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Reintroduction and protection of large predators has diffuse benefits and concentrated damages. It affects the average rancher orders of magnitude more (and imp

by ahoy 6y ago

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.

gbrown 6y ago
Yeah, I get the practical argument, but as you say the big picture looks very different.
aejnsn 6y ago
I don't know if I agree with the first bit. Wolves were reintroduced to my original part of the US to much benefit, not just the conservation of the species. Stupid whitetail deer were running wild, destroying flora and destroying too many cars on the region's highways. Departments of game and wildlife tried to address this by issuing more hunting permits for whitetail. Didn't work. There are only so many hunters, and they hunt all they can. More permits doesn't do anything for them when the population is booming. They're not hunting anything that exists, they're looking for trophies at this point, and taking the best of the gene pool. A group of vehicle insurance companies were organizing events, leasing hunting land, and paying bounties in a couple counties due to the rampant whitetail population. Wolves were reintroduced there to much benefit making for a healthy population of whitetail. Also, because the whitetail overpopulation has been curtailed, game law violations dropped in that rural part of the world. It takes a dedicated hunter to actually 'hunt', but attracts any idiot with a rifle when game in an area is rampantly overpopulated.

by ahoy 6y ago

gbrown 6y ago

Yeah, I get the practical argument, but as you say the big picture looks very different.

aejnsn 6y ago

I don't know if I agree with the first bit. Wolves were reintroduced to my original part of the US to much benefit, not just the conservation of the species. Stupid whitetail deer were running wild, destroying flora and destroying too many cars on the region's highways. Departments of game and wildlife tried to address this by issuing more hunting permits for whitetail. Didn't work. There are only so many hunters, and they hunt all they can. More permits doesn't do anything for them when the population is booming. They're not hunting anything that exists, they're looking for trophies at this point, and taking the best of the gene pool. A group of vehicle insurance companies were organizing events, leasing hunting land, and paying bounties in a couple counties due to the rampant whitetail population. Wolves were reintroduced there to much benefit making for a healthy population of whitetail. Also, because the whitetail overpopulation has been curtailed, game law violations dropped in that rural part of the world. It takes a dedicated hunter to actually 'hunt', but attracts any idiot with a rifle when game in an area is rampantly overpopulated.