A matter of perspective

[Steve Zissou]

Its a whole thread based exactly on this topic, so to post quotes would defeat the time saving aspect of it. But, that 8 thousand number might not seem like much, but it has been estimated that a pack of wolves requires 8 moose a year, for every member of the pack, so thats 36,000 moose a year, and a great number of those being being juveniles. Now i realize they do not prey solely on moose, nor that moose are soley predated by wolves, bears aswell as hunters do account for a major part of moose harvested, i believe i read somewhere it was around 26% but I can't cite that and I don't have the time.

In ecology, there is a rule known as the 10% rule. This refers to the amount of energy (biomass) that predatory trophic levels can have with respect to the trophic levels below their own. Essentially, this means that every predator requires approximately 10x its bodyweight in prey items to be part of a sustainable population.

The average full grown grey wolf weighs approximately 80lbs in North America. This means that the average wolf requires approximately 800lbs of prey items in its range. The average juvenile moose weighs in at roughly 400lbs (newborns are roughly 30lbs, and yearlings can be as much as 700lbs).

Applying this across the province for each wolf, this means that wolves actually would only predate on a maximum of 20,000 juvenile moose each year (fluff factor applied), and that's only if they ate just moose. When we apply the deer, rabbit/hares, mountain sheep, caribou, ground squirrels, small rodents, and other prey, there's going to be a significant reduction in the number of moose taken/required.

Even a small change in moose survivalbility rates, (which I can't find anything recent right now so if it becomes a topic of debate I will find something more recent than 1991) due to predation, will quickly lead to a large wolf population looking meals somewhere else, i.e cattle farms etc. mentioned earlier, because just because one source of food is removed, doesn't mean thousands of wolves will disappear in a single season. They will move into rural area's looking for food, compete with bears and all that good stuff, before eventually they starve to death over a long, grueling period.

Wolves typically hunt any of their prey at any time. They aren't dependent on just moose. In fact, I would argue that moose are a minor component of their diet, and experience wolf predation the most heavily during spring.

If one food source is completely removed, wolves will prey more heavily on their other food items. If that's unsustainable, wolves have been known to kill other members of the pack and even resort to cannibalism. In fact, reductions in wolf populations can happen very quickly. Losing thousands of wolves in a given season would represent a significant loss of the BC wolf population, but packs can experience a 30% attrition rate in lean times.

Undulates already have a hard time surviving winters now that many low lying regions are inhabited by people. They are forced up higher and have lower survival rates, due to having their natural weathering regions occupied by us. And based on just leaving nature to do it's thing, a small salmon holding steam is become over loaded with human garbage, chemicals, and is being increasingly becoming harder to hold fish, why not just keep on the same road? Eventually salmon will die out but eventually new life will inhabit the streams, bass, perch, catfish. They are hardier fish able to survive and adapt to the environment and since we are already here, eventually it would happen right, just because people showed and caused the problem mother nature will eventually figure it out.

I still don't see the ungulate decline that hunters are claiming exists. The majority of ungulate populations across BC are showing stable or even increasing trends according to regional biologist estimates.

I don't really follow this part of your post. Are you trying to infer that we shouldn't be trying to preserve fish habitat for native species? That's really an apples and oranges argument, because, again, the argument is that we shouldn't be letting our actions and behaviours change the environment. While nature will surely find a way to let life inhabit that hypothetical creek, the effects of our depending on nature to accommodate our foolhardiness may be much more significant than just picking up the garbage and keeping the stream clean in the first place.

IMO it just doesn't make sense.

What exactly doesn't make sense? The ecological part of it or the fact that wolves aren't ravenous insatiable beasts that eat and kill everything that their laser eyes point at? :P

[Steve Zissou]

Double post, sorry.

A little rebuttle and to hopfully get us back on track.

Steve, there is a big difference between a sick moose and a dead, healthy moose. i used to do a lot of sledding while at Tunkwa and have come across moose that a select group has cut the hind quarters off and in one case I figured the moose had been there a week. Went back to the same area a week later and the wolves had found the remains and had their fill.

That's an excellent point, John.

I was more trying to give a counterpoint to what you were saying about wolves not preying on the sick and old.

[btree]

Impressive dedication to the topic everyone.

Steve, I couldn't agree with you more; I wish the time and expertise to invest in this topic.

Kudo's to everyone for keeping things civil, this is an epic thread - surprised we don't get threads with this quality and quantity related to fishing... hehehehe. Great read so far.

[The Badger]

I agree with both sides of this dicussion. I am also an ex-forestry worker with many years of surveying and bush work behind me. I did not care a gun but did carry a knife and spray for protection. Lucky enough I did not get attacked seen a few people get attacked not by wolves but by bears.

With wolves, when we had our ranch we did loose some livestock to wolve attacks so from that stand piont I agree of a cull. Considering when a cow is killed you loose out on how many years of reproductive sucess. And a 500-600 plus pound calf over 4-6 years adds up pretty quick.

However just killing for the sake of killing wolves is insane there is no reason for it. Not sure how the prey levels are in different areas but they do need to be controlled if they are too high. It boils down to predator prey relationship and is cyclic and from what I see the prey is still on the rise therefore the predator population will continue to rise till both crash and we are on a down cycle .

Just my thoughts

[Doubletap]

I'm not sure I quite get why predator - prey relationships are difficult to understand, especially one as well understood as our native wolf/native ungulate populations.

When the prey population numbers drop - predator populations follow. These numbers fluctuate according to winter weather severity, disease, breeding success and half a hundred other factors - some of which are rather poorly understood. There will always be fluctuations in these populations - fluctuations that are not measured by "my buddy saw lots of wolves last winter" or "I couldn't find a deer before the end of the season".

There are no hordes of wolves roaming the woods where there are few prey species to support them. It doesn't happen in nature. There is quite a bit of pussy-footing around the issue, stroking each others backs and trying to maintain "civility" - but if the above concepts are difficult for an individual to understand, then that individual doesn't have any business carrying a firearm in the woods and introducing themselves into a predator-prey relationship.

I love wild meat - but I don't support a predator cull to allow me more choice of ungulates to harvest. I have alternate sources of sustenance, wolves (and by extension, cougars) don't have that luxury. Nor do I respect or support any of my fellow citizen's that believe they have that right.

A wolf kills prey for sustenance - its only man that would kill for something as trivial as a hide, leaving the meat in the bush (and again, by extension - grizzlies, polars, cougars, coyotes etc). With all we know about the damages man has visited on our natural environment - its extremely disappointing that there are plenty of folks out there that think this will work out in the long run (think of orca, bull trout, and wolf/bear populations in the US and Europe).

All that said, I came across three wolf kills in the mid/north Island this last winter - and have seen more wolf sign around that I have in the last 8 years (tracks and excrement). A heartening scenario - as it bespeaks of a healthy prey/predator relationship - and not a reason to cull wolves so you won't have to get out of your truck in order to find a deer this coming season.

Seriously - the older I get, the more I believe that common sense is becoming so rare it should be considered a superpower.