August 18, 2008
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The Other Side of the Wolf Kill Issue
Last week, I posted a scan of the “Vote No” side’s campaign mailer. The photo on it was sensationalistic, and close examination suggested to me that it might even have been photoshopped. Whatever, those against the initiative to ban aerial hunting of bears and wolves, are taking the low road in their campaign ads.
The proponents of the initiative are taking the high road:
The “vote no” ad agency has been bearing down hard on the ideas that wolves endanger domestic dogs, and eat the moose and caribou that rural residents depend on for their food. In reality, moose are more of a danger to domestic dogs than wolves are, and the people who have contributed the most to the “no” campaign are sport hunters from Anchorage and Outside (outside Alaska). Moose are in no more immediate danger of extinction than the rest of the planet is at present, and there are many clearer, more present hazards to their survival than wolves.
BTW, I’m not doing much if any visiting and reading on others’ sites now. I’m exhausted. Doug and I moved our old wood stove out yesterday. We did it by hand, no more mechanical assist than an improvised ramp to get it over the threshold. It took over an hour of shifting this way and that, to “walk” the 300 pound cast iron object about 8 feet. We parked it on the edge of the porch and avoided the rotten spots where Doug and the dog have broken through the old boards.
We still don’t know how we are going to move the new stove from the far end of the driveway, up onto the porch and into the house. We might be getting some help from Doug’s dad, Charley, if he doesn’t get bogged down in the idea that he has to replace the rotten porch first. I’m seeking an expedient solution. Once I get heat in here, I’ll feel that we have the leisure to fix the porch.
Comments (9)
i’m not much of a hunter, as i never really had opportunities to go when i was a kid, although i’ve been thinking about having staci’s dad teach me to bowhunt, as he’s a very avid hunter and i’ve always thought bowhunting to be a decidedly elegant and skillful art.
my inexperience (un)qualified now, i don’t understand the appeal of shooting a wolf from a helicopter, and i don’t think any of the hunters i know would get much out of it, either.
i’ve always thought “population control” arguments incredibly full of that anthropocentric hubris that says “if we don’t curb the growth of these animals, who will?” as if nature hasn’t been doing a fine job on her own for centuries.
@TheCrimsonNinja - ”…as if nature hasn’t been doing a fine job on her own for centuries.”
Precisely. Men have been encountering unintended consequences throughout history when they try to tip the natural balance in their favor.
I actually understand both sides and perfer to leave things to nature she does a better job
I’m with Kyle… I have hunted and know many hunters, I couldn’t see the appeal in shooting an animal from the air. There’s no sport in that… and I’m reasonably sure that the hunters I know would feel the same.
I also agree about letting Mother Nature work her magic…
I’m not taking any sides, but what you “let Mother Nature handle it” people need to keep in mind is that it’s not just Mother Nature in the picture anymore. There are a series of artificially-imposed circumstances at play – mostly by humans - that affect the optimal level of wolves we should allow to go around. If it was just Mother Nature, then sure, it’ll handle itself. But if there’s people around, the numbers need to be kept at a certain level – not too high, and not too low, so that the wolves can comfortably co-exist with the “artificial circumstances” brought on by human civilization. Hence there are people like Game Managers to regulate this sort of thing.
It’s like a severely endangered species – would you let Mother Nature handle its population? No, you’d start artificial breeding programs because the indirect effects of human civilization (such as deforestation) would not allow Mother Nature to correct the problem herself – the species would most likely just go extinct if left to its own devices in the wild.
If you’re going to screw up the balance of nature via. civilization, you need to have artificial means to keep certain things in check, because mother nature will no longer be able to handle it entirely by herself, letalone tailor it specifically to co-exist with humans.
SuSu has a point though – most of our attempts at this failed. For example: In Australia, cane toads were introduced in an attempt to control the cane beetle. But the cane toad’s introduction proved to be disasterous.(Artificial breeding programs on the other hand work reasonably well, and in many cases so does artificial population control).
@Apocatastasis - artificial population control via. culling*
@Apocatastasis - The problem here is not that there are too many wolves. It is, from what I hear, a dual problem: a small population who expect to live in the wilderness without interacting with wolves and bears, and a large population of urban hunters who expect to come to the wilderness on weekends and find trophy moose.
Earlier this year, a party of drunken people on ATVs chased down, rounded up, and slaughtered over thirty caribou, and left the meat to rot. Wolves don’t do things like that.
I grew up with an ethic some call “The Code of the West.” It prescribes values such as honesty and courage in human interactions. In interactions with other species, it says it is okay to kill in self-defense and for food, but not to waste meat. The bit about not wasting meat is written into Alaska law. Roadkill is collected and distributed to institutions and food banks for the poor, and hunters can be fined and have their weapons and vehicles confiscated for wasting the meat of a game animal.
From someone who has moved way to many wood stoves can I offer some advice. If you have a floor jack with wheels and two large sheets of plywood if the ground is not hard enough to roll on you can jack up the stove just enough to clear the floor and roll it up the plywood one sheet at a time. It makes it so much easier to move having wheels under it. I know not everyone has a floor jack but maybe you can beg, or borrow one from someone. GOod luck with the stove! They can be buggers! My back hurts just thinking about it.
@KarlaandSuperMedic - Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. One of my neighbors is a mechanic and has a floor jack, but does not lend his tools. My ex-husband has something just about as good: “roller bars,” a device used in freight handling, looks sorta like a ladder only with a lot of little wheels on the rungs. Neither of us has a truck to haul it. He said he would borrow a truck, and bring the roller bars over here. That was last week, and the nights just keep getting colder and longer. The roller bars are long and unwieldy, but I might be able to secure them in the back of my station wagon and hang a flag on the end. I think I’m going to try it.
The ex- expected us to wait for him before we moved the old stove out. I don’t feel like waiting. I’m now thinking of ways we might, with the tools and resources we have, get the new stove in. I would have had a fire in here a couple of weeks ago, if I’d had a working stove. My son did some baking late last night, to provide a little warmth along with the food.