[HN Gopher] Wolves make roadways safer
___________________________________________________________________
Wolves make roadways safer
Author : ingve
Score : 385 points
Date : 2021-11-21 13:51 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pnas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org)
| wpietri wrote:
| As somebody who grew up one state over, I can totally believe
| this. Deer collision featured importantly driver's ed and my
| thoughts for highway driving, especially in twilight and dark.
| Anybody who has ever had a squirrel run out in front of you knows
| the feeling, except here the squirrel can do 30 mph and weighs as
| much as a person.
| itronitron wrote:
| In many areas of the US hunting deer while they are in season
| is considered a civic duty as most people have hit one at some
| point or another.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| As much as a person!? A big deer can get to 300 lbs. And in
| some parts of the country Elk and Moose are a large concern.
| I'll never forget seeing my 16 year old friends truck after he
| hit an elk.
| [deleted]
| fortran77 wrote:
| > As much as a person!? A big deer can get to 300 lbs
|
| Visit a Walmart. Or go to Walt Disney World. Or a Las Vegas
| casino. You'll see what he means.
| nawgz wrote:
| A big person can get up to 300 pounds easily too, this isn't
| 1970 pal this is an obesity epidemic
| spockz wrote:
| What was 16 years old? Your friend, the truck, or both?
|
| Over here it most likely is a total loss for the car.
| robocat wrote:
| I presumed the friendship was 16 years old. English is the
| worst language, just like all the other languages.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| According to English's ordering of adjectives[1], the
| friend is sixteen years old. If the truck were 16 years old
| the phrase would have been "my friend's 16 year old truck".
|
| [1] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/adjective-order/
| wpietri wrote:
| Yes, as much as a person. Mean white-tailed deer weight in
| table 3 here is circa 50 kilos for females and circa 60 kilos
| for males: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260674293
| _The_Kinzu...
|
| For humans males, 300 pounds is in the 97th percentile for
| weight: https://dqydj.com/weight-percentile-calculator-men-
| women/
| nkurz wrote:
| > Mean white-tailed deer weight in table 3 here is circa 50
| kilos for females and circa 60 kilos for males: > https://w
| ww.researchgate.net/publication/260674293_The_Kinzu...
|
| You're not wrong, but since it's not really made explicit
| in the paper, I'll mention that since they are measuring
| these weights at the check-in stations, these are almost
| certainly the "field dressed weights". After killing a
| deer, the hunter usually removes the internal organs from
| the chest cavity before moving the deer. The actual live
| weight of the deer is will be about 1/3 higher. A 55 kg
| (120 lb) deer at the check in station will thus actually
| weigh closer to 70 kg (150 lb) when live:
| https://www.pgc.pa.gov/Wildlife/WildlifeSpecies/White-
| tailed....
| wpietri wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. I assumed this was full body
| weight because of the inclusion of fauns. I never was a
| deer hunter but grew up around them and I had no idea
| some people shoot fauns! Maybe it wasn't legal where I
| was at the time? Or maybe it just wasn't done? But now
| that I look further I see otherwise.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I think you mean fawns, not fauns.
| bboreham wrote:
| Poor Mr Tumnus!
| wpietri wrote:
| Oh deer.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| 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!
| novok wrote:
| Very curious what was the conditions behind human hunting in
| the article. Did the area have unlimited deer hunting w/ no
| license renewals required? When I tried deer hunting once I
| noticed that the deer were not in the areas where we were
| allowed to hunt, and were very plentiful in areas we were not
| allowed to hunt.
| m0ngr31 wrote:
| Deer are pretty smart like that. Where I live there are deer
| all over about 2 weeks before hunting season. Then they
| dissapear into the hills. They just started coming back now
| that the hunt is over.
| geenew wrote:
| The same is true for humans, though - the presence of wolves
| adds to human fear of the wilderness.
|
| 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?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You're hypothesizing something ("decreasing humans'
| willingness to enter the woods"). Do you have any evidence
| for it?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Or willingness to buy a hunting license.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Wolves are not a serious threat to outdoor recreation. The
| presence of wolves in an area will have little effect on my
| willingness to hike there. I hike in mountain lion country,
| so what? I'd be a bit leery of being out there alone after
| dark, but during the day I don't care.
| runarberg wrote:
| Is there any evidence that there is a sustained decrease in
| human outdoor activities in areas where wolves have been
| reintroduced? I kind of doubt it.
|
| 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.
| brainfish wrote:
| I live about 20 miles from ground zero of the original
| Yellowstone wolf reintroduction. I am an avid outdoorsperson
| and have never had an on-foot encounter with a wolf. They are
| exceedingly shy around humans; in the 25 years since the
| reintroduction there hasn't been a single attack on a human
| in Yellowstone despite both humans and wolves being literally
| everywhere in the area.
|
| 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.
| dtheodor wrote:
| You are basing the statement "fear of wolves is completely
| irrational" on your experience as an outdoorsperson and 25
| years of yellowstone. This is not a good basis. Wolves had
| lived in huge populations and had been in conflict with
| humans for thousands of years, with human casualties.
| Humans were very much afraid of wolves, and rightly so.
| Physically weak and isolated humans such as children and
| elderly are prime targets of wolf attacks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wolf_attacks
| tw04 wrote:
| Not to mention grizzly bears and bison(bison mostly due to
| idiots thinking they are tame) are both a far greater
| threat than the wolves. If you're worried about wolves in
| Yellowstone you're worried about the wrong thing.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| I'm afraid of running into bears by accident while trail-
| running in areas with lots of black bears (not even brown!
| I'm a sissy), and meanwhile I had a run-in with a bull
| moose on a narrow mountain ledge and had to scramble up the
| mountain and hide behind a tree.... but I'm still not as
| afraid of moose as I am bears, even though I know moose are
| much more dangerous! So fear is weird and often irrational.
| We should probably assume that just telling people rational
| things about their fears won't assuage them.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| The one time I pulled out my bear spray was for a moose.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I have had:
|
| - 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.
| slavik81 wrote:
| That video of a moose running through waist deep snow is
| my canonical example of impressive feats of moose. I
| would not want to anger one.
| https://youtu.be/6GEhM2Byk7w?t=1m
| pvaldes wrote:
| > what is the cost of decreasing humans' willingness to enter
| the woods?
|
| Less really expensive wildfires.
| DeBraid wrote:
| Related, an excellent podcast episode by that name "Landscape
| of Fear" from Meateater:
| https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-162-landsca...
|
| 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.
