humans have the right to kill and eat other species? |
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