[HN Gopher] Colorado wolf reintroduction to move forward
___________________________________________________________________
Colorado wolf reintroduction to move forward
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 101 points
Date : 2023-12-26 18:32 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Hard to blame the ranchers, as this is essentially a wealth tax
| being unilaterally levied against them. These efforts are driven
| almost entirely by urban progressives who won't have to deal with
| it.
| jackstraw14 wrote:
| That's pretty much Colorado in a nutshell. Lived in the Front
| Range for quite a while and voted progressive, and it's pretty
| crazy how purple that state is.
| gaze wrote:
| Yeah it's all repetitions of the pattern of greely exercising
| it's god given right to smell bad vs everyone being upset by
| the smell.
| jackstraw14 wrote:
| It's been almost a year and I can still smell it when I see
| the word Greeley.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Framing it as "rural" vs "urban" sets up a dichotomy, which
| human minds frequently simplify as a 50/50 split. But only 13%
| of Colorado residents live in rural areas.
|
| It would be more accurate to frame it as 7 people who want to
| enjoy a healthy ecosystem vs one rancher who wants to use
| national/state lands for farming.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Framing it as "rural" vs "urban" sets up a dichotomy, which
| human minds frequently simplify as a 50/50 split. But only
| 13% of Colorado residents live in rural areas.
|
| The US is not governed by simple majorities of the overall
| population. We have things like the house of reps for a
| reason. Land matters. If the 75% of Americans who live in
| urban areas were able to completely dictate terms to the
| other 25%, the union would have (and almost did) dissolve
| long ago.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The Civil War was not a rural-urban war. Both sides were
| primarily agrarian; trying to glean modern urban-rural
| culture war talking points from a war principally about
| slavery is not going to be productive.
|
| (It's also worth noting that we have the House of
| Representatives for the _exact opposite reason_ than you've
| stated. I think you meant the Senate, which is meant to
| provide an aristocratic and /or rural "check" on the urban
| hoi polloi.)
| thsksbd wrote:
| The pro-wolf side won by 50.4% of the vote. So a tie.
|
| But the folks who voted for it won't have to live with the
| consequences of their vote.
| constantly wrote:
| Given the consequences of the reintroduction of wolves to
| the ecosystem, I think literally everyone will be living
| with the consequences to some extent. Unless by "the
| consequences" you're specifically referring to wolves
| attacking the livestock of billionaire (in many cases)
| "ranchers," then maybe not because I'm assuming those
| billionaires ranching on public land aren't voting
| against their pecuniary interests (as billionaires do not
| seem to do) and thus are not in the 50.4%.
| pookha wrote:
| If you want to fight climate change you want to not
| release packs of wolves into regenerative farms:
| https://www.uvm.edu/news/cals/using-regenerative-
| agriculture...
|
| And many of these ranches are losing money for years
| (sometimes a decade) before they can get out of the red
| and see the benefits of regenerative farming
| systems...The more I look at this wolf situation the more
| depressed I get.
| constantly wrote:
| Your link is from Vermont, not Colorado. I don't think
| anyone is advocating for the release of wolves into
| Vermont.
|
| I did a search of regenerative agriculture in Colorado
| and can only find a single farm that has tried it. Given
| that it seems tenuous to suggest that wolves will destroy
| regenerative agriculture in Colorado?
|
| Regenerative Ag seems to be focused on agriculture, as
| the name implies. The people upset about wolves are
| ranchers who stand to have their livestock attacked by
| wolves. I am not seeing the connection between wolves and
| the destruction of regenerative agriculture.
| pookha wrote:
| The style of farming is the same in Vermont as it is in
| Colorado...I found three in that state:
|
| https://indianridgefarm.org/ https://www.flyingbbar.com/
| https://thehighlonesomeranch.com/
|
| And regenerative Ag is ranching. They are some of the
| innovators in grass-fed beef (I've been a vegitarian
| since 2005) and use the natural animal waste to improve
| soil conditions (integrating animals into crop farming).
| constantly wrote:
| I checked into those links, very interesting! Thanks for
| sharing.
| 8note wrote:
| You would want wolves nearby though, so that the farm
| doesn't get picked clean by dear and elk
| arwineap wrote:
| If land matters, and as stated in another thread these
| ranchers are running the cattle on public lands, not their
| own, why do the ranchers even get a say?