| scottndecker wrote:
| Love seeing some MeatEater pop up on my HN feed :)
| swayvil wrote:
| Ya, I wonder how our present landscape of fear is affecting our
| behavior. No doubt it's been studied thoroughly
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| It's also a HUGE political thing in the US. GOP candidates make
| lots of commercials with themselves killing wolves, because it
| is such a visceral wedge issue between left/right. I recall VP
| Candidate Sara Palin went on a helicopter wolf-shooting trip
| for a photo op in 2008. In the US it is considered masculine to
| kill wolves and the GOP likes that, and it also satisfies
| another voting block: ranchers who complain about their
| livelihoods being lost to too many predators. It's quite
| amazing to see this wedge issue in action, because it involves
| watching animals die for political points.
| felipemnoa wrote:
| >>Kind of creepy, if you are a deer!
|
| This made me laugh! I think this applies to any animal that is
| prey.
| frabbit wrote:
| Was just skimming the comments and title before reading the
| article. Your summary has made me go read the article.
| frabbit wrote:
| Or not. $10 for the PDF. Maybe I can find it on SciHub.
| Still, I liked your summary. Thanks.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > Really cool article.
|
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That's nice and all, but aren't wolves dangerous? How many
| humans being attacked by wolves is an acceptable number?
| [deleted]
| aryik wrote:
| Quite simply, no wolves aren't dangerous. There were 12
| wolf attacks from 2002-2020 in Europe and North America:
| [1]
|
| "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...
| pvaldes wrote:
| Much less dangerous than deer, it seems.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| you say that, but let's swap every deer for a wolf and
| see where things land! xD
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's an ongoing fight in Northern Michigan and Wisconsin.
| Y-bar wrote:
| > 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).
|
| 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...
| barrenko wrote:
| And to the southeast, to Croatia and Serbia where for example
| the beginning and the end of winter in the Orthodox calendar
| are marked by saints that are called the "wolf apostles".
|
| 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.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| We make tens of thousands of shish kebab every week but sheep
| killed by wolves is a big drama for some reason.
|
| Probably because unlike America this continent doesn't have
| wild nature anymore just carefully curated,designed and
| scripted parks.
| wffurr wrote:
| Shish kebab are money in ranchers' pockets. Wolves are seen
| as stealing from them.
| Igelau wrote:
| > a wolf wrote it
|
| Don't be silly. That's clearly my grandmother.
| yoaviram wrote:
| Attribution is always a problem.
| immmmmm wrote:
| i'm swiss, i can confirm there is a long way to go here. for
| instance a nature photographer got arrested by police, got
| his material confiscated, on sole speculation that he was
| doing diffamation against hunters. literally treated worse
| than a terrorist just for just saying wolves and nature are
| important.
|
| 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 Zurich's iconic Bahnhofstrasse.)
| jmartrican wrote:
| That landscape of fear will keep humans out too.
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| I can't tell if you mean this in a negative way or a positive
| one.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| How long till deer hunters decide they need to hunt wolf to
| remotivate deer hunting? (I thought of this immediately as some
| hunters I know have absurd justifications for it being useful
| for ecosystems)
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I read something before how they change the flow of rivers.
| Basically predation by wolves changes the feeding behaviour of
| deer and other animals, which changes the type of vegetations
| that grows along river banks and creeks, and that can change the
| shape of a river.
| kiba wrote:
| I would like to suggest we cede more of our land to nature, and
| increasing the amount of uninterrupted wilderness.
|
| But that's going to not be popular with a lot of people because
| it means deciding what area we get to live in or don't. Some
| towns are going to be removed for lack of sustainability.
|
| For this to work, we would need to also improve our land use
| policies in the towns and cities we currently live in.
| mrfusion wrote:
| If we opened up zoning for denser housing this might just
| happen on its own.
| Gigachad wrote:
| It would be incredible if we could give up endless sprawling
| suburbs for smaller high density areas right next to nature.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > amount of uninterrupted wilderness.
|
| Towns are not the problem, highways are. Specifically
| interstates and other roads built to that standards.
| kiba wrote:
| Roads lead to towns. You might need to remove these towns
| before you could disconnect the roads.
|
| Highways and interstates are problematic, yes, but they often
| take away lands in suburban areas as opposed to the
| wilderness.
| Aperocky wrote:
| But random towns in the middle of nowhere are not connected
| by such highways.
|
| Speaking as someone who ran over a deer a few months back
| on a smaller road that connects these community. All kinds
| of animals cross these roads regularly and usually without
| impediments, can't be said for an interstate.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| You could just have dirt roads. The problem isn't the road
| per se it's the crazy fast cars on the road. If cars rode
| at 12mph like they do on dirt roads, at about the speed a
| deer can gallop, that's like 25x less kinetic energy and if
| you hit a deer it'll bump and keep going.
| rascul wrote:
| > If cars rode at 12mph like they do on dirt roads
|
| Cars are often driven at 40mph and faster on dirt roads
| around here. Bigger dirt roads would see increased
| speeds.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Here in Alberta I regularly do 80-100 km/h on dirt roads
| where conditions allow.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Cars frequently drive 100 km/h on dirt roads.
| Particularly in places like rural South Dakota, where
| it's almost _all_ dirt roads.
| donarb wrote:
| There is now an effort to provide passage for animals across
| highways using overpasses/underpasses. Though not feasible
| everywhere, they are usually placed near known migration
| routes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing
| qchris wrote:
| I suggest you look into the American Prairie Reserve! It's a
| really interesting non-profit located in Montana, which is
| dedicated to creating one of the largest uninterrupted pristine
| North American grassland biomes in the country. They do this
| through the strategic purchase of private tracts of land that
| connect public space (national parks, forests, BLM land, etc.)
| and remove all fences and other migration impediments, while
| still allowing recreational use by people. They even own and
| manage their own herd of American bison!
|
| [1] https://www.americanprairie.org/
| DeBraid wrote:
| There are several initiatives in the hunting and fishing
| community doing this, aka buying land, managing the wilderness,
| and making it available to the public.
|
| * The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, or TRCP, is
| a non-profit 501(c)(3) coalition of conservation organizations,
| grassroots partners and outdoor related businesses, the main
| goal of which is increased federal funding for conservation
| while preserving access for hunters and fishers.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt_Conservatio...
|
| * MeatEater's Land Access Initiative (designed to raise money
| so we can find properties that will provide more access for
| regular folks to hunt and fish)
| https://www.themeateater.com/pages/land-access
|
| (Disclosure: no affiliation)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think this is one of the main division in the US Red
| Tribe/Blue Tribe division.
|
| To Blue Tribe nature is a beautiful park we need to preserve
| and keep untouched. Work is done in an office, producing
| documents.
|
| To Red Tribe nature is a source of raw materials to produce
| food, metals, power, etc. Work is taming and harvesting the
| resources of nature.
|
| Blue Tribe keeps adding wilderness restrictions, which keeps
| taking away ways for Red Tribe to make a living, increasing
| rural poverty, and feeding resentment.
