Kill, Kill, Kill, Happy Hunting

[LiberalAvenger]

we're not picking on you for defending the underdog; most folks here are Americans; that kind of behavior is in our blood. we jus tend to see the farmers as the underdog; and liberal elites who suffer no costs, but still feel justified in interfering with others ability to feed their families via the massive coercive power of the US government as the power.

Ha, ha, I've never been called an elitist before. Oh boy.:2dance:

 

[LiberalAvenger]

Let me get this straight. We need to kill the wolves because they are killing the livestock to eat it. Hmmm, we need to kill the wovlves so we can kill the livestock ourselves and eat them. Pass the alfalfa, please.

 

[RightinNYC]

Let me get this straight. We need to kill the wolves because they are killing the livestock to eat it. Hmmm, we need to kill the wovlves so we can kill the livestock ourselves and eat them. Pass the alfalfa, please.

Yes, exactly.

Imagine that you're an alfalfa farmer. Imagine that there's an invasive species of rodent that is eating your alfalfa, causing your crops to wither and your farm to lose money. Do you just let that rodent do whatever it wants because that's the natural way of things?

 

[Hoplite]

Gray wolf comeback worries Midwest - CSMonitor.com

Again, I dont see any indication that wolves are significantly impacting US livestock in a negative way. Yes the population is rebounding and that's a great thing, but I dont see any indication that their numbers are causing significant problems.

 

[RightinNYC]

Again, I dont see any indication that wolves are significantly impacting US livestock in a negative way. Yes the population is rebounding and that's a great thing, but I dont see any indication that their numbers are causing significant problems.

The story that I linked to and quoted explicitly discussed how the wolves are impacting livestock. Again, do you think these farmers want to kill wolves just for the fun of it?

 

[cpwill]

Again, I dont see any indication that wolves are significantly impacting US livestock in a negative way. Yes the population is rebounding and that's a great thing, but I dont see any indication that their numbers are causing significant problems.

again, i don't see how you are better positioned to determine this than the farmer watching a pack pull down his spring calves.

which brings up a point to me; where is the OP's moral concern for the lives of the cows?

 

[Hoplite]

again, i don't see how you are better positioned to determine this than the farmer watching a pack pull down his spring calves.

Because there are more farmers than just one.

The story that I linked to and quoted explicitly discussed how the wolves are impacting livestock. Again, do you think these farmers want to kill wolves just for the fun of it?

No, actually it didnt. It just said that their numbers were rebounding and there was some concern about it. The article did not give any details regarding how this is a threat to the US livestock supply and as yet I see no evidence that wolves are any threat in that respect.

 

[RightinNYC]

No, actually it didnt. It just said that their numbers were rebounding and there was some concern about it. The article did not give any details regarding how this is a threat to the US livestock supply and as yet I see no evidence that wolves are any threat in that respect.

Once again,

For a long time Jim Heintz, an octogenarian farmer in Bruce, Wis., gave little thought to the wolves reoccupying his state. Then his calves started disappearing. "We didn't realize what was happening," he recalls. "Then we started hearing all these wolves. People starting seeing wolves." That was five or six years ago. He has since seen plenty of wolves himself, including one he watched last year try to drag a dead calf from his back pasture. He estimates he's lost 20 calves to wolves over the past decade.

...

The gray wolf has made an astonishing comeback in the upper Midwest. Once extirpated from all but a remote corner of northern Minnesota, wolves have flourished under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. They have expanded across half of Minnesota, a third of Wisconsin, and all of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Today the number of wolves in the western Great Lakes region exceeds 4,000. That's probably too many, say wildlife biologists and much of the public. Increasingly, wolves are killing livestock, attacking dogs, and inspiring fear and hostility.

And once again, I ask, if these wolves are no threat to livestock, then why do these farmers want to kill them? Why does the government allow it (and even participate)?

 

[Hoplite]

Once again,



And once again, I ask, if these wolves are no threat to livestock, then why do these farmers want to kill them? Why does the government allow it (and even participate)?