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > Land matters
|
| But they don't own it. The majority of it is owned by the
| urban population. Why are you claiming that rural ranchers
| are supposed to have a stronger claim to public land just
| because they can graze their cattle there while paying
| subsidized prices for it (at the cost of the people who
| don't own any cattle or graze them on their private land).
| AS37 wrote:
| Yet another great example of America's 87% telling the 13%
| how they should live.
| stusmall wrote:
| The idea that reintroducing an animal is telling someone
| "how to live" is wild. They existed there long before us,
| raising livestock can still happen with them there, and
| ranching existed in Colorado along side wolves long before
| this discussion.
|
| I live in rural Colorado and raise a small hobby amount of
| animals (currently a bit over 40 chickens, turkeys, and
| ducks but the number varies through the year). I've lost
| plenty of animals to predators. I've had neighbors call me
| out to their land to shoot others. This is part of rural
| life with a healthy and functioning ecosystem. Predators
| exist.
|
| I personally abstained from the vote; I felt like this is
| something better handled by career biologists and not the
| uninformed public. But the idea that is this "America's 87%
| telling the 13% how they should live" its trying _really_
| hard to jam this into existing framing of how we view
| American culture war issues. It 'll do us some good to calm
| down, take a breath and put the topic in proper context.
| Rural residents and ranchers can still maintain their
| lifestyle.
| ausbah wrote:
| 13% shouldn't get disproportionate say in how things are
| run just because they live in a different place
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Don't a lot of these ranchers use public land? It seems
| like the public should have a say in how the land is used.
| pookha wrote:
| If you want a healthy ecosystem than you want regenerative
| farming: https://www.uvm.edu/news/cals/using-regenerative-
| agriculture...
|
| What you're arguing for would essentially kill off the tools
| needed to store more carbon in the soil, which would benefit
| industrial feed-lot styled operations that pollute and push
| massive amounts of run-off.
| Teever wrote:
| Is it really so simple?
|
| Hasn't human action had detrimental consequence for the
| environment? And as such aren't efforts to mitigate or undo
| those consequences a positive?
|
| If that's the case won't the ranchers just pass along the
| increased cost of doing business to the consumers so we're all
| ultimately gonna pay for the actions of people a long time ago,
| which for better or worse, is just how it goes.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| If conservatives could dump nuclear waste in streams to save
| a penny, they'd do it. Asking them to think about their
| impact on the environment, and how it might come back to
| impact them, is a non-starter.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| It depends on the kind of conservative. In blue states,
| some of them will shout and hollar about, say, how the new
| nuclear plant is going to pollute the streams with nuclear
| waste.
| peyton wrote:
| I'm a big conservationist and I think it's much, much wiser
| to pick and choose the battles. Dogmatism like
|
| > Hasn't human action had detrimental consequence for the
| environment? And as such aren't efforts to mitigate or undo
| those consequences a positive?
|
| is too often a tool to steamroll other people.
| Teever wrote:
| Sure, that may be a good general sort of viewpoint, but
| does it apply in this situation?
| clint wrote:
| Its a non-issue. The number of ranchers that could posisbly
| affected is minuscule at best, and the law permitting the
| release of these Wolves also allows for any rancher that loses
| a cow to a wolf to be reimbursed by the state for their loss. A
| vast majority of these "ranchers" are millionaires and
| billionaires in the first place, and the loss of a cow to a
| wolf will be insanely rare. These animals will hunt deer,
| rabbit, and elk whose populations are literally out of control.
|
| Most of the noise opposed to this release is generated by
| wildly ignorant or malicious people who don't even live in
| Colorado to wind up other reactionary, low-information people
| and make it look like liberals are releasing dangerous
| predators into a "red" part of the state to harm them.
|
| Nothing could be further from the truth.
| tgv wrote:
| Billionaires?
|
| > These animals will hunt deer, rabbit, and elk whose
| populations are literally out of control.
|
| Hard to predict what will happen over time. Over here, in a
| much, much smaller country, there are only a few wolves, and
| they do attack sheep at a pretty large scale, without
| actually eating them.
| qwytw wrote:
| And all the direct and indirect subsidies for them are not a
| tax on urban populations?
|
| What else is a "is essentially a wealth tax" on ranchers? They
| graze their cattle on public land yet so much of it is taken up
| by unproductive and useless national parks (just to entertain
| the urban progressives on their days off). It would be much
| fairer to convert them into productive pasture land.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Good.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the ecological niche once occupied by
| the wolf has already been taken over by coyotes perhaps. The
| context of the environment and food resources available in modern
| colorado are certainly much different than in the time the wolf
| roamed, probably furthering favoring the efficiency of coyotes.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Many years ago, in college I took an elective ecosystems course
| from a wildlife biologist whose family raised sheep in Montana
| after the wolf reintroduction there. He was a big fan of the
| wolves, on the basis that while they did take a few sheep every
| year, they also virtually wiped out the local coyote
| population, who took a lot more sheep than the wolves did.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Honestly, I'd be very surprised if coyotes filled the niche
| formerly occupied by wolves. Coyotes rarely exceed 40-50lbs and
| they primarily eat small prey like rabbits and squirrels with
| the occasional fawn. Wolves are 2x-3x as large -- they do hunt
| some of the small game but they'll also take deer, elk, and
| small bison.
| clint wrote:
| It hasn't. The prey populations in that part of the state are
| out of control and causing issues, which is one of the reasons
| these predators are being re-introduced.
| nimbius wrote:
| reminder that most ranches are owned by billionaires and have
| very little to do with actual cattle farming. Michael Bloomberg,
| Arthur Bank, Ted Turner, Reed Hastings, and Charles Koch all own
| ranches.