|
| I hope that makes sense.
| dudul wrote:
| And yet, blue tribe is the one who lives surrounded by metal
| and concrete while red tribe enjoys wide open spaces. See,
| caricature goes both ways.
| b3morales wrote:
| I think this is badly oversimplified and is maybe showing
| your own bias a bit -- though I'm probably going to struggle
| to address it without showing mine in turn (and maybe it's
| just mine reading it in your comment).
|
| Your "Blue wilderness restrictions", writ large, are exactly
| based on a recognition that
|
| > nature is a source of raw materials to produce food,
| metals, power, etc.
|
| I think the policy differences arise downstream from that.
| Questions like, how to handle competing resource needs; how
| to manage current or future scarcity; and ultimately some
| disagreement about whether these questions even need to be
| asked (i.e. is scarcity of X actually a problem?)
| lettergram wrote:
| 1. Only something like 6% of the US is urban. The majority is
| pasture and forests, which arguably is almost entirely natural.
| The second largest use is crop land.
|
| 2. Deciding where people can live is extremely tyrannical. Many
| people own this land, what's the plan, take their ancestral
| home? That didn't work out well any time in history.
|
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/december/a-primer-...
|
| Every time I see comments like this I come to the same
| conclusion. My bet: you're from a city, young, white collar,
| perhaps grew up in suburbs on a coast?
|
| Nothing wrong with that, but there's a disconnect between those
| living in urban environments vs the country.
| wutwutwutwut wrote:
| > Deciding where people can live is extremely tyrannical.
|
| Can I live in your house?
| xipho wrote:
| > The majority is pasture and forests, which arguably is
| almost entirely natural. The second largest use is crop land.
|
| "Natural" is a black hole for the purpose of debate. Pasture
| is natural if the number of livestock are controlled,
| otherwise look out. Monoculture forests (have you driven
| through the western mountains and seen the beetle damage)
| have issues. Crop land- a massive issue to consider, if you
| want to see the impact just surf the satellite views of the
| US on Google maps, huge swaths of land with not enough
| "natural" in between. It would take very little
| proportionally, but significant (impossible?) effort to build
| in true swaths of "natural" habitat throughout impacted
| areas.
| titzer wrote:
| > 1. Only something like 6% of the US is urban. The majority
| is pasture and forests, which arguably is almost entirely
| natural. The second largest use is crop land.
|
| You have got to be joking, right? Just open Google Maps,
| switch to satellite mode, turn off labels and look at the US
| midwest, particularly Illinois. Any zoom level. Nebraska,
| Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, pretty much everywhere. It's a
| patchwork of farms. Basically all flat parts of the US look
| like this, except for extremely arid areas.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 654M acres pasture/range (35%) 538.6M acres forest
| (28%) 391.5M acres crop (21%) 168.6M acres
| special use (9%) 69.4M acres urban (4%) 68.9M
| acres miscellaneous (4%)
|
| Here is a discussion:
| https://www.npr.org/2019/07/26/745731823/the-u-s-has-
| nearly-...
|
| Here is an article with a pretty graphic:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/
| nitrogen wrote:
| Combining pasture with range seems wrong, if "range" is
| open grazing land. That is wilderness, just with
| livestock on it keeping flammable undergrowth down.
| ummonk wrote:
| "2. Deciding where people can live is extremely tyrannical.
| Many people own this land, what's the plan, take their
| ancestral home? That didn't work out well any time in
| history."
|
| I mean, most of the land ownership in the US was obtained by
| ethnically cleansing the native inhabitants from their
| ancestral lands just a couple centuries ago, so...
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Many people own this land, what's the plan, take their
| ancestral home?
|
| You must be trolling right? You're aware of whose _ancestral_
| lands those are, aren 't you.
|
| Anyway, even if I'm not an advocate of GP's idea, you don't
| have to decide where people live: remote areas' networks
| (energy, water, telco, roads) etc. are heavily subsidized by
| people living in denser areas, shutting down these networks
| would be pretty effective without taking anything from
| anyone. (And this is a pretty good illustration of why the
| libertarian NAP is completely pointless)
| kiba wrote:
| _2. Deciding where people can live is extremely tyrannical.
| Many people own this land, what's the plan, take their
| ancestral home? That didn't work out well any time in
| history._
|
| We are already deciding where people can live. It's called
| zoning, and zoning laws restrict how we can build our homes,
| where we live, and what transportation options we can use.
|
| My proposal seem tyrannical, yes, but I paired it with
| improving human welfare in the land we didn't cede to nature,
| and probably more freedom to build and live overall.
| generalizations wrote:
| > We are already deciding where people can live. It's
| called zoning, and zoning laws restrict how we can build
| our homes, where we live, and what transportation options
| we can use.
|
| Mostly in urban areas. You go to the rural places we're
| talking about, you might find the zoning is minimal to non-
| existent. Implementing zoning would absolutely be a new
| restriction on where people can live, what they can build
| on their property. People in those areas are often used to
| doing nearly whatever they like on their own property -
| short of things that'd be illegal wherever they did them.
| You're proposing to take that away?
| octokatt wrote:
| Crazy talk, what if we started tightening regulation so
| small communities stayed small, and were increasingly built
| and revitalized in ways that benefited both the community
| and the surrounding wildlife?
| matthewowen wrote:
| Over 40% of land in the US is public owned. The federal
| government owns almost half off all land in the western US.
|
| You don't even need to turf people off the land they own -
| just choose to manage more of the land we already own as
| wilderness versus as a resource to be leased to ranchers and
| loggers.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Ranchers and loggers make the land not 'natural'?
|
| It's still massive open space with lots of wildlife.
|
| Why let perfect be the enemy of good?
| nitrogen wrote:
| Moreover the lack of logging caused the last few years'
| massive, out of control wildfires.
| ummonk wrote:
| Loggers prefer to clearcut or cut down larger trees,
| which doesn't help with wildfires. Logging _can_ be
| useful as forest management but it has to be properly
| regulated to achieve that.
| jakear wrote:
| Have you seen ranching and logging land? In general it's
| actually very well managed. I for one like lumber prices on
| the down low so a single digit percentages of managed
| forest land being clear cut per year in a sustainable
| growth cycle doesn't concern me. And while I'm not one for
| beef myself, I love to watch cows graze and when cows are
| held at reasonable density the look and feel of the grazed
| land isn't all that different from nearby "untouched" land
| (keep in mind animals are also grazing that "untouched"
| land!)
| lettergram wrote:
| We used to have bison and what not on prairie land. I
| personally view it as the natural state for much of the
| US.
|
| I am working on setting up my off-grid sustainable farm.
| Cattle are relatively easy to keep if you have some
| average for grazing.
| mrfusion wrote:
| But then we'd have to live around wolves. I like the idea that I
| don't live near large apex predators.
|
| (I know they mostly leave humans alone but it's still
| unsettling.)
| mikestew wrote:
| If it's not wolves, it'll be something else, at least for a lot
| of areas in the western U. S. Just the other day I saw a bobcat
| while I was out running. The dog and I would see coyotes on our
| morning run, so a bobcat isn't surprising. There allegedly are
| cougars around here, but I've never seen one. You won't either,
| until it's too late. :-) And then there's the bears. They're
| not grizzlies, though, so not a huge deal. They do occasionally
| wander through the elementary school yard behind our house,
| though (as does the bobcat).
|
| Oh, yeah, forgot to mention the Alaskan frontier town that I
| call home: Redmond, WA. It's not Australia, but there are a few
| things around here that will give thought to killing you and
| eating you, even in town.
| anthomtb wrote:
| You currently live somewhere that doesn't have any large apex
| predators?
| mcv wrote:
| Well, humans.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| What are you talking about?
