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Randito
Snarky Member
Joined: 27 Jul 2008
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Location: Bellevue at the moment. |
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Randito
Snarky Member
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 Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:25 pm |
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| kitya wrote: | | Randito wrote: | | My speculation is that some eastern Washington ranchers affected by the wolf packs would welcome wolf packs expanding into Seattle and it's suburbs. Restrictions on wolf killing is one of those issues where rural folks feel ignored in state politics by the hordes in Puget Sound City. |
Oh, poor little white privileged ranches who feel ignored by the government, while being constantly subsidized through public land grazing, water, fire fighting expenditures and agricultural land tax breaks and subsidies. Watch me cry, as I feel so very sad for professional animal murderers |
I don't agree with their resentment any more than I agree with the resentment of residents of rural counties complaining about how King, Pierce and Snohomish counties dominating state politics, while these counties are net exporters of state revenue to subsidize the rural counties. Periodically rural residents propose "splitting off" from the urbanized portions of the state, but when they run the numbers the calculations show their taxes would need to be substantially increased if they were independent.
But this reality doesn't change the resentment level of rural voters towards urban voters and tax payers.
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Sky Hiker
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Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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Well I can understand the resentment when the urban politics or beliefs are forced upon the rural residents and their values and beliefs. Those that sit in their high rises that think they know what's best for the rest of the state and never leave the concrete surroundings. With the exception of a weekend trip to the ski areas or places like Leavenworth.
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Randito
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Joined: 27 Jul 2008
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Location: Bellevue at the moment. |
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Randito
Snarky Member
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Thu Dec 23, 2021 9:44 pm |
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| Sky Hiker wrote: | | Well I can understand the resentment when the urban politics or beliefs are forced upon the rural residents and their values and beliefs. |
Yeah, that whole one person one vote thing is so unfair.
 zimmertr
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timberghost
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Joined: 06 Dec 2011
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 closer to having TX dictate what happens in WA state
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Anne Elk
BrontosaurusTheorist
Joined: 07 Sep 2018
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Location: Seattle |
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Anne Elk
BrontosaurusTheorist
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Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:12 pm |
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| kitya wrote: | | It is also unfortunately extremely unlikely that any wolves expansion can happen naturally unless we do something more to help protect them and their habitat. |
In the Saloon, I just posted a link to a NYTimes remembrance/obit of biologist E.O. Wilson. Following his retirement, he morphed into a champion for biodiversity. From the article:
| Quote: | | To draw attention to successes in saving species, Dr. Wilson traveled to distant parts of the world in his 80s. In 2014, he published “A Window on Eternity,” about his trip to Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. To save biodiversity, Dr. Wilson called for a world of Gorongosas. In his 2016 book, “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life,” he argued that the only way to avoid a mass extinction would be to leave half the earth wild. |
This thread pretty quickly digressed into another debate about wolf conservation/reintroduction in WA following the OP's sharing info re the success of a wildlife corridor over the interstate. Anything we can do to mitigate habitat fragmentation seems a good thing, but the wolf controversy illustrates that Dr. Wilson's prescription is about as likely to happen as humanity reducing carbon emissions sufficiently to reverse the climate trajectory. I don't know how much of earth has been over-run by humans in terms of habitat destruction and urbanization, someone has probably figured it out. I only know that there's pretty much nowhere you can go that hasn't been impacted by humans, and that there's way too many of us.
Specific to the WA wolf issue, it bothers me that WDF went down the road of wolf re-introduction at all; as if they couldn't have foreseen the conflict with ranchers and eventual need to eradicate packs. The waste of taxpayer money is the least of it.
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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kitya
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Joined: 15 Mar 2010
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Location: Duvall, WA |
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kitya
Fortune Cookie
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Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:19 pm |
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| Anne Elk wrote: | | Specific to the WA wolf issue, it bothers me that WDF went down the road of wolf re-introduction at all; as if they couldn't have foreseen the conflict with ranchers and eventual need to eradicate packs. The waste of taxpayer money is the least of it. |
You are mistaken, there was no wolf re-introduction.
https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/at-risk/species-recovery/gray-wolf
quote: "Wolves are returning to Washington on their own, dispersing from populations in nearby states and provinces--wolves were never reintroduced to Washington."
And obviously there is absolutely no need to eradicate packs, there is no need to even eradicate ranching (though that would be good!). It just makes ranching a tiny bit more expensive, because you actually need someone to stay with the herd or ranch on private land.
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Anne Elk
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Anne Elk
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Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:33 pm |
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^^^^ Well I've learned something today. I wonder if I was confusing WA with a re-intro program elsewhere.