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2020/09/15/billionair...
|
| most of your cattle do not come from ranches. They come from high
| intensity factory farms in places like stockton california and
| amarillo texas.
|
| That a ranch produces any saleable livestock at all is a side-
| effect. most ranches are owned as vacation property.
|
| the reason this reintroduction is opposed is the same reason you
| cant plant or remove any trees in Beverly Hills without a dozen
| lawsuits and a 3 year study to determine the effect.
| Stratospherically wealthy people revile change at any level and
| will intentionally manufacture controversy and complexity around
| the proposal as a defensive mechanism.
| jackstraw14 wrote:
| It's fun to look through the real estate listings for those
| "ranch" properties in Colorado and Wyoming, because it feels so
| far from normal American life. Thousands of acres, tons of
| buildings, and workers that come with it to keep it all up. It
| still blows my mind that some people can just decide to buy a
| mountain and everything around it.
| haltist wrote:
| Money is a magical invention. Everyone agrees they don't have
| enough of it but somehow everyone also agrees only certain
| people should have more than enough.
| bombcar wrote:
| They can get surprisingly cheap in some areas, mainly if it's
| mostly land and not many buildings (and perhaps no workers).
|
| I've seen 1600 acres and a nice big house for 1.6 million.
| davidw wrote:
| > most ranches
|
| Those billionaires own ranches, for sure. Maybe even a lot of
| ranch land by area? But most ranches? Seems unlikely to me.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, this seems like a really bold claim. Land may be often
| held by the rich on a per acre basis, but landowners are not
| rich on a per capita basis. People often confuse the two even
| tho it is exactly what you would expect from a pareto
| distribution
| COGlory wrote:
| This is true. While billionaires are the largest landowners
| (well, actually Farmland Reserve/Mormon church probably is)
| and a lot of their land is old ranches they bought up,
| there's 2+ million cattle in Montana, 1+ million in Wyoming,
| I think almost 3 million in Colorado.
|
| There are many, many ranches in all those states. There are
| certainly far less than there used to be, but there are still
| very many functional ranches. That said, another reason the
| ranchers don't like wolves is because they get landowner elk
| tags that they can then turn around and sell private hunts
| with for 10s of thousands of dollars. Wolves have cut into
| their ability to find prize elk in recent years (as well as
| some harsh winters, which have probably don't more damage,
| but the perception is there for wolves).
| pookha wrote:
| People can and do buy products from smaller regenerative farms.
|
| https://thehighlonesomeranch.com/
|
| And I suspect that these ranches could take heavy loses (wolves
| have been seen killing 15+ elk in a single hunt) and I fully
| expect that large industrial operations -- packed to the gills
| with feed lots -- will have a much more minimal impact to their
| overall operations. And regenerative farms are much better for
| the environment (less carbon, less run-off). So this , at least
| in my eyes, is a self-inflicted wound by the government.
| undersuit wrote:
| >Surplus killings tend to be most common in late winter and
| may actually represent an effort by wolves to cache food for
| later use
|
| Let them. Let the animals do this. Wyoming shouldn't be
| feeding the herds of elk anyways.
| slv77 wrote:
| Most of these ranches will be running cow-calf operations. A
| cow-calf operation is a herd that produces calves which can be
| sold to a feedlot or backgrounding operators.
|
| In factory farming it's the calf that is the factory that turn
| grain into beef. It takes 3 pounds of grain to produce a pound
| of beef so it's cheaper to move the calf to the grain than the
| grain to the calf.
|
| At the same time a cow can only produce one calf per year so it
| is cheaper to keep the herd of cows that produce the calf on
| marginal grasslands rather than on the richer farmland near the
| feedlots.
|
| While these ranches aren't directly shipping steaks to
| customers they are more than a vanity project for the wealthy.
| slv77 wrote:
| Economic incentives aren't aligned between cow-calf
| operations and feedlots. There may be a significant
| difference in feed efficiency between calves. Some may turn
| grain to meat at a 2:1 ratio and others at a 4:1 ratio but
| ranchers are paid the same for each calf. A way to cheaply
| identify calves that are more feed efficient or align
| incentives would be worth some money.
| happytiger wrote:
| How come there isn't a predator collar that releases pepper spray
| when wolves go in for the throat kill? Seems like we should be
| able to make livestock unattractive targets with some kind of
| technology like this and do some reinforcement learning to
| prevent this conflict.
|
| Is this happening? Are there solutions to sustainable coexistence
| with greater predators to restore the ecosystem while preserving
| people's livelihoods? Rabbit hole sure. But I'd love to see some
| innovation or even hear about efforts in the arena.