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I live in England, and the scariest thing you'll find in the
| countryside is a badger. Our badgers aren't even scary. Well
| - besides other humans and their dogs.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Intermittently, pairs of mushrooms, and sometimes a snake.
| kaybe wrote:
| You don't have wild pigs in the UK?
| pfdietz wrote:
| There are some semi-wild horses, down in the southwest
| (Dartmoor, Exmoor, The New Forest).
| mrob wrote:
| Cows are more dangerous than badgers.
| gondo wrote:
| "they mostly leave humans alone" there is an adult human and
| there is a child human.
| bogwog wrote:
| Are wolf attacks on children a common issue? I don't think
| I've ever heard of that happening.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Coyotes are known to attack children and pets. When I lived
| in the High Desert I didn't hesitate to go out alone after
| dark but my children weren't allowed to do so. IIRC, there
| had been two or three attacks on children in the previous
| five years (edit: in the area I was living).
| zdragnar wrote:
| Isn't that the point? You don't hear about it because there
| aren't any wolves, and where there are wolves, you change
| your behavior ( let kids out on their own much less).
|
| Wolf attacks on people are pretty much proportional to the
| amount of other food they have available and how many
| people they come into contact with, just like any other
| predator.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| If children are allowed near dogs then I think children can
| live in a city where wolves are tens of miles away in the
| forest and actively avoid anything that sounds of people.
| distances wrote:
| In Nordic countries the opposition comes from rural areas
| where more wolves means more yard visits by wolves. People
| are used to keeping dogs outside and allowing kids to go to
| school unsupervised (say, by bike or just waiting alone
| outside for a school taxi).
|
| I think that's the price of living close to the nature, but
| it may be a hard pill to swallow after several generations
| growing up in rural areas barren of wolves.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Children small enough to be at threat from most of our apex
| predators shouldn't be alone in the wilderness in the first
| place. The only apex predator that considers humans prey is
| the polar bear. The others normally only attack defensively--
| don't put them in a situation where they feel the need to
| defend themselves and the threat is minimal. (I would make an
| exception for going into the area of an apex predator in late
| winter--there might be a desperate animal that would go for
| something wrong.)
| earthscienceman wrote:
| We need to put our emotions aside while managing our wildlife
| populations. Wolves are not a serious threat to humans and even
| so, the wilderness is a scary place even without wolves, take
| appropriate precautions.
| patall wrote:
| And I like the idea of having a lower chance of dying in a road
| accident. Or isn't that the idea of what we are discussing
| here, putting actual numbers to (ir)rational fears?
| cbnva wrote:
| This is a somewhat car centered view:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wolf_attacks
|
| I'm not very comfortably hiking in wolf territories.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Wolves just aren't that dangerous in North America. You should
| be far more concerned about bears, but dogs, mountains lions,
| even moose are more likely to attack and kill a human.
| ketan0 wrote:
| Have you heard of Psychedelic water?? What is it all about??
|
| https://sites.google.com/view/psychedelic-water-review/home
| ineedasername wrote:
| As a random aside, that reminds me of a joke:
|
| _Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses.
| He's not breathing and his eyes are glazed, so his friend calls
| 911. "My friend is dead! What should I do?" The operator replies,
| "Calm down, sir. I can help. First make sure he's dead." There's
| a silence, then a loud bang. Back on the phone, the guy says,
| "OK, now what? "_
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Hitting the deer is just the beginning.
|
| We were driving on a semi-wilderness highway when a medium-sized
| deer staggered up from a deep drainage ditch on the same side of
| the road, about 50 yards ahead. Managed to slow from 65-70 to 50
| mph before hitting the animal, which slid along the highway and
| into the deep ditch on the other side.
|
| The slowdown helped limit the van's damage to $10,000, but it was
| undriveable. Even if we somehow removed the hood (bent in two
| over the unbroken windshield), all the fluid had ran out of the
| crushed radiator and into the semi-wilderness ditch.
|
| Luckily it was a hot July afternoon, and a truck going the
| opposite way came along in 15 minutes. The driver put the deer
| out of its misery. Had it been in the winter, after sundown, it
| might have taken hours just to be found.
|
| Happened in the 1990s (no mobiles), so we waited for a vehicle
| heading toward the nearest little town to find a tow -truck. With
| the van towed to that town (no repair shop), it was another hour
| before relatives arrived from the bigger town (that tow-truck had
| a repair shop).
|
| The insurance company paid for the repair, then dropped the
| policy. I never drove that route after noon again.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Random curiosity: did the truck driver produce a firearm and
| shoot the deer or something?
|
| Why did the insurer cancel the policy?
| thefifthsetpin wrote:
| Your question reminded me of a first responder that I knew.
| He was in a rural Wisconsin area where collisions with deer
| were common. He kept a spear in his truck to put deer out of
| their misery. He preferred using the spear to using his
| firearm since the use of a firearm came with extra paperwork.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Not to mention potential hearing damage.
| jerkstate wrote:
| Call your representative and ask them to support the
| Hearing Protection Act!
