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Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

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Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#41

Post by protomyth »

gbrown wrote: post #11
Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

Yeah this is a bit premature. I dunno why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed (it's pretty rare) and everyone goes home happy? Apex predator reintroduction is a good litmus test for how much conservation we can stomach, so I think it's important that we get this right.

Why should we even pay? There's no constitutional right to be able to leave your livestock basically unprotected on vast tracts of land where they're vulnerable to predators. I mean, if it makes it more palatable it's probably worth it to pay farmers... but I viscerally dislike the idea that any industry has the right to: 1. Destroy the environment for their convenience 2. Be indemnified by the government for their i…

Why should we even pay? There's no constitutional right to be able to leave your livestock basically unprotected on vast tracts of land where they're vulnerable to predators.

The argument would go: the government does not want the rancher to actually protect his cattle because that would involve shooting the wolves. That's why the wolves on the list in the first place.

If don't want cattle put in a barn all day, then you get cattle out in the fields.

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#42

Post by ahoy »

gbrown wrote: post #11
Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

Yeah this is a bit premature. I dunno why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed (it's pretty rare) and everyone goes home happy? Apex predator reintroduction is a good litmus test for how much conservation we can stomach, so I think it's important that we get this right.

Why should we even pay? There's no constitutional right to be able to leave your livestock basically unprotected on vast tracts of land where they're vulnerable to predators. I mean, if it makes it more palatable it's probably worth it to pay farmers... but I viscerally dislike the idea that any industry has the right to: 1. Destroy the environment for their convenience 2. Be indemnified by the government for their i…

Reintroduction and protection of large predators has diffuse benefits and concentrated damages. It affects the average rancher orders of magnitude more (and importantly, more negatively) than it affects the average non-rancher.

So you have a group with common interests who are ready to act as an obstruction to the greater social good because it's going to financially harm them. You _can_ tell them to shove it, but that has political consequences and might backfire and undo your whole conservation effort. Or you can help them out financially while they transition to doing business in this new normal where wolves still get to exist.

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#43

Post by NewOrderNow »

pcmaffey wrote: post #24
1-more wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, a hunter spends hours or days to kill one animal reasonably quickly. A farm slaughters thousands of animals after raising them in absolutely cruel conditions. If I had the goal to make animals suffer fewer creature-hours of pain then faced with the choice to either ban hunting or ban livestock, I'd go with livestock. However if you're vegetarian, vegan, or raise your own livestock then I salute you as having a co…

Wolves are not livestock.

A human can eat any animal. A human can't eat any vegetation. What point are you trying to make exactly?

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#44

Post by perbu »

dboreham wrote: post #16
Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

Yeah this is a bit premature. I dunno why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed (it's pretty rare) and everyone goes home happy? Apex predator reintroduction is a good litmus test for how much conservation we can stomach, so I think it's important that we get this right.

> why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed Ah ha. A HN thread close to home (I live within earshot of wolves in Montana). So...we do [1], [2]. Ranchers (generalizing, of course) just don't like wolves. It's a really deep cultural thing. So if you as president want to take some step that will cause a bunch of folks in ranching areas to high five, you'd delist wolves. That they may not in fact be impacte…

In Norway we pay ranchers for sheep which are taken by wolves. They still really hate wolves.

More sheep are taken by wolverines, lynx and bears yet the ranches are still keen on full extermination of the wolf population.

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#45

Post by frockington1 »

Sunspark wrote: post #25

This is part of the Trump administration's agenda to remove or dismantle anything they can that the Obama administration implemented or put in place. It is the same with all the other environmental regulations and protections they are removing such as the prohibition on drilling for oil in the arctic wildlife refugee, etc. It's very unfortunate for Americans that this administration's policies are not based on ration…

I mailed in my ballot, voting for the first time ever this year! Voted for President Trump! Would encourage everyone else to as well, it's a good feeling to exercise rights that many in the world unfortunately do not have.

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#46

Post by vanattab »

pcmaffey wrote: post #12
Grakel wrote: post #3

Hope they continue to do well, and are added to a limited hunting season in my state, creating a balanced population and a new game animal.

I can't fathom how people enjoy killing for sport (for food, sure, but solely for pleasure?). That must be some kind of pathology?

In my experience the killing part is not what hunters enjoy. There is a lot more to hunting then pulling the trigger...

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#47

Post by NewOrderNow »

floren wrote: post #26
ainiriand wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why your first reaction to the recovery of this species (that your own hunter breed almost completely erased), is to think about them as moving targets? Can't you find something more productive to do than to shoot innocent animals?

They were not erased by the modern hunter, but by farmers who didn't want them eating their sheep and, in many cases, by professional wolf-killers hired by states . The renowned conservation writer Aldo Leopold's earliest work was killing bears, wolves, and mountain lions for the forest service. Unfortunately it wasn't until we'd nearly erased wolves and grizzlies (cougars have always been too wily to be wiped out) t…

A farmer that protest his livestock is, guess what, a hunter. What is up with the semantics on murdering livestock?

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#49

Post by [deleted] »

pcmaffey wrote: post #12
Grakel wrote: post #3

Hope they continue to do well, and are added to a limited hunting season in my state, creating a balanced population and a new game animal.

I can't fathom how people enjoy killing for sport (for food, sure, but solely for pleasure?). That must be some kind of pathology?

[deleted]

Re: Gray Wolves to Be Removed from Endangered Species List

#50

Post by yupyup54133 »

Here in Wisconsin the wolf argument is a wealthy vs poor issue. Specifically, it is mostly the southern wealthy urbanites and suburbanites dictating to the poorer northern half of the state that they must put up with the re-introduction of wolves.

It would be much less of an issue if the wolves were also introduced into the county forests and state parks in the southern half of the state where the wealthy urbanites and suburbanites live. However, the southern Wisconsinites like the idea of having a wolf population but do not want to actually have to deal with the risks and hardships that come with them.

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