5 ms·

Shouldn't we be letting biologists and ecologists make this decision?

iRobbery 7y ago
shouldn't people simply wait until they re-migrate back? Wolves are back in my country, and we didnt do anything special for it? Usually things go wrong when humans intervene.
- macinjosh 7y ago
  Exactly. Part of being respectful of our environment is knowing when to leave well enough alone
- bananabreakfast 7y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what happened when they killed all the wolves in the first place...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
> It's about challenging more than a century of U.S. wildlife management. Sounds like maybe said ecologists and biologist were part of the original problem?
- duxup 7y ago
  It certainly was an issue, folks didn't understand then. But today I doubt you'd find many ecologists argue you should remove a native species wholesale outside some very strange situations. Like all science you take the mistakes, learn, and keep doing better.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  Wildlife management is a direct consequence of environmental laws. Laws are created (normally) by Politicians. The majority of american politicians with any relevance in the last 100 years supported fire weapons, therefore hunting (because weapons were created to allow good citizens to hunt vermins and game. Aren't they?). I assume that for a politician in US, to reject weapons in public 50 years ago would have been social suicide. Ecologists and biologists did what were allowed by the current laws to do, and what were hired to do. Not more, not less. There are around 22 american people trying to save the last 15 american vaquitas or so. Their ships are shooted and harassed rutinely for removing illegal nets. When the animal will go extinct in a few years, we all will see how some people still blame on they. I'm 100% sure of that.
- fanatic2pope 7y ago
  Wow, those must be some super old ecologists and biologists if they were the same people!
WhompingWindows 7y ago
We wouldn't be without a ballot initiative anyway. The article clearly states that hunters and powerful lobbying interests are fighting tooth-and-nail against re-introducing wolves. So, this isn't just down to biologists, there are interest groups coming in from multiple angles.
macinjosh 7y ago
Uhhh, no. Why would we? Their interests aren’t the only interests in the world. We live in a democracy not some sort of Orwellian world where we just do what the experts say. That would never work out well.
cyorir 7y ago
That's essentially technocracy. I think some amount of technocratic decision-making is good in a government, but at the end of the day you still need that government to be informed by the needs/desires of the people (democracy, more or less). Democracy should be informed by the technocrats, not replaced by technocracy. In this case, I think voters should be listening to ecologists to understand the effects that reintroduction of wolves will have, but it's good that it's still up to the voters to decide whether to prioritize restoring the ecosystem versus making life easier for those in the agriculture industry.
- appleiigs 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee "The term is used to refer to suboptimal traits that such a process may produce as a result of having to compromise between the requirements and viewpoints of the participants, particularly in the presence of poor leadership or poor technical knowledge, such as needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision"
- beerandt 7y ago
  Technocracy would be letting the ecologists make decisions about wildlife refuges, and agro-scientists making decisions about range land. The initial decision of what to prioritize and what "expert" to consult is still inherently political.
zeveb 7y ago
That's a very appealing idea — after all, biologists and ecologists are the experts at biology & ecology. But what if the biologists and the ecologists disagree? E.g. maybe the wolves would be great in one biological aspect but bad for the ecosystem? Of course any decision has multiple impacts: even if biologists and ecologists agree, what about stakeholders? Should farming and ranching experts have a seat at the table? What about climatologists (after all, maybe wolf flatulence better or worse than deer flatulence)? What about mining interests, who might need to adjust physical security? What about suburban homeowners, who might need to do likewise? What about urban renters, who might really want to see those suburbanites move into the city? And of course even if we limit the discussion strictly to scientists who can be strictly objective about the decisionmaking, they can still be wrong, because the settled science at any point in time can be incorrect (cf. phrenology, the safety of leaded gas and the immediacy of self-driving cars). At the very least, if we make the vote democratically, whatever happens can be blamed on everyone collectively.
Glyptodon 7y ago
So they can only make part of the decision correctly: that there should be some sort of reintroduction, and what aspects of it are scientifically/biologically required for success. They are not a good sole party to address the economics, social/cultural/community issues, or a number of other aspects of programs like this. Wolf reintroduction is major change with the potential for disproportionate impact on a small group of people (or at least there's a huge fear of it), and combined with a very real sense that some outside elite authority is just autocratically dictating without listening there is great potential for it to go sideways. (Keep in mind that centralized power structures dissipate with distance/isolation - witness rural sheriffs refusing to enforce specific laws in some states, etc.) In general there should be a second angle: how to support the community, make the program successful, and have buy-in. This means maybe there should be some combination of communication, support, insurance, or grants to mitigate community concerns, and that it should be treated as an ongoing back-and-forth that tries to balance concerns for long term success, not as a dictate to people who are ignored.
rsync 7y ago
"Shouldn't we be letting biologists and ecologists make this decision?" No. In a Democracy, we should be letting voters decide.
- mullingitover 7y ago
  No one lives in a pure democracy. Generally we elect people who, in theory, are best suited for governance to make decisions on our behalf.