|
| Edit: if you are downvoting this please tell me why. What is
| wrong with readapting predator behavior with a technology-driven
| solution? There's a ton of emerging research, plenty of money in
| this market (livestock contributes 40% of the global value of
| agricultural output), and I'd love to hear why you think this is
| stupid. Pretend I'm an idiot and tell me what I'm missing and how
| all the people who have tried this have failed profoundly please.
| haltist wrote:
| These problems will be solved with AGI because it will be able
| to talk to animals and convince them to stop being predators.
| happytiger wrote:
| That's actually a valid argument. Ty.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/175cue0/artifi.
| ..
|
| _Top comment has me in stiches:_
|
| Humans: Hello dear animals! How are you doing?
|
| Animals: Fuck you! Leave us alone!
| jjulius wrote:
| >How come there isn't a predator collar that releases pepper
| spray when wolves go in for the throat kill? Seems like we
| should be able to make livestock unattractive targets with some
| kind of technology like this and do some reinforcement learning
| to prevent this conflict.
|
| Beyond the initial challenges of figuring out how a collar can
| precisely and accurately predict when an animal is about to
| begin a specific type of attack and then react before enough
| damage can be done, you've also then got to be able to refill
| the pepper spray throughout the animal's life, ensure that each
| and every animal born into each and every pack gets a collar,
| etc.
|
| Just seems wildly unviable.
|
| Edit: There's also the nuance around the fact that the wolf has
| to eat at some point, and usually this will involve killing
| another wild animal. The collar would have to be able to
| accurately differentiate between "allowed to kill" and "not
| allowed to kill", which seems... difficult. I'm not sure that a
| simple bit of geofencing or whathaveyou would be good enough in
| these situations.
| happytiger wrote:
| Does it? Wouldn't it just need to be economically viable and
| isn't that something that could be calculated? Aren't the
| losses significant enough to pay for a fairly large program?
| If not, why is this a concern to ranchers? And wouldn't most
| of the collars not be used and be more like insurance which
| we already have and use on most herds?
|
| Your summary dismissal without consideration and downvote
| don't follow common sense. And let me tell you a lot of the
| biggest market opportunities are found inside of places
| people tell you you're an idiot for even exploring. Be
| mindful. Stripe and Gusto and oceans of others were solved
| problems.
|
| If it's a big enough problem to support an insurance industry
| surely $10 worth of pepper spray and a $50 reusable collar
| would be in budget.
|
| Edit: regarding your edit, this has already been demonstrated
| in janguars.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815912.
| ..
|
| Also a meta study:
|
| https://environmentalevidencejournal.biomedcentral.com/artic.
| ..
|
| This study has a killer quote:
|
| _"Everyone knew there were wolves in the mountains... but
| they seldom came near the village - the modern wolves were
| the offspring of ancestors that had survived because they had
| learned that human meat had sharp edges."_
|
| Please consider being less hasty to dismiss unconventional
| thinking. Let's keep HN weird thinking friend?
| bhickey wrote:
| You're talking about an industry that's unwilling to spend
| $10 to vaccinate herd animals.
|
| > Please consider being less hasty to dismiss
| unconventional thinking. Let's keep HN weird thinking
| friend?
|
| Friend you're approaching a problem you know nothing about
| and complaining about being dismissed... by someone who
| took the time to explain why your tenuously informed idea
| will never work.
| happytiger wrote:
| Disappointing response. Don't make generalizations or
| confuse explorative questions for broad naivete.
|
| The issue I take with your approach here is that you're
| focused on making the other person feel wrong, on the
| wrong path and assuming they know nothing (implied:
| idiot) rather than exploring ideas and solutions to novel
| problems.
|
| That's a common pattern in the world (ad hominem), but it
| doesn't do much in innovation circles or have much of a
| place in early stage innovation practice.
|
| I have a fair amount of experience in ag, and ag
| insurance, but not predator collars.
|
| I'm cool with being downvoted for having an unpopular
| idea but please be more conscious: not everyone would
| speak up to your behavior and it's quite unnecessary. Try
| to attack what's wrong with the idea not the person.
|
| You are _literally on here telling me that my ideas will
| never work_. It's a lot cliche and not just a little bit
| hilarious. Don't do it. Haha.*
|
| I'm ok being dumb when exploring ideas, and that's
| actually ok. Or it should be. At least on HN.
| zztop44 wrote:
| Your comment _looks_ a lot like a common trope on this
| site: people encountering a problem they know little
| about, thinking for 20 seconds, and saying "You could
| just..."
|
| And that's annoying because it's arrogant and it
| invalidates people who have dedicated their lives and
| careers to that work.
|
| But rereading your initial comment, I think it was
| actually framed as invitation for discussion rather than
| an "obvious simple solution".