Ok, I'm going to repeat this for the last time, show me hard statistical proof that there is serious financial harm coming because of wolves killing off livestock.

 

[LiberalAvenger]

Yes, exactly.

Imagine that you're an alfalfa farmer. Imagine that there's an invasive species of rodent that is eating your alfalfa, causing your crops to wither and your farm to lose money. Do you just let that rodent do whatever it wants because that's the natural way of things?

No, I would teach the rodents to commit suicide.

Just remember in the grand order of things we are only ducks in the wind.

 

[cpwill]

Because there are more farmers than just one.

even better. their combined experience is far greater than your ability to look at numbers, squint your eyes, and guess based on what you ate for lunch that day.

 

[cpwill]

No, I would teach the rodents to commit suicide.

Just remember in the grand order of things we are only ducks in the wind.

ah.


:lol:


you got me :lamo


i actually thought you were serious this whole time :lol:

 

[VanceMack]

Ya know...there is a reason why you dont have a whole lot of wild animals in big cities. Primarily...because someone already exterminated them, eliminated their habitat, destroyed their environment. 'Unfortunately' the rural land dweller lives in and amongst the wildlife (and I daresay does far more to protect it, live in it, and enjoy it than most Starbuck Sierra Club types) and hasnt had the 'luxury' of someone coming along and exterminating those critters.

Look...the reality is the hunts are generally balanced and regulated based on the needed balance between citizen and wildlife. Braying jackasses 'care' about this issue when someone has sent them a mass mailing to raise funds.

Oh..and someone mentioned the Indians and their hunting habits...seriously? Do you understand ANYTHING about early aboriginal living on this continent?

 

[cpwill]

:lol: they probably think indians 'lived in balance with nature' or something similarly ridiculous.

 

[VanceMack]

:lol: they probably think indians 'lived in balance with nature' or something similarly ridiculous.

And their chief cried manly tears when they left litter about...

 

[Orion]

If you owned a cattle farm and wolves were killing your stock, would you just sit there and let them because Gaia is such a pretty creature and all her animals are sacred? What if it were snakes or rats? Where does your "compassion" end?

My aren't we over the top today.

According to the chart found here:
Wild Sentry Mission

Wolves account for a very small percentage of what kills cattle. Wild dogs do even more damage than wolves. And the weather kills more than both combined.

The news has blown wolf attacks on livestock out of proportion, and the tradition of killing wolves goes back to the bounty days where the state gave people money for each wolf head collected. Such traditions are no longer necessary.

Here is a radical concept: make sure all your livestock are stabled for the night (when most attacks happen).

The problem with Idaho's endorsement is that it runs counter-productive to wolf rehabilitation programs. Gray wolves are endagered and the government is sponsoring programs to restore them to natural balance; what Idaho is doing runs directly counter to that, and the people in power know it. It's just typical stubborn, traditionalist behaviour. See a wolf, shoot it... don't bother considering fortifications, because, you know, those cost money, and we can't have that.

The gaia comment was hopefully sarcasm. If it wasn't, then... wow.

 

[VanceMack]

My aren't we over the top today.

According to the chart found here:
Wild Sentry Mission

Wolves account for a very small percentage of what kills cattle. Wild dogs do even more damage than wolves. And the weather kills more than both combined.

The news has blown wolf attacks on livestock out of proportion, and the tradition of killing wolves goes back to the bounty days where the state gave people money for each wolf head collected. Such traditions are no longer necessary.

Here is a radical concept: make sure all your livestock are stabled for the night (when most attacks happen).

The problem with Idaho's endorsement is that it runs counter-productive to wolf rehabilitation programs. Gray wolves are endagered and the government is sponsoring programs to restore them to natural balance; what Idaho is doing runs directly counter to that, and the people in power know it. It's just typical stubborn, traditionalist behaviour. See a wolf, shoot it... don't bother considering fortifications, because, you know, those cost money, and we can't have that.

The gaia comment was hopefully sarcasm. If it wasn't, then... wow.

Oh...My...Gosh...

Understand ranching? I mean...even a LITTLE???