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-
| bill/95
|
| Contrary to movie magic/political posturing, these
| devices only decrease the report by about 10 decibels,
| generally just under the hearing damage threshold, but
| still very loud.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| What?! A politician is doing something sensible?! Sure
| that wasn't a link to the Onion???
|
| I thought it was more like 30db of reduction, though.
| Still, simply below the point of hearing damage, not like
| Hollywood.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Interesting. What is a "silencer" then? Is it a different
| device or the same device used on guns that are less
| noisy to begin with? Or is the movie silencer a complete
| fiction?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Movie silencers are a fiction. All a silencer does is let
| you shoot without actually damaging your hearing. It is
| still very loud.
| livueta wrote:
| It depends a little on caliber but you're broadly on the
| right track. Suppressed 22LR is 110-120-ish db, which is
| just barely hearing safe. Suppressed 556 (typical AR) is
| 135+db even with top-tier cans (qdc, rc2, saker), which
| is firmly in eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee territory. Similar story
| for 762 and friends. With the exception of 22LR, you
| really do want to be using proper earpro when shooting
| suppressed.
|
| The other aspect of them that's usually less broadly
| appreciated (and part of why "suppressor" is preferred to
| "silencer") is that they're also effective at reducing
| muzzle flash, which is sometimes relevant, especially
| with short barrels.
| blendergeek wrote:
| As far as I know, a movie silencer is complete fiction.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| I am curious. Not true?
|
| Clarifications would be much more welcome than downvotes,
| I think
| thefifthsetpin wrote:
| I'm assuming you meant to ask me since EamonnMR didn't
| say anything that you could reasonably be skeptical of.
|
| Yes, I personally knew him.
|
| Yes, he was a first responder and I saw him leave a
| number of times to respond to calls for first responders.
| Given the area we were in, some of these calls certainly
| would have been for cars hitting deer.
|
| Yes, I saw the spear in the vehicle he took to those
| calls.
|
| I do know from others in his family that he sometimes
| acquired a roadkill permit & brought back a deer carcass.
|
| I do concede that this guy was fond of telling tall tales
| so he might have embellished a bit, but nothing seemed
| terribly implausible about this story to me at the time.
| As nothing of import hinges on its veracity, I think it's
| fine to categorize this under "quite probably true" and
| let it be. =)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I don't follow what you're saying. That hearing loss from
| firearms isn't true?
| Laremere wrote:
| A highschool teacher of mine once told a story: They hit a
| deer, knocking it down but not killing it. Someone else
| pulled up, saw the deer was still alive, and called whoever
| the authority is to get permission to give the deer a
| merciful end. After getting permission, the deer chose that
| moment to remember it was ok, jumped up, and ran off into the
| woods. The person who now had permission to hunt this deer
| promptly ran off into the woods after it.
|
| Never go up to a deer you're not 100% sure is dead. They're
| big, hurt, and can decide any moment to flee or attack.
| reddog wrote:
| Its happened to me too. I've heard of deer coming through the
| windshield.
|
| Deer are the second most deadly animal in North America. Thats
| because about 100K of them throw themselves into the paths of
| cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles every year.
|
| The _most_ deadly animal is the honey bee. After these two come
| the usual suspects: snakes, bears, mountain lions, spiders,
| etc.
| xipho wrote:
| The "bio-economy" and "bio-services" are coming. You'll start to
| hear these buzz-words more and more in following years, watch for
| the emphasis in federal science funding initiatives etc. When
| arguments based on economic impact are translated into laws and
| rules for how we do things, and we start to tie things like the
| paper mentions into the picture, then the logical outcome is more
| "reverence" for the natural world, wrapped in the veneer of
| capitalism. There is ample precedent, see protection of fishing
| grounds, biological control saving billions of $ and millions of
| lives [1], etc. etc.
|
| [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenacoccus_manihoti)
| greedo wrote:
| Whenever I read about people concerned with wolves threatening
| humans, it reminds me of how sharks are treated. Both have been
| vilified in book and film, yet are rarely a threat to humans.
| [deleted]
| goda90 wrote:
| I was reading the other day about how wolves can help reduce
| Lyme's carrying tick populations as well, which could be
| considered another positive economic impact. They of course keep
| deer in check, but they also keep coyotes in check while not
| preying on the smaller animals that eat ticks and mice like
| coyotes do.
| casassas_6 wrote:
| fafs
| cableshaft wrote:
| After reading the headline it took me a second, then I went "Of
| course, less deer!"
|
| I hate driving country roads because I've had way too many close
| calls with deer that seem hell-bent on appearing suddenly from
| off to the side directly in front of you. I once had three
| separate deer crossing in front of my car incidents in just 48
| hours before. 2 extremely close, one I'm surprised I didn't hit
| and I swerved in a dumb and potentially dangerous way to miss it
| (probably shouldn't have, but that's what happened in the moment,
| thankfully I was the only person on the road then).
|
| So yeah, bring on the wolves. I don't want deer to go extinct or
| anything, but I wouldn't mind being able to loosen my vice grip
| on the steering wheel and having total vigilance whenever I drive
| down country roads (especially at night).
| syberiyxx wrote:
| If only financial compensation could repair the stress of cattle
| being hunted.
| zzzeek wrote:
| Effects on housepets / livestock residing in or around homes /
| farms near the highway, not so much.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Lots of people talking who never had to deal with wolves here.
| Bottom line to remember about any wolf studies is this: they
| don't transfer to other wolf locations. This paper is relevant
| for Wisconsin only. Secondarily, since this topic inevitably
| comes up as people say stuff like "it's silly to be afraid of
| wolves", all the claims that wolves don't attack people are lies,
| using almost exclusively US based data where the wolves were
| killed until under control for that very reason. For a less
| ideological understanding of the real danger of wolves look at
| the statistics in Siberia, etc. My saying for those who harp on
| this is "It's easy to claim refuge in statistics until you are in
| the middle of nothing and hear a pack a ridge or two over. Or
| hear them circle and yip your camp at night. Then statistics
| don't offer nearly the same comfort." ... Things I have
| experienced first hand. Slightly off topic but one of the most
| visually exhilarating things ever for me was to stumble across a
| wild pack feasting on a fresh kill...
|
| I grew up in a wolf re-intro zone and have had to deal with all
| the changes to the forest that came with it, many, if not most,
| of them bad. It wasn't until I was older I went back and re-read
| the justification papers and they were absolutely horrid science.
| There is quite a history of wolf related papers being used to
| justify political actions far outside what the papers support.
| Please don't fall into that same trap here. This is an
| interesting paper about the Wisconsin wolf population from a
| particular angle of study (not a holistic study), that's it.
| nfc wrote:
| So we should allow wolves population to increase until the
| proportion of flying to normal cars is?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I am reminded of an organization I read about years ago with the
| tag line "Seeing like a mountain." It was founded by someone who
| noticed that excess deer were stripping the mountain of
| vegetation and they concluded that reintroducing wolves was
| important for creating a sustainable environment.
|
| In the US, deer-vehicle collisions make deer the deadliest animal
| for people that we have in this country.
|
| https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-deadliest-animals-in-...
|
| In the US: _Deer-vehicle collisions lead to about 200 human
| deaths and $1.1 billion in property damage every year._
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer%E2%80%93vehicle_collisi...
|
| Part of my incomplete BS in Environmental Studies was a class in
| quantifying the economic value of natural resources. I did a case
| study on wetlands in the San Francisco Bay Area that are
| currently quietly being threatened by the county rail plan.