|
| Don't let it worry you too much. Sometimes shit just gets
| downvoted!
| happytiger wrote:
| Thanks for this.
|
| I am not always full of grace and poise when exploring
| stuff, as I find it counterproductive to real
| exploration. People love to just rip you down when you
| ask why: it's got to be fundamental to something in human
| evolution. Nothing pisses some people off than
| questioning the status quo.
|
| But I'd much rather put one a flame retarding suite and
| ask basic first-principle style questions and get assumed
| to be an idiot but actually learn something than try to
| look smart. Probably because I'm not smart.
|
| I'd also assume that a lot of what's been done already is
| smart, but often the incentives aren't aligned to put
| something into implementation or regulation keeps smart
| solutions from progressing to viability. There's
| something in almost every market that's not moving
| forward just due to poor regulation or mis or under
| considered incentive misalignment.
|
| I've done a lot of work in ag and know something about
| the insurance side but not much on predator mitigation,
| but it seems like an area where we could really improve.
| I don't believe every innovation worth making in the
| space is already done so we should keep exploring.
|
| Thanks for understanding the spirit of it.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > ensure that each and every animal born into each and every
| pack gets a collar, etc.
|
| The collar goes onto the livestock, not the wild animal.
| jjulius wrote:
| D'oh! I don't know how that didn't occur to me. Thank you
| for pointing that out.
|
| Edit: Totes happy with my previous comment being downvoted,
| because it's clearly a bad take in hindsight, but this one?
| The one where I kindly go, "Oh shit, duh, how stupid of
| me"? Seriously? Y'all do you, lol...
| ericbarrett wrote:
| > How come there isn't a predator collar that releases pepper
| spray when wolves go in for the throat kill?
|
| The wolf collar was invented for this and dates back to Ancient
| Greece:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_collar
|
| Typically it was/is fitted to guard dogs who would then fight
| the wolves.
| happytiger wrote:
| Wow. That's a history I didn't know about. Thank you.
|
| Edit: I wonder if it would be more cost effective to put
| collars on the few hundred wolves we are talking about and
| near some kind of near field rfid style trigger on protected
| species. We could just trigger them on USDA tags maybe?
| Anyone tried this?
|
| Wolf collars imply throat kills which is my understanding of
| how wolves kill and we already use 15 digit USDA approved ear
| tags on most animals.
|
| I mean this is a social conditioning program so it could make
| sense as you wouldn't have to keep it up forever or
| completely just enough to change pack behaviors perhaps. It's
| the same model skunks use and they're fairly effective at
| deterring predators.
|
| You could also cost effectively rfid chip the wolves one time
| and put lower cost proximity deterrence on prey animals
| inside the range. This isn't expensive stuff to implement and
| many of these animals are already being tagged or monitored
| by programs.
|
| A blacklist for wolve rfid seems very doable. We could figure
| out problem wolves that actually need to be removed if we had
| active data instead of blanket population thinning. That'd
| probably go a long way towards increasing popular support for
| ranchers too.
|
| Found a study that shows double digit reduction of predation
| levels with just a hard collar:
|
| https://www.conservationevidence.com/actions/2448
|
| Also found a government program already doing this for
| coyote:
|
| https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-A101-PURL-
| LPS9980...
|
| So it seems like adding reactivity to this idea could really
| work.
|
| And here's another farmer having great success:
|
| https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/animals/sheep-and-
| goats/karo...
|
| Why I aren't we having a larger conversation here around this
| wolf reintroduction?
| DavidPastrnak wrote:
| I'm a resident of Estes Park, Colorado, what is essentially Rocky
| Mountain National Park, and my partner in life is a biologist in
| RMNP where she tracks and monitors elk and moose populations.
| This has been on the forefront of our minds for awhile. While
| I'll leave my personal opinion out of it, I do want to add a
| couple of notes.
|
| Wolves have been crossing the boarder into Colorado for some time
| - the state is not completely void. Additionally, they have
| already released a handful in the last couple of weeks that were
| brought in from the PNW.
|
| The topic of reintroduction is extremely complex and has led to
| heated and polarizing debates with residents across the state -
| even stretching into Wyoming politics where hunters are using
| electronic calls to lure them back across the border for hunting.
| This has resulted in a lot of confusion as to what the research
| outlines.
|
| If anyone is curious, I have found this paper to be a great
| introduction to the topic.
| https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/csp2...
|
| Please remember that this is an extremely complex issue that is
| worth having constructive discussion on. I have faith that HN can
| keep it civil where other platforms have failed to.
| hanniabu wrote:
| > even stretching into Wyoming politics where hunters are using
| electronic calls to lure them back across the border for
| hunting
|
| I think there's an argument to be made if the hunting method
| extends into the state where it's illegal (sounds waves
| traveling) then you're in violation of that state, since the
| lil would not have happened if the hunting method didn't
| traverse state lines.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Enforcement is perfectly impossible. Source: lived in
| Wyoming.