:shock:

 

[RightinNYC]

My aren't we over the top today.

According to the chart found here:
Wild Sentry Mission

Wolves account for a very small percentage of what kills cattle. Wild dogs do even more damage than wolves. And the weather kills more than both combined.

How does the fact that other things harm livestock disprove the fact that wolves harm them as well? That's like saying that because most people die from coronary disease, we can't criminalize murder.

The news has blown wolf attacks on livestock out of proportion, and the tradition of killing wolves goes back to the bounty days where the state gave people money for each wolf head collected. Such traditions are no longer necessary.

And if this type of killing were being done as a tradition, that would be one thing. It's being done in order to protect livestock.

Here is a radical concept: make sure all your livestock are stabled for the night (when most attacks happen).

I haven't been ranching in a while, but I don't think most people with herds of livestock are putting them in stables every night.

The problem with Idaho's endorsement is that it runs counter-productive to wolf rehabilitation programs. Gray wolves are endagered and the government is sponsoring programs to restore them to natural balance; what Idaho is doing runs directly counter to that, and the people in power know it.

Did you read any of the articles in this thread? Grey wolves have already rebounded to the point where their population is far beyond what the government was trying to rehabilitate it to. They removed it from the endangered species list, got sued by some hippies, and then removed it again. That's why the government is seeking to cut down on the herd size.

The gaia comment was hopefully sarcasm. If it wasn't, then... wow.

Have you read any of LA's posts in this thread? He said that if rodents were eating his alfalfa, he wouldn't kill them.

 

[Hoplite]

How does the fact that other things harm livestock disprove the fact that wolves harm them as well? That's like saying that because most people die from coronary disease, we can't criminalize murder.

Except we arent comparing coronary disease and murder, we're comparing death from mis-use of toenail clipper and murder. From the statistics that have been posted (Statistics you refused to post, I might add) wolf attacks account for less than half a percent of all livestock killed by predation. Wolves are not a statistically significant negative force on the livestock population in the US, there is no need to cull their numbers for some imaginary epidemic.

And if this type of killing were being done as a tradition, that would be one thing. It's being done in order to protect livestock.

Except, clearly, that kind of protection is not necessary as wolf predation accounts for less than half a percent of all livestock kills in the US.

I dont know how this can be made any clearer.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Why do you think the farmers want to hunt them?

Because they're wolf racist or something like that. :yes:

 

[cpwill]

Oh...My...Gosh...

Understand ranching? I mean...even a LITTLE???

no; that's why he feels confident that his decisions will be better informed than those that do.

 

[RightinNYC]

Except we arent comparing coronary disease and murder, we're comparing death from mis-use of toenail clipper and murder. From the statistics that have been posted (Statistics you refused to post, I might add) wolf attacks account for less than half a percent of all livestock killed by predation. Wolves are not a statistically significant negative force on the livestock population in the US, there is no need to cull their numbers for some imaginary epidemic.


Except, clearly, that kind of protection is not necessary as wolf predation accounts for less than half a percent of all livestock kills in the US.

I dont know how this can be made any clearer.

And I don't understand how I can make this clearer: Just because something is small compared to other factors does not mean that it is not important. Deaths from natural gas explosions are an infinitesimal percentage of all deaths. That does not mean that people who take precautions against natural gas explosions are idiots.

You can sit there and tell us how you know more about this than the farmers who are losing their livestock and the government agencies who are responsible for culling these herds, but it's just not credible.

 

[Diogenes]

The problem with Idaho's endorsement is that it runs counter-productive to wolf rehabilitation programs. Gray wolves are endagered and the government is sponsoring programs to restore them to natural balance; what Idaho is doing runs directly counter to that, and the people in power know it.

Not true. With a bunch of dumb domestic livestock around, the wolves don't have the natural population control mechanisms they would have if they had to depend solely on deer, elk and buffalo. So the people who own the livestock, and depend on them for their livelihood, are stepping in to help redress the imbalance created by ignorant city dwellers whose environmental education stopped with Bambi.

 

[Hoplite]

And I don't