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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timberghost
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Wolves (Canadian not the original species that inhabitated the lower us) were reintroduced into Yellowstone. These wolves are a larger species. From there they were allowed to repopulate across the US. In Wa it is against WDFW mandate to reintroduce here. How ever private hybrids have escaped and or released which are not genetically the same.
Anne Elk
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Sculpin
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Sculpin
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Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:38 am |
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| timberghost wrote: | | Canadian not the original species |
There is only one species, Canis lupus.
No one knows the ancestry of the original wolves in Washington, they were long gone before DNA was discovered. However, there is no reason to assume that they would be any different genetically from the wolves that have come down from Canada, all of which would also be C. l. occidentalis.
Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
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Anne Elk
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Joined: 07 Sep 2018
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Location: Seattle |
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Anne Elk
BrontosaurusTheorist
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Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:59 am |
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| Sculpin wrote: | | timberghost wrote: | | Canadian not the original species |
There is only one species, Canis lupus. |
Timberghost probably meant subspecies, there are over 30 wolf subspecies. I”m pretty intrigued by the one inhabiting the BC coast islands. They fish, and swim between islands. See Ian McAllister’s photo books on them, and the Great Bear Rainforest.
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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Kascadia
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Kascadia
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Wed Dec 29, 2021 11:24 am |
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| Anne Elk wrote: | | I don't know how much of earth has been over-run by humans in terms of habitat destruction and urbanization, someone has probably figured it out. I only know that there's pretty much nowhere you can go that hasn't been impacted by humans, and that there's way too many of us. |
Slightly different angle on this issue, but ~60% of mammals on earth are livestock, ~36% humans, and ~4% are wildlife.
It is as though I had read a divine text, written into the world itself, not with letters but rather with essential objects, saying:
Man, stretch thy reason hither, so thou mayest comprehend these things. Johannes Kepler
zimmertr
It is as though I had read a divine text, written into the world itself, not with letters but rather with essential objects, saying:
Man, stretch thy reason hither, so thou mayest comprehend these things. Johannes Kepler
zimmertr
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Anne Elk
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Anne Elk
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Wed Dec 29, 2021 12:04 pm |
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| Kascadia wrote: | | Slightly different angle of this issue, but ~60% of mammals on earth are livestock, ~36% humans, and ~4% are wildlife. |
That just further emphasizes how destructive we are. And the livestock figure is our fault, too.
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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Randito
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Joined: 27 Jul 2008
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Location: Bellevue at the moment. |
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Randito
Snarky Member
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Wed Dec 29, 2021 6:39 pm |
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| Kascadia wrote: | | but ~60% of mammals on earth are livestock, ~36% humans, and ~4% are wildlife |
I would be interested in understanding how that figure is calculated. Mice are mammals, but aren't considered livestock, nor really wildlife. Numbers I've seen estimate the number of mice in the world is about twice the number of humans (20 billion) So I'm wondering how your source calculates those figures.
https://babelniche.com/2010/12/31/are-there-more-animals-than-people/
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kitya
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Joined: 15 Mar 2010
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Location: Duvall, WA |
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kitya
Fortune Cookie
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Wed Dec 29, 2021 7:42 pm |
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| Randito wrote: | | I would be interested in understanding how that figure is calculated. Mice are mammals, but aren't considered livestock, nor really wildlife. Numbers I've seen estimate the number of mice in the world is about twice the number of humans (20 billion) So I'm wondering how your source calculates those figures. |
Hey! Now this is really maddening. Why are mice not wildlife? Obviously they are (except for the small number of mice who are lab animals and pets, unfortunately, i.e. livestock).
The percentages above are not by number of individuals, but by weight likely. There are a lot of mice, but mice are minuscule, so overall they don't make the wildlife number large. Humans are really good at killing all large land mammals. There is a summary discussion of estimating total land mammals weights and sources:
https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1338:_Land_Mammals
The main point of these numbers is just how crazy much livestock there is (and related, how much land is dedicated to raising livestock or feed for livestock). Wildlife number is probably the most unreliable of these, because we have not probably even discovered all the species of wildlife and often populations both fluctuate and unknown. The astonishing fact is that we don't need any of it. We could have 0 livestock, 0 ranches and maintain same if not better and healthier nutrition and quality of life for humans. And immediately be able to free up and conserve a lot more land and have wolves and grizzly bears and all other fancy nice big mammals easily. It is so easy, the fact that we don't do it, just because of habit is maddening.
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jinx'sboy
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