| constantly wrote:
| It's hard, not impossible. We need enforcement like we
| enforce endangered rhinos in Kenya from poachers.
| hcfman wrote:
| I have a sound localization project that can help with
| that
|
| https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru
|
| You need to be able to hear the sound from three or more
| recorders. And normally localization is better within the
| polygon of microphones but there's an area of better
| localizability extending outside of a vertex.
| COGlory wrote:
| Do we really? Elk herds are fine. Seems like a waste of
| resources to have rhino-like enforcement for elk.
| Colorado has almost 300,000 elk.
| kej wrote:
| I believe the previous poster meant that the wolves
| should have the rhino-like protections.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't know how that would work or if there's any precedent
| for that. Generally states enter into agreements and
| different laws about enforcement. Or they sue each other in
| federal court (eg cannabis issues recently).
| lukas099 wrote:
| I guess a precedent would be noise pollution laws. You can
| create sound waves on your own property but be prosecuted
| for their effects outside of it
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I assume you would still run into jurisdiction issues If it
| is legal to call in Wyoming, and the hunter is in Wyoming.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Disagree. I'm vegan and anti-hunting, but I don't think
| states should be able to enforce their laws outside of their
| states. That would lead to some real crazy stuff.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Any sort of cross border crime is regulated by the feds.
| Like if you steal a car and drive across the state border,
| it becomes a state offense. The feds could make cross
| border hunting illegal as well, but they would have to put
| in resources to enforce it.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Thanks for commenting David! I'm based in CO too and appreciate
| your insight.
| HaZeust wrote:
| The best state! In fact, I just went to Estes Park on
| Saturday for a tour of The Shining Hotel (Stanley Hotel) and
| our guide went on a bit of a background speech about these
| Colorado wolves, didn't expect it here - but glad to see a
| discussion!
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> While I'll leave my personal opinion out of it, I do want to
| add a couple of notes._
|
| What's your opinion, if you don't mind me asking?
|
| Personally I can't believe anyone is against this project. It's
| a complicated issue but the removal of wolves has had damn near
| catastrophic impact on pretty much everyone east of California
| from deer to ticks to elk. Even the ranchers are better off in
| the short run and especially long term.
|
| (I lose livestock every year to mountain lions so I'm no
| stranger to the cost of keeping apex predators around)
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| The people against this have valid reasons. For example,
| ranchers who don't want their livestock eaten by wolves that
| they can't defend against, legally.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Like I said I have to deal with the same issue thanks to
| mountain lions. I don't think it's a valid reason, it's a
| supremely selfish and shortsighted one.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Livestock predation is a common threat around the world.
| Are ranchers in Colorado uniquely unequipped to adopt any
| of the solutions used by ranchers elsewhere?
| DavidPastrnak wrote:
| I've been pretty consistent with leaving my opinions out when
| discussing the topic, mainly because of how polarizing it is
| here, and instead encouraging people to establish their own
| viewpoints based on solid sources. With that said, I'm
| heavily in favor of reintroduction. I believe the pros of
| intervention outweigh the cons of not doing so significantly
| and that the threat to Colorado ranchers is exaggerated -
| I'll leave it at that.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > even stretching into Wyoming politics where hunters are using
| electronic calls to lure them back across the border for
| hunting
|
| I wonder, in a Hannibal Lecter sort of way, what would be the
| essence of the mindsets of such hunters.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm not a hunter, but I can picture myself doing it. Hunting
| something I couldn't eat does seem off though.
| COGlory wrote:
| I've seen people go completely apeshit when elk hunting. It's
| just an awful selection cycle for people with low self
| esteem, rarity, FOMO, needing to prove something, and being
| far from consequences most of the time. Not all hunters are
| like this, but hunting naturally selects for people that are
| the most like that because it's the only blood sport left,
| really. And elk are the biggest thing. It's not unheard to
| pay $30,000+ for a "sure thing" bull elk hunt.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Most hunters are responsible and care deeply about wildlife
| imo
| chasd00 wrote:
| Trophy hunters are like stamp or coin collectors. They search
| and search for the rarest animal (record setting whitetail
| deer being the most common) to kill and hang in their wall.
| People don't like it but that's about what it is, rare
| collectibles.
| tw04 wrote:
| It only seems complicated in-so-far as ranchers who are making
| millions off running cattle at least partially on public lands
| are concerned they may take a 5% hit in their profits to the
| occasional cattle lost to wolves (which could be prevented by
| actually having staff following them vs just letting them
| roam).
|
| Other than "but I want to make even more money" I haven't heard
| a lot of arguments against.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| This is wildly over-simplifying the issue. Obviously you'd
| not be ok with me releasing wolves into your back yard, the
| difference here is only one of population density. The issue
| has subtleties and soundbite reductiveness does nobody any
| favors.
