Wildlife "management."
Lethal Control
2,017 views as of 2:20 pm 9.Aug.21
I support Western Watersheds Project and Advocates for the West. Both organizations work to remove livestock from public lands in an effort to restore habitat and reestablish a vestige of the ecosystem that was here prior to the Euro incursion.
Western Watersheds Project is partnering with Predator Defense to increase awareness.
My own experience with wolves was in the Yukon in 2010. Camped on a bluff above the Takhini River (link is to a Youtube video) a few miles from Mendenhall Landing, for three nights running I was visited by a small pack. It was July and at that latitude the sun is only down from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
The first night, right at 2:00 a.m. I heard the very different -- from coyotes -- howling. I was in a tent so couldn't see them, but they sounded close. The hair on the back of my neck came up and I experienced a primal (irrational) sense of fear. After a few minutes they apparently left as it once again was quiet.
The second night, at exactly the same time, they chorused again. This time I was intrigued. I'd thought about the previous night and was excited they'd returned. As before, they howled for a few minutes, then, once again, all was quiet.
I found it hard to sleep while it was light and on the THIRD night was just drifting off when they burst into song. Although flattered to be the recipient of what now appeared as premeditated attention, I WANTED TO SLEEP, DAMNIT!
They never came again.
Perhaps I'm anthropomorphising, but it felt as if they were enjoying a prank. No growls, no attack, just howling. And BEAUTIFUL howling at that. Having had their fun, especially the first night, I surmised they grew bored.
From reading I gather wolves are as individual as people. Thus, I wouldn't expect ALL wolves to be as benign. But given that the folks here for thousands of years before we -- us whites -- got here were able to cohabitate at least SOMEWHAT peaceably, it seems as if the least we can do is get a vasectomy (thereby assuring space) and get the livestock off the places where there's a chance of having a large-scale zoo.
Typically if there are wolves there are no coyotes. Here in the mid-north of MN we do have wolves. The locals hate the wolves because they kill deer and eat beef every so often. Before the lumber barons took all the old growth white pine there were not deer, just elk. I would like more wolves. They're elusive but can be spotted every so often. Even the elusive have weak moments.
ReplyDeleteFor reasons unknown, I choose to think the animals, with their much more highly-developed senses, *let* us see them.
DeleteThat said, Kristen's encounter with a young moose who brought its face close to hers as she sat on a trailside rock was, she surmised, curious, despite its poor eye sight. It galluped away in terror!