shouldn't people simply wait until they re-migrate back? Wolves are back in my country, and we didnt do anything special for it? Usually things go wrong when humans intervene.

macinjosh 7y ago
Exactly. Part of being respectful of our environment is knowing when to leave well enough alone
bananabreakfast 7y ago
Yes, that's exactly what happened when they killed all the wolves in the first place...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

> It's about challenging more than a century of U.S. wildlife management. Sounds like maybe said ecologists and biologist were part of the original problem?

duxup 7y ago
It certainly was an issue, folks didn't understand then. But today I doubt you'd find many ecologists argue you should remove a native species wholesale outside some very strange situations. Like all science you take the mistakes, learn, and keep doing better.
pvaldes 7y ago
Wildlife management is a direct consequence of environmental laws. Laws are created (normally) by Politicians. The majority of american politicians with any relevance in the last 100 years supported fire weapons, therefore hunting (because weapons were created to allow good citizens to hunt vermins and game. Aren't they?). I assume that for a politician in US, to reject weapons in public 50 years ago would have been social suicide. Ecologists and biologists did what were allowed by the current laws to do, and what were hired to do. Not more, not less. There are around 22 american people trying to save the last 15 american vaquitas or so. Their ships are shooted and harassed rutinely for removing illegal nets. When the animal will go extinct in a few years, we all will see how some people still blame on they. I'm 100% sure of that.
fanatic2pope 7y ago
Wow, those must be some super old ecologists and biologists if they were the same people!

WhompingWindows 7y ago

We wouldn't be without a ballot initiative anyway. The article clearly states that hunters and powerful lobbying interests are fighting tooth-and-nail against re-introducing wolves. So, this isn't just down to biologists, there are interest groups coming in from multiple angles.

macinjosh 7y ago

Uhhh, no. Why would we? Their interests aren’t the only interests in the world. We live in a democracy not some sort of Orwellian world where we just do what the experts say. That would never work out well.

cyorir 7y ago

That's essentially technocracy. I think some amount of technocratic decision-making is good in a government, but at the end of the day you still need that government to be informed by the needs/desires of the people (democracy, more or less). Democracy should be informed by the technocrats, not replaced by technocracy. In this case, I think voters should be listening to ecologists to understand the effects that reintroduction of wolves will have, but it's good that it's still up to the voters to decide whether to prioritize restoring the ecosystem versus making life easier for those in the agriculture industry.

appleiigs 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee "The term is used to refer to suboptimal traits that such a process may produce as a result of having to compromise between the requirements and viewpoints of the participants, particularly in the presence of poor leadership or poor technical knowledge, such as needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision"
beerandt 7y ago
Technocracy would be letting the ecologists make decisions about wildlife refuges, and agro-scientists making decisions about range land. The initial decision of what to prioritize and what "expert" to consult is still inherently political.

zeveb 7y ago

That's a very appealing idea — after all, biologists and ecologists are the experts at biology & ecology. But what if the biologists and the ecologists disagree? E.g. maybe the wolves would be great in one biological aspect but bad for the ecosystem? Of course any decision has multiple impacts: even if biologists and ecologists agree, what about stakeholders? Should farming and ranching experts have a seat at the table? What about climatologists (after all, maybe wolf flatulence better or worse than deer flatulence)? What about mining interests, who might need to adjust physical security? What about suburban homeowners, who might need to do likewise? What about urban renters, who might really want to see those suburbanites move into the city? And of course even if we limit the discussion strictly to scientists who can be strictly objective about the decisionmaking, they can still be wrong, because the settled science at any point in time can be incorrect (cf. phrenology, the safety of leaded gas and the immediacy of self-driving cars). At the very least, if we make the vote democratically, whatever happens can be blamed on everyone collectively.

Glyptodon 7y ago

So they can only make part of the decision correctly: that there should be some sort of reintroduction, and what aspects of it are scientifically/biologically required for success. They are not a good sole party to address the economics, social/cultural/community issues, or a number of other aspects of programs like this. Wolf reintroduction is major change with the potential for disproportionate impact on a small group of people (or at least there's a huge fear of it), and combined with a very real sense that some outside elite authority is just autocratically dictating without listening there is great potential for it to go sideways. (Keep in mind that centralized power structures dissipate with distance/isolation - witness rural sheriffs refusing to enforce specific laws in some states, etc.) In general there should be a second angle: how to support the community, make the program successful, and have buy-in. This means maybe there should be some combination of communication, support, insurance, or grants to mitigate community concerns, and that it should be treated as an ongoing back-and-forth that tries to balance concerns for long term success, not as a dictate to people who are ignored.

rsync 7y ago

"Shouldn't we be letting biologists and ecologists make this decision?" No. In a Democracy, we should be letting voters decide.

mullingitover 7y ago
No one lives in a pure democracy. Generally we elect people who, in theory, are best suited for governance to make decisions on our behalf.