| tw04 wrote:
| I'd be perfectly fine with it, I would scare them off and
| that would be it. These aren't grizzly bears. Wolves aren't
| hunting humans unless they have literally no other options.
| I have no doubt they'd happily feast on deer vs finding out
| if the warning shot was a bluff.
|
| We have wolves in my state. I've never once been concerned
| about my safety when it comes to wolves.
| pookha wrote:
| Plenty of ranches (privately owned) use livestock waste for
| farming and to improve the soil. You're arguing that we
| should allow wolves -- that the government introduces -- to
| wipe out the main component of their ranch (livestock). In my
| eyes that's an insane proposition and it directly benefits
| the big industrial operations that frequently compete with
| these newer styled ranches. In the end you'd have more run-
| off and more pollution and a lot more carbon because the soil
| would be shot (thanks to monocrop farming).
| tw04 wrote:
| > to wipe out the main component of their ranch
| (livestock).
|
| Wipe out??? Do you think they're introducing 40k wolves or
| do you just have no idea how wolves work?
|
| There is literally 0 chance the livestock is wiped out,
| even without any management by the government. And there
| will absolutely be management of the population.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yep, also the free range and organic ranchers are the ones
| who are hardest hit, which makes it more expensive.
|
| This issue is just way more complicated and nuanced than
| most people want to make it. As an environmentalist I have
| a natural reaction against the ranchers, but having dove
| into many of these types of issues, I've been amazed at the
| complexity and second, third, and fourth order impacts and
| unintended consequences. Hot takes on HN are aggravating to
| read for someone who is actually informed on this and other
| issues.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. The GP comment
| did a great job of avoiding this, which is what other
| commenters should do too.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful. Note these:
|
| " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._ "
|
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Do you have any opinion on the recent reintroduction of coyotes
| from Arizona into the area?
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Personally I'd be happy if raising livestock was banned, so
| inconveniencing ranchers doesn't seem like a problem.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| It's almost the year 2024... if there's really no better
| solutions to keep wolves out of ranchers' properties, maybe this
| is a business opportunity? And if those solutions existed, maybe
| ranchers could get a tax break for using them? All I know is
| solutions have got to be possible.
| cactacea wrote:
| Most ranchers in western Colorado run their cattle on public
| land, not private property.
|
| https://www.fs.usda.gov/rangeland-management/grazing/permits...
| tomrod wrote:
| Sounds like a great opportunity to revisit cattle grazing
| privileges being freely given versus bringing back bison
| herds.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Isn't this a net good though? Most people benefit from cattle
| being as affordable as possible. If we charged ranchers to
| graze their livestock we'd see the cost passed onto
| consumers. This is a large reason we subsidize so much
| farming. It makes food affordable for all. This is a great
| social benefit for all.
| qwytw wrote:
| There is a solution, guards dogs. Pyrenean Mastiffs, Caucasian
| Shepherds etc. work pretty well in deterring any wolf attacks.
| Wolves are very risk averse and will go for easier prey as long
| as it's available.
| jebarker wrote:
| There are herds of sheep roaming on public land in southwest
| Colorado protected by Great Pyrenees. I assume that it's
| protection against mountain lions mostly. Those dogs are
| probably the most threatening thing to humans out hiking in
| those areas though!
| williamdclt wrote:
| > Those dogs are probably the most threatening thing to
| humans out hiking in those areas though!
|
| Those dogs are quite famous for being not only threatening,
| but dangerous. People get killed too often by Patous in
| France, I've known at least 2 people who got attacked (one
| of which _maced_ the dog, I find that hilarious in
| retrospect)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >All I know is solutions have got to be possible.
|
| This isn't intended as a personal attack, but I don't find
| technological advancement to be a compelling justification for
| blind optimism.
|
| There are a lot of problems with solutions that are simply not
| possible or economical, independent of time.
|
| Trans muting lead to gold has been a business opportunity for
| 2000 years, yet is still not possible in 2024.
| happytiger wrote:
| That's a deeply flawed argument called a false equivalent.
|
| Guarantee you there are still unexplored areas in predator
| behavior modification and livestock management using
| technology that's worth exploring.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I agree that there's a lot of things worth exploring, but
| that doesn't mean that success is guaranteed.
|
| I've been on the other side of this for a long time with
| agricultural animal management, and watched dozens of
| technological solutions fail, including drones, lasers,
| sound emitters, and habitat modification.
|
| Those working in the field to have an incentive to come up
| with a solution and I appreciate attempts to do so.
|
| But I don't appreciate is when people flippantly dismiss
| the problems of others saying with certainty that there is
| a solution available. If you're so confident, please make
| it and people will happily give you millions of dollars.
|
| On the other hand, I've seen lots of people lose their
| livelihood because someone imposed a problem on them and
| hand a way of the way of the consequences
| happytiger wrote:
| Fair enough.
