4 ms·
In some situations some may bounce back but their predators not, creating wild imbalances. As a nearby example, red deer, roe deer and wild boar populations gro
by lloeki 9y ago
In some situations some may bounce back but their predators not, creating wild imbalances. As a nearby example, red deer, roe deer and wild boar populations grow uncontrolled and they thoroughly destroy everything that's below 1.5-2m, provoking cascading ecosystem effects that endangers some local forests.
Poachers kill protected predators such as L. Lynx purely out of pride†, and as soon as wolves come anywhere near possibly even remotely like rumoured to be coming around people go up in arms OMG-please-people-think-of-the-children-and-sheep-we-have-to-obliterate-the-thing-out-of-existence.
† Lynx can kill comparatively sizeable prey (up to 5x their weight!), so they typically leave the carcass in place and come back some days later, so all the poachers have to do is spot a carcass in the woods, stay downwind, gun down the poor unsuspecting fella from a distance, and brag about their awsum top-of-the-food-chain I'm-a-super-predator-killing-a-definitely-terrifying-predator†† leet skillz.
†† Seriously, it's a beautiful, easily frightened cat that is a real ninja and scared as hell of humans. Zero threat, and zero pride to be taken in mowing down a sitting duck.
- baud147258 9y agoCurrently in Europe, regarding the wolves, it's 'protect-the-wolves-don't-care-about-sheep'. But it allow to limit the over-population of certain animals in certain area (mostly the mountains).
- dx034 9y agoI presume you talk about Eastern/Central Europe? That's certainly not the case for Western Europe.
- lloeki 9y agoWolves are legally considered pest in France. Hunting being a regulated activity, the allowed kills have been raised to 40/y this very year. Overall kills are estimated to be well over a hundred.
- baud147258 9y agoAre you sure about wolves considered pest in France? I haven't found if that's the case. Still thank you for your answer, I didn't know about the quotas.
- lloeki 9y agoThis is a decision that has to be made locally (not state-wide) by députés and it has been taken at various points in time in some areas. Basically when in effect it says that if wolves are threatening livestock, non-hunters are allowed to perform kills. At various point in times there also have been allowance to use wartime-class sniping weapons to hunt at night. Allowed kill ratios have been known to reach 0.75 of the actual wolf population in some areas too. Paranoia is through the roof in France, while you cross the nearby border and Italy seems able to cope with 10 times the wolf population just fine.