'Managed' wolf reintroduction in parks...hmmm
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/
02/02/wolves.ecosystem.control.climate/
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02/02/wolves.ecosystem.control.climate/
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Reintroduce packs of wolves that can grow and sustain themselves as a species into the Southern Rocky Mountains, Adirondacks and Cascades and allow them to influence and improve biodiversity naturally, let the system work itself out. But releasing non-sustaining populations solely for the purpose of controlling ungulates is idiotic. How is their proposal beneficial to our overall biodiversity?
Brian McAveney
Landscape Architect
Biohabitats, Inc.
posted by Biohabitats, Inc. at
1:36 PM
2 Comments:
I agree. It seems to me we should allow nature to determine the number of wolves rather than "us". However, I wonder if we have altered the system or limited the area to such a degree that the natural balances can no longer be achieved.
This is an example of cultural carrying capacity vs. ecological carrying capacity. You could have wolves in lots of places in North America but fear and intolerance get in the way.
The inverse happens with white-tailed deer in PA.; the cultural carrying capacity exceeds the ecological carrying capacity. Generations of hunters have been raised on an artificially elevated population of white-tails and resist efforts to reduce the herd to levels that will not impair forest regeneration. Right now if you walk into the woods over most of PA you witness an understory that is devastated. The DCNR routinely puts up expensive deer exclusion fencing around harvest sites in order to generate acceptable tree reproduction. Cultural carrying capacity vs. ecological carrying capacity.
Ideal solution would be to reintroduce wolves into the region. Unfortunately that would conflict with the long-term landscape industrialization plans of the natural gas industry.
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