|
| I have been exploring making it or investing in it on
| this very thread. It's a novel problem and it often helps
| to study the problem with first principles as animal
| agriculture is 40 percent of global output and a key
| environmental problem is predator mitigation, however
| it's done.
|
| I was doing a review of insurance products too.
| Interesting stuff.
|
| I'm deeply empathetic to the problems and understand some
| of the complexity involved. I have a fair amount of
| experience in ag, but not in this area.
|
| I feel like we should continue to innovate until we find
| solutions that work: that's what humans do best. It's
| important to keep applying new technologies to existing
| problems rather than entrenching ourselves in previous
| failures: that's the root activity of substantive
| innovation.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| Put yourself in the shoes of a poor rancher. The state wants to
| re-introduce wolves to your land, you're not legally allowed to
| defend against them with lethal force, and big tech promises a
| great business idea that will only cost a few hundred dollars a
| month for you to implement! Suck it up sunny, farmers are rich
| - you can afford it!
|
| Sounds like a big L for ranchers who are just able to make ends
| meet.
| ikiris wrote:
| The harder part is keeping ranchers on their own property.
| hcfman wrote:
| And I have a project that can help with that as well. An early
| warning system that recently I have integrated a wolf detection
| model into it. The intention is not to make it easy to shoot
| wolves but to provide options to protect their livestock. In
| Europe if you shot one you would receive a hefty fine if
| caught.
|
| There's a discussion about it here:
|
| https://wildlabs.net/discussion/ai-monitoring-wolves-netherl...
| lawlessone wrote:
| That should keep the beef lean...
|
| >The lawsuit alleges the government agencies violated the
| National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an
| environmental impact statement about the wolves while renewing a
| cooperative agreement between the two agencies about conserving
| endangered species.
|
| There's some severe irony to ranchers using this argument..
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| Not really. Thats mostly what that act is used for, dragging
| out change and protecting the status quo.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Environmental review lawsuits have gotten so insane that even
| recommendations for decarbonization admit that we can't
| actually build all the infrastructure we need for renewables
| because it'll get sued to death by NIMBYs cosplaying as
| environmentalists.
| kdamica wrote:
| I remember reading that the introduction of wolves into
| Yellowstone had a much bigger positive impact than expected. I'm
| sure this is an oversimplification of a complex ecosystem-wide
| impact, but my understanding is that the effect is mostly that it
| forces deer and elk to stay on the move, making it easier for
| certain types of plants and trees to survive.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> I'm sure this is an oversimplification of a complex
| ecosystem-wide impact, but my understanding is that the effect
| is mostly that it forces deer and elk to stay on the move,
| making it easier for certain types of plants and trees to
| survive._
|
| After most of the wolves were wiped out we discovered the
| concept of keystone predators [1] that keep other predators and
| herbivores in check so that they don't go through catastrophic
| boom and bust cycles. Part of that is moving them around more
| but also just plain population control.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species#The_wolf,_Yel...
| hgomersall wrote:
| I read a while ago about the problem of wolf hunting destroying
| the group knowledge and social structures of the pack. The effect
| is the pack can no longer hunt effectively and so resort to
| hunting that requires little effort, like ranches.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Wouldn't they always hunt whatever is easiest? Why would they
| play on hard mode? It's not like they see it as a sport where
| there's more to be had by setting up rules to make it
| "sporting". Don't they just want as much food as they can get
| as easily and low risk as possible?
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I'll be interested to see long term studies on the ecological
| impact after wolves are reintroduced.
|
| It seems fairly clear that it'd be a net positive, but the exact
| effects of them coming back after having been absent so long
| should be interesting.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Living out in the middle of nowhere, I can appreciate having
| animals that used to live reintroduced back to their habitat.
| Except mosquitoes. Mosquitoes can all go to hell in a burning
| hand basket.
|
| My fear is the "scientific hubris of today". It goes like this:
| "Yesterday everyone was evil and dumb, and destroyed <insert your
| personal pet agenda>. Today, we are much smarter, and we are
| enlightened and know all things that needed to be done. Our
| intellect is leaps and bounds over those troglodytes from last
| year."
|
| Then, a few years down the road we find out _again_ that those
| brilliant minds were not exactly aware of all the details, and
| have made things worse. (Or, as now it is starting to trickle
| out, those brilliant minds lied and falsified their studies.)
|
| e.g., you know why we switched to plastic bags from recycled
| paper bags in grocery stores? Allan Savory in Zimbabwe and saving
| the forest by killing elephants? Monarch butterflies and the
| wrong milkweed? The Osborne tire reef?
|
| (Of course, I know I am an outlier. I make weighted matrices with
| dozen or more rows to decide which vegetable I should ferment
| next. It is likely going to be green tomatoes, but carrots are
| mighty close this year.)
| lukas099 wrote:
| We really do know a lot more than we used to though.
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