Re: The future of our wildlife management plans.
Originally Posted by
bearvalley
This all sounds good in theory and will work in some situations.
Throw a pack of wolves or a couple cougars into the scenario and watch how fast the deer of the future turn into turds.
Lets look at this theory another way......
We all know that moose populations are declining.
A lot of people are blaming the FN harvest of cow moose for the crash in moose numbers.
In reality they have initiated the harvest of moose across all age and sex classes.
By what you're saying the FN harvest of cow moose should be making moose populations healthier and more robust.
Is this true?
Like I've said before, science is only as good as the author......how its interpreted is up to the reader.
The issues with USA stats is so many of the conclusions were made on what could be called a closed system. They had little natural predation and need to be managed kinda like a lake.
But here is the rub. Local here I could with current regulation ,family and friends make a big dent in cougar population. Just my immediate family we can kill ten..I can catch them too. But that would be stupid. The cougar's been doing a good job keeping the deer numbers down across age classes. I already got a first hand view of winter kill. 75% of fawns just up and died. And on the heels of that winter the wolves moved in and camped. F! Me was that hard to watch. But I will tell you the deer were ripe for the wolves.
It is clear to me that any predator control has to be matched with compensatory regulations to insure BC hunters take up the slack. Our harvest should be to emulate natural mortality if it's not nature will step in.
At current time I am not sure hunters are ready for that.
It is well to try and journey ones road and to fight with the air.Man must die! At worst he can die a little sooner." (H Ryder Haggard)