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Simply paying for cattle that wolves have eaten isn't enough. Wolves induce panic in herds, causing them to go over cliffs or trample down fences and cross busy
by corty 6y ago
Simply paying for cattle that wolves have eaten isn't enough. Wolves induce panic in herds, causing them to go over cliffs or trample down fences and cross busy roads, causing accidents. In Germany this isn't currently paid for by the state, because the law doesn't say so, the causality is hard to prove (basically you need a piece of flesh with a wolve's dental pattern) and the farmer is often first in line and goes bancrupt, because damage to the vehicles was done by his sheep/cows/whatever, not the wolves directly.
Also, grazing cattle outside is desirable for better land use (usually grassland isn't good for much else) and keeping the current state of ecosystems (without grazing, bushes and trees will take over). Also, regions where cattle is grazed are typically also tourist hotspots, but cattle frequently scared by wolves is much more aggresive towards hikers. So basically, wolves screw over a lot more than just the few cows they eat...
- spiderfarmer 6y agoIn The Netherlands people who "love" wolves say farmers should put up 3m high fences around their fields. Other people are telling farmers to get rid of all sorts of fences and just use ditches and hetches, because they like to see that on their Sunday stroll. The amount of criticism and conflicting opinions that farmers face is unbelievable.
- jhayward 6y ago> Also, grazing cattle outside is desirable for better land use (usually grassland isn't good for much else) and keeping the current state of ecosystems (without grazing, bushes and trees will take over) This is complete nonsense. Cattle grazing has been devastating North American habitat for a couple of centuries, and current BLM practices just continue the same abuse. The Texas Hill country is badly damaged from overgrazing, this had led to loss of topsoil, massive loss of groundwater, and completely altered habitat for native species.
- corty 6y agowell, yes, Germany used to be all forrests, around 1BCE. Since then, people changed all kinds of habitats, often in a very radical way (burning and razing down the forest, lots of towns ending in -roth because of that). Nowadays, conservation aims mostly for the status quo, not for 1BCE. It might be different in North America, it might not. I'm not really convinced that there should be much of a difference just because it happened over the last few centuries instead of millenia ago. Just preserve some small parts of the previous ecosystem, ignore the rest. The whole planet has been terraformed already anyways, undoing human presence is pointless to try...