|
| The US used to pay people to fill in swamps and create
| "productive" land and then learned that swamps do useful and
| valuable things of various sorts. We updated the name from
| _swamp_ to _wetlands_ , overhauled their public image and
| reversed policy. We now protect and restore such areas.
|
| Quantifying the economic value to humans of a natural resource is
| a good means to convince people it needs protecting and it is in
| your best interest to protect it. This is not "charity" and
| shouldn't be viewed as a _sacrifice._
|
| We are cutting our own throats when we ruin the world because of
| fixation on some overly simplified idea that it needs to put
| money directly into our pockets for humans to care about it. One
| of the best ways to fight such entrenched ideas is to quantify
| just how much it costs us to think that way.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| First, yes I'm for reintroduction of wolves. However, "In the
| US: Deer-vehicle collisions lead to about 200 human deaths and
| $1.1 billion in property damage every year." Really is a poor
| argument for it.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm USA annual number
| of deaths: 2,854,838. So, deer kill about .007% of USA
| population annually. I don't want to downplay the tragedy, but
| I wouldn't recommend spending a large amount of the budget on
| this.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Technically .007% of Americans kill _themselves_ by driving
| into deer. The way you worded it makes it sound like the deer
| are going man-hunting!
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| really makes me concerned for the high suicide rate in the
| deer population
| [deleted]
| pomian wrote:
| As you have written before, most of us who have worked with
| environmental issues in the real world, have long tried to
| 'value ' the environment. Forests, wetlands, waterfronts, etc.
| Common scenario, let's say there is a beautiful bay. Many
| tourists visit to see the view. Condos are built around the
| bay. Now there is no view. There are no tourists. Water quality
| in and around the bay degraded. But when trying to stop the
| development, the only arguable economic value, is the amount of
| the taxable value of condo, and 'housing starts' . There is no
| present way, (still - after 50 years of talking about this) to
| place a value on the view, waterfront, water quality, etc.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _There is no present way, (still - after 50 years of
| talking about this) to place a value on the view, waterfront,
| water quality, etc._
|
| The sub branch is "environmental economics." My cousin got
| his PhD in it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _There is no present way, (still - after 50 years of talking
| about this) to place a value on the view, waterfront, water
| quality, etc._
|
| It's been a lot of years since I took the class, but those
| things can be valued. One of the things I did in my case
| study of Suisun Marsh was quantified how much the marsh
| cleans up the water and what it would cost if humans did it
| with a water treatment plant.
|
| Suisun Marsh is also a historic birding area and the rails go
| through there for that reason. It brought tourism.
|
| You can place dollar values on tourism, water quality and
| other things. It doesn't get done a lot but can be done.
|
| A lot of places with such assets are small town or rural.
| Planning jobs tend to pay better in the big city so your best
| talent tends to end up designing cities and planners often
| hate their jobs because they don't get to do what they wanted
| to do.
|
| Planning something good for people and the environment that
| makes economic sense and gets buy in from enough pertinent
| stakeholders is hard. So, all too often, "money talks"
| instead.
| ummonk wrote:
| There is still ample view in the Bay Area, while we're in the
| midst of a severe housing shortage. The marginal loss to the
| view / waterfront / water quality from a new development is
| more than outweighed by the marginal gain in housing
| availability.
| novok wrote:
| Why would the water quality have to degrade when there is
| residential development around a coastline? The views are
| still there and the tourists still come. Many are skeptical
| about "enivornmental" issues being used to prevent housing
| development, because it's most often used to stop it in
| heavily developed areas, replacing parking lots and single
| family houses. It's more environmentally friendly to have
| density than the alternative SFH sprawl. If you want to keep
| nature nature, make it a park.
| pomian wrote:
| Think of all the paving that prevents natural runoff. The
| increased human loading due to higher population living
| pressures = waste water, waste fuels, oils, particulates
| (dust, tires.)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > It's more environmentally friendly to have density than
| the alternative SFH sprawl.
|
| I saw a Nature study on HN recently and I think it called
| this thinking in to question? I'll go search for it and
| update this comment if I find it.
|
| EDIT: No luck finding it. EDIT2: found it!
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01477-y
| hytdstd wrote:
| I know you couldn't find it, but what was even the basic
| principle? It's hard for me to imagine that dramatically
| increasing land use, transportation and infrastructure
| costs could be environmentally beneficial.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| They looked at total land use required to support cities
| and other areas and found that while the city footprint
| is small, the supportive infrastructure for the city is
| large. They found that when accounting for this, land use
| per capita is about the same regardless of density. Wish
| I could find it but there are a lot of Nature papers
| submitted every week.
|
| EDIT: found it
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01477-y
| novok wrote:
| They didn't go into US cities in this analysis as far as
| I can see right, just chinese and european ones? Also do
| they focus on total ecological footprint or just land use
| equivalent, such as more energy usage from suburban
| housing, more emissions from car ownership and driving
| vs. things like every human needs this much farm land to
| feed them?
| freshpots wrote:
| Stormwater run-off, anything that goes onto the ground (and
| especially paved surfaces) eventually ends up into the
| water cycle. Let's say 10 cars are leaking oil in their
| parking spot. That oil gets washed away by the rain and
| ends up in the local waterways.
| mcguire wrote:
| Unrelated to your point, I have a friend who was a wildlife
| biologist / game warden for a US state. At one point, at least
| one insurance company was trying to pressure the department of
| game and fish to issue many more deer hunting licenses, to
| reduce the number of deer-vehicle collisions.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| I heard about this via a podcast before!
|
| Just a clarification, the thing that the insurance company
| wanted the department in charge to do was issue (make
| available) more deer tags, not licenses. Hard to say more
| without knowing which state.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I don't think getting a license is hard, but the fees keep
| going up.
|
| Hell even a fishing license is $56.00, and that has many
| restrictions.
|
| I'm one of those liberal guys who has never hunted, and only
| use barbless hooks when I did fish. (I stopped fishing after
| I caught a Batray in the bay. It cried like a baby on the
| pier. I really played with my head. I put him back of
| course.)
|
| My point is I don't like high fees--for anything. I knew a
| jail guard years ago, and he said there are people in jail
| over not buying a license. (Starts with license, and no show,
| blah, blah, blah, prison. This was in Mississouri.)
|
| My point is I don't like these high fees we are being
| charged.
| swayvil wrote:
| The intellect is always going to offer only a vastly over-
| simplified perspective.
|
| But it's our #1 tool. So popular that we literally cannot
| imagine not using it 24-7.
|
| And furthermore we invariably call that model of reality,
| "reality".
|
| I mean that's just how it is.
|
| Possible antidotes for this ubiquitous plague of profound
| blindness : drugs, art, disaster, meditation... What else?
