One of the guys over at Jesse’s Hunting and Outdoors posted up a link to a pretty intriguing article on the Sports Illustrated Vault site. One of the key premises of the piece is how the decline of hunting is beginning to impact the natural order, and the animals once kept in check by hunting are now expanding back into human territory.
The article begins with the story of Kenton Carnegie and his fatal encounter with wolves up in northern Canada. The event is significant, because until that point in North America, there had only been one human death from a wolf attack in 100 years. Is this a sign of things to come, or just an anomaly? It’s a good question.
Anyway, a good part of the article is based on the work and theories of Dr. Valerius Geist, an environmental scientist and a specialist in the behavior of large mammals. Here’s a bit from the article itself:
Valerius Geist, a professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary and an expert on the behavior of large mammals, calls what is happening “the recolonization by wildlife.” The first sign, he says, “was when the herbivores returned,” a reference to the overabundance of deer, moose and elk in North America. After the herbivores, Geist says, the carnivores are never far behind. “We are just now beginning to experience that phase,” he says. As recently as 1994 there were about 50 wolves left in the Yellowstone region (Idaho, Montana and Wyoming), but the population there now stands at more than 1,500; in Minnesota wolves climbed from about 500 in the 1950s to more than 3,000 today.
The third phase of animal recolonization, Geist says, is “the parasites and diseases returning in full force.”
The population explosion of white tailed deer over much of the eastern US, and the boom in elk throughout Colorado are good examples of the kind of “recolonization” Geist describes. With the issues surrounding the return of wolves to Yellowstone and that area, it’s an idea that bears a lot of examination.
At any rate, it was a really intriguing read. If you get half a chance, go read the article, and if you’re so inclined drop back in here and let me know what you thought.
That’s a great article. Outstanding. It’s no surprise to hunters – particularly hunters that live with wolves – that predators need to be managed or everything gets thrown out of balance. When prey is abundant, predators are even more abundant – and if nothing preys on the predator, then the balance is even more out of whack. I remember when I was a kid and there weren’t many rabbits around. Not many rabbits, meant there weren’t many coyotes. Then here about ten years ago, the rabbit population started to grow. And then about 8 years ago, the coyote population boomed – and it is still booming. The wolves have followed the game into parts of Idaho, and even though our cloven hooved critters are declining, the wolves have no predators, so of course they won’t be declining. Over population of anything isn’t good. Whether it be turtles, elk, bear, wolves, or people. It just isn’t good – disease is sure to follow, it screws up the balance in nature, it throws everything out of whack. If we could manage critters through hunting, nature pretty well returns to balance. Hunting has worked as a way to manage wildlife for 4,000 years – why do we decide we need to change it now?