Really cool article. They show that Wolves create a “landscape of fear” which reduces deer engagement with roads. So wolves do what hunters can’t; not just reducing populations but also changing behavior. Kind of creepy, if you are a deer!
a wolf wrote it.
joking aside the Yellowstone phenomenon gets often cited. We have a long way to go in Europe (cough cough Switzerland, Austria) where the wolf by the rural community is still seen as a huge problem to the way of life (hunting and farming). I wonder if some modern solutions where wolves that are tagged anyway can be combined with trackers on cows/sheep/goats that subscribe to this data, so that the shepherd knows that a wolf is about to approach the herd. The bigger problem in these communities is that hunters have been doing this for generations, I myself come from such a family, my gramps, even my mother my uncle everyone was a hunter. They all believe that the hunter plays an important role in keeping a check on population of deer etc. As Yellowstone has shown reintroducing the wolf hasn't just solved that issue but also brought back types of trees, flowers and biodiversity that was previously lost. All because they allowed apex-predators back to where they were. But try to convince somebody in the countryside about this ... going to be a tough sell.
Don't be silly. That's clearly my grandmother.
here wolves are highly political fights, to kill or not to kill.
usually they get killed.
i think wolves are just part of the political apparatus here, i have no idea how deep the hunter lobby goes..., but it is a fact that for every government, be it green or far right, the trigger is easy. we don't like wolves here, keep your paw out of our peaceful country.
(if you are a wolf that specializes in oil / food / ore trading, please be welcome in our country! did you know we are famous for chocolate?! you're office is waiting for you , it has a nice view on Zürich's iconic Bahnhofstrasse.)
“In Europe and North America we only found evidence for 12 attacks (with 14 victims), of which 2 (both in North America) were fatal, across a period of 18 years. Considering that there are close to 60.000 wolves in North America and 15.000 in Europe, all sharing space with hun- dreds of millions of people it is apparent that the risks associated with a wolf attack are above zero, but far too low to calculate”
1: https://brage.nina.no/nina-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2729...
100% the same situation in Scandinavia. Wolves would also probably help with the wild Boar problem in Sweden.
> Many Swedish farmers are affected by wild boar that cultivate arable land and eat crops.
> According to an action plan from the Swedish Farmers' Association, LRF, this involves
> damages of SEK 1.1 billion per year.
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-09-25-wild-boar-a-bil...
> The main threat to wild boars are humans, but sometimes wild boar also fall prey to lynx,
> bears and wolves but only the later is of greater importance. In some areas in Italy for
> example wild boars are the main prey to wolves, but since the distribution of wild boar and
> wolves are not really overlapping in Sweden this has not been demonstrated in Sweden yet. In
> future, if the wolves are spreading southward and wild boars continue to spread up north, we
> may see this happen in Sweden as well.
http://files.webb.uu.se/uploader/271/BIOKand-13-025-Duck-Lov...
All traditions related to wolf cults and werewolf stories are more or less related to local people having to deal with wolves as animals on a daily basis.
Or so I've read :).
This landscape of fear is interesting concept.
Probably because unlike America this continent doesn't have wild nature anymore just carefully curated,designed and scripted parks.
There are many projects currently underway, introducing these dogs to America, Europe and Africa, as an alternative to killing on sight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangal_Shepherd_Dog https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/kangal-soldier-of-the-s...
Steven Rinella talks with Dr. Kevin Monteith, Dr. Matt Kaufmann, Jared Oakleaf, and Janis Putelis.
Subjects discussed: genetics that rewrite our understanding of animals; big game guts; learning how to migrate; who pays for wildlife research?; brain scrambling, extreme sports, and wildlife capture; advancing modern wildlife management; etc.
I only read the abstract but I wonder if this was accounted for in the article. Sure, it’s plausible that wolves lead to fewer deer-vehicle collisions, and that is a economic benefit. But what is the cost of decreasing humans’ willingness to enter the woods?
I'm not saying no one is afraid of going outdoors because of the wolves, but that fear would be completely irrational. Your chances of twisting your ankle badly enough that you get caught out and die of exposure are many orders of magnitude greater.
Edit to add: as an additional anecdote, we get a ton of tourists coming here to head outdoors because of their interest in the wolves and hopes of seeing one.
- A black bear suddenly charge toward me around a blind bend, stopping maybe 15-20 feet away, staring for a while before it took off down the side of the mountain
- A moose walk calmly by me, not much more than an arm’s length away
Both were absolutely terrifying experiences. Objectively, the bear encounter was probably the more dangerous (it was clearly startled so potentially unpredictable), but both the proximity and the casualness of the moose’s approach scared me much more.
Significant dog bites affect tens of millions of people globally each year. It is estimated that 2% of the U.S. population, 4.5–4.7 million people, are bitten by dogs each year. Most bites occur in children. Between 2005 and 2018 approximately 471 people were killed by dog bites in the United States, averaging 37 deaths per year.
Wolves are really shy around humans so I don’t think there is any real threat to humans or our pets (as long as we keep our pets close to us). There is only the perception of threat but humans tend to adopt, and I don’t think this perception would last longer then a year or two and soon enough outdoor activities would resume to previous levels.
Less really expensive wildfires.
This made me laugh! I think this applies to any animal that is prey.