| yoaviram wrote:
| The name of the organization is probably based on an essay
| called "Thinking like a mountain" by Aldo Leopold. Writing in
| 1949, Leopold is considered to be one of the first ecologists.
| It's a beautifully poetic and prophetic text.
|
| I happen to be living on a mountain in southern Tuscany. A
| place where wolf where hunted to the brink of extinction and
| the deer population is exploding. This essay resonates with me
| in profound ways.
|
| The essay (PDF): https://www.ecotoneinc.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/01/aldo-l...
|
| PS. the whole book is worth reading.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Thanks. It's possible the tagline was _Thinking like a
| mountain_ rather than seeing like a mountain.
|
| I want to say the organization was called Denali but that is
| now the name of a mountain in Alaska that was formerly known
| as Mt. McKinley. That change occurred in 2015. So searching
| for _Denali_ gets me results for that specific mountain and
| things related to it, not for an environmentally oriented
| charity.
|
| I am failing to find verification that there ever was such an
| organization. So I don't know if I am misremembering the
| name.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Denali is the original name of the mountain. Given by the
| indigenous people living there. Some dude just started
| calling it Mt McKinley for political reasons and everyone
| just accepted that, this decision was simply reversed.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Given by the indigenous people living there.
|
| Well, some of them called it something kinda-sorta close
| to that. Other groups of indigenous people called it by
| other names. Alaska Natives aren't one homogeneous group,
| by any means.
|
| It's quite large, so it was visible to many different
| groups (on a good day I can see it from here, and it's
| about 130 miles/200 km away).
|
| But Denali is definitely better than McKinley, no
| question about that.
| [deleted]
| Loic wrote:
| A very nice video about the reintroduction of wolves in
| Yellowstone:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I would speculate that road, which due to cars have elevated
| noise levels, render them intrinsically a good cloaking mechanism
| to wolves stalking prey.
|
| Or at least, deer feel unable to register sounds there and thus
| avoid it
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Deer don't generally hang out on busy roads at the best of
| times. I suspect it has more to do with the roadway being an
| open area which makes the deer more visible and thus more
| vulnerable to wolves.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| The presence of predators causes prey to avoid areas that favor
| the predator. In this situation the issue is open space. Roads
| are open, wolves are a bigger threat to the deer with long
| sight lines.
|
| (Simple example in our own backyard. Some plants in pots, some
| plants in the ground with vegetation around them. The birds
| completely stripped the ones in the pots but didn't touch the
| ones in the ground. There was no cover near the pots, a cat
| would have no cover. With the ones in the ground a cat would
| have lots of cover. While we do not have a cat multiple cats
| sometimes come around.)
| elliekelly wrote:
| It makes me sad that laying out the economic benefits of wildlife
| conservation is even necessary. This is interesting. But why
| can't we conserve wolves just because? Why do we need to point to
| the economics of it? Are they not worth conserving unless they
| help the bottom line?
| Grakel wrote:
| We do put money and effort into protecting them just because.
|
| But committees sit around and think, "here's a way we can
| further justify and generate some press."
|
| How much human effort is wasted by group politics and general
| shrugging?
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| Considering your comment is greyed out (or at least was), I
| supposed the answer to your last question, for some people,
| must be yes. I suspect it legitimately doesn't occur to some
| people that conservation need not be an economic activity.
| wpietri wrote:
| We can. And personally, I think we should. But these economic
| arguments are very useful for convincing people who don't share
| that value.
| eropple wrote:
| I dunno. More and more it strikes me that people "moved by
| economic arguments" are in truth having already decided their
| position and work backwards to justify it.
| wpietri wrote:
| It's a mix for sure. Rich sociopaths and would-be rich
| sociopaths definitely love econ-style arguments for a whole
| bunch of reasons. But for people who are more technocratic,
| it can be handy. "X is better _and_ cheaper " can be
| powerful.
|
| Of course, we live in an age where the nominally "fiscally
| responsible" people show declining interest in intellectual
| consistency and coherence, so maybe this argument is moving
| into the "elegant weapon for a more civilized age"
| category.
| gruez wrote:
| >But why can't we conserve wolves just because?
|
| evidently not, otherwise there wouldn't be endangered species.
|
| >Why do we need to point to the economics of it? Are they not
| worth conserving unless they help the bottom line?
|
| to get all the non-conservationists on board.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| Because wolves are assholes. Following the reintroduction of
| wolves to the area numerous people, including my neighbors,
| reported lost dogs. The state DNR takes forever to investigate
| and always concludes that it wasn't a wolf, of course, it is a
| mere coincidence.
| greedo wrote:
| Could be coyotes. Coyotes are much more comfortable around
| humans, and routinely take pets.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| Coyotes have been here for a long time. It could be but
| what a magnificent co-incidence it was.
| klyrs wrote:
| > But why can't we conserve wolves just because?
|
| Because that isn't how [highly polarized] democracies work. The
| fact that environmentalists are aghast is a bonus for those in
| favor of wolf culls. But, even those politicians think with
| their wallets. Wolves aren't going to get out the vote. In
| reality, this is going to come down to how politicians
| personally feel about wolves, and how persuasive rancher,
| livestock insurance and car insurance lobbies are in making
| their respective cases.
| _emacsomancer_ wrote:
| Multiple positive outcomes never hurt a case. In general,
| conservation often has other supporting factors - the failure
| to preserve ecosystems can have numerous knock-on negative
| effects for human populations.
| totalZero wrote:
| I wonder if they considered publishing under the title, "Wolves
| eat deer before they can get run over by cars."
| mrfusion wrote:
| My writing effectiveness shot up when I realized going simple
| is almost always the right thing to do.
|
| I was around 24 and kept wondering why most people didn't read
| my emails.
| fastaguy88 wrote:
| This could not be the title, because it is not what they found.
| They found that in addition to predation, the threat of wolves
| changes the deers' behavior, which has a much larger role in
| reducing accidents.
| tgv wrote:
| The thing they estimate is reduction of deer collisions,
| according to the abstract. So that's a rather limited scope in
| comparison to the title.
|
| What surprises me more (I guess I'm a bit jaded), is that the
| title suggests that nature is there to be economically exploited.
| Does a species run up a loss? Extinction is its fate.
| patall wrote:
| I think that economical aspects play an important role in
| suggesting how far we go with certain conservation efforts. I
| think few people will suggest that we should hunt wolves to
| extinction. So I would assume that most are okay with having
| wolves in national parks. The question is now: what about
| everywhere else? And this publication suggests that we might
| want to have wolves (almost) everywhere. While with, for
| example, bears or bison we might be better of having them
| mostly limited to selected regions. At that point, its not a
| question of conservation anymore, but of economic viability.
