The Biden administration on Friday asked an appeals court to revive a Trump-era rule that lifted remaining Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the US
The Biden administration on Friday asked an appeals court to revive a Trump-era rule that lifted remaining Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the US
Not disagreeing. However, it still kind of feels like we’re trying to solve wolves to fix a human problem. You know?
When I hear people make comments here about how many deer there seem to be (like wandering through yards or road kill) I remind them, maybe the deer aren’t the ones encroaching on humans, they just are running out of places to be.
It’s not that they don’t have places to go. It’s moreso whatever causes them to move likely causes other animals to need to move. It might take a generation or two to settle into a new dynamic between avoiding predators that are also adjusting and finding food and water.
However that doesn’t have a major impact on populations. What can have a major impact is being over/under hunted. There needs to be a balance between those extremes. If wolves aren’t culled they will hunt the deer population too thin. That heavy predation can lead to population boons of wolves that subsequently suffer due to scarcity of food. This leads to wolves encroaching on human areas and possibly posing a threat. On the other side, if deer have no predators they begin to overpopulate and can also encroach on human areas causing their own issues. With deer, hunting helps keep that population in check. Currently there’s nothing keeping the wolf population in check. As others mentioned, the endangered species act was to protect actual endangered species. The goal is to aid the recovery of the population. That’s been done. If they continue to receive protection, they’ll start causing other problems that will need to be dealt with.