| Igelau wrote:
| Maybe. I'm not sure how you'd measure the benefit otherwise
| though. If you're going to compare apples to oranges (or deer
| road collisions to wolf predation of livestock), dollars is one
| of the ways you can.
| fastaguy88 wrote:
| The use of economics is less about exploiting the wolves, or
| deer, and more about countering the widely held, and very
| personal belief (if you are a rancher), that wolves
| introduction has high costs from livestock predation. A rancher
| losing a steer has experienced a substantial economic loss.
| [deleted]
| pfdietz wrote:
| Put another way: if wolves are reintroduced and ranchers are
| compensated generously for lost animals, the rest of society
| still comes out ahead.
|
| I sometimes think many environmental issues could be resolved
| with sufficient bribery. And if the benefit of the policy is
| really that large, the bribes are affordable.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think there is still an emotional cost of raising animals
| and having them murdered by wolves, even if you come out
| even economically.
|
| On some level, this system tells you the wolf is more
| important to society than you.
|
| I speak from absolutely no experience, imagining how I
| might feel.
| runarberg wrote:
| While this is very true and we should absolutely consider
| the emotional cost others bear from our actions. I wonder
| how much we should really be valuing the emotional cost
| of industrial barons which is the modern farmer.
| Especially as we consider that other humans also have
| emotional attachments to wildlife. When we see a healthy
| ecosystem we are happy, and when we hear about a wolf
| that was killed we are sad.
| scatters wrote:
| The economic term for this is Coasean bargaining. The Coase
| theorem is that this can in principle be solved privately;
| in practice, transaction costs and imperfect information
| usually make government involvement necessary.
| [deleted]
| pfdietz wrote:
| Indeed!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29222420
| pvaldes wrote:
| Not being killed in a car accident and not losing your car
| should compensate for any economic damage. Ranchers have
| -one- job, and is to watch and care for their cattle. If they
| do it well they earn money. If not, they lose money, exactly
| as any other.
|
| Paying them a lot of public money for not doing their job
| well, would be like Apple having a bad year an asking
| Microsoft to cover for their loses. Ranchers are private
| companies.
| the-dude wrote:
| MS did invest in Apple when they were at rock bottom.
| progre wrote:
| Devils advocate: the ranchers did their job a century ago
| when they exerminated the wolves. They are now again asked
| to accept wolves near their cattle, but this time they
| can't shoot at them. To make this a fair deal for them we
| should compensate them for any cattle lost to wolves.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Times change. What was seen as "correct" a thousand years
| ago, may be unacceptable with the technology and
| knowledge of today. We have some terrific new tools in
| nature management that weren't available at that time.
|
| After the new data coming day, after day, after day... it
| seems that people commit a few really suicidal moves a
| century ago. We still are trying to fix the industrial
| revolution effects.
|
| Paying some people a bribe with money from other people,
| so they agree to respect the laws... it never ends well.
| Is blackmail. The concept is stupid and a magnet for
| troubles.
| progre wrote:
| Bribe and blackmail, quite harsh words I would say. The
| government is essetially making use of the ranchers land
| to the general good of the overall ecosystem by
| (re)introducing wolves. Fair compensation for lost income
| is not a bribe.
| pvaldes wrote:
| If we remove Russia (that is huge and a special case),
| Spain is the European country with a highest wolf
| population. We have much more wolves than countries like
| Norway or Sweden. The Spanish government pays around 1.5
| million euro each year to farmers for covering damages
|
| With sexy results. Lets see some curious discoveries in
| the biology of Spanish wolves:
|
| 1) Wolves start eating its preys by the most delicious
| part of the cattle: the livestock ear tag. A plastic
| piece that grants that the animal has been legally breed
| and registered, (and is often missing in the corpses).
| Having in mind that tag remains don't appear in the wolf
| scats, It seems that wolves love to collect them for the
| cubs.
|
| 2) Some cows were killed by wolves three times in three
| different places. The cow remains teleport mysteriously
| each time to another location.
|
| 3) Some farmers act as black holes for cattle. There is a
| strong suspicion that their entire business model consist
| into buying cheap foals and decrepit old goats in another
| province, let them alone and unprotected in the national
| park and wait for the corpse to be found. Some of this
| professionals of producing meat haven't sold a single
| animal or put a single sausage in the market... in
| decades.
|
| 4) It is suspected that scabies killing the endangered
| Pyrenean Chamois in the national park was introduced with
| those diseased goats.
|
| 5) Statistics about cattle dying by natural causes drop
| when government start paying wolf damages. Suddenly there
| is not more cows dying after giving birth, or from old
| age, or falling from a cliff. Is a well known secret that
| when you have an animal that needs an expensive
| veterinary procedure, borrowing a mastiff from a friend
| will fix the problem... and then you cry wolf, of course.
|
| 6) After introducing saliva analysis in Pyrenees looking
| for wolf DNA in the attacked cattle, the number of wolf
| attacks dropped from 100 to 7 in the next year. The
| analysis found that shepherd dogs owned by farmers were
| the real culprits in practically all attacks. Shepherd
| dogs had being videotaped feasting on cows and sheep.
| They respect its own herd, but will attack other herds.
| Everybody knows this.
|
| 7) Some farmers manage somehow to lost 600 sheep year
| after year without a trace, by the attack of magical
| wolves driving a van. We pay them up to 24.000 euro/year
| with tax money so they can be happy again. But they
| aren't, and ask for more.
|
| And well, "You know how flammable is the forest, do you?,
| Everything could start burning some of those days if you
| don't allow us to put cattle here..."
| pomian wrote:
| They do this in Europe in many countries. For example:
| farmers are paid for damage to crops by boars. money is
| collected by hunting organizations to reimburse the
| farmers. Depending on the individual system, the boar
| meat is sold in government or private butcher shops.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Livestock owners tend to oppose wolf reintroduction for
| economic reasons.
| DeBraid wrote:
| > that nature is there to be economically exploited. Does a
| species run up a loss? Extinction is its fate.
|
| Nature will do what it wants, so I can't speak for the wolves.
| Humans on the other hand, at least in US and Canada, operate
| under North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, whose core
| principles are elaborated upon in the seven major tenets:
|
| * Wildlife as Public Trust Resources
|
| * Elimination of Markets for Game
|
| * Allocation of Wildlife by Law
|
| * Wildlife Should Only be Killed for a Legitimate Purpose
|
| * Wildlife is Considered an International Resource
|
| * Science is the Proper Tool for Discharge of Wildlife Policy
|
| * Democracy of Hunting
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Model_of_Wildli...
|
| IOW, humans in US and Canada are less likely than ever to hunt
| animals to extinction, mostly because `Elimination of Markets
| for Game` makes it illegal to sell wild game.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-21 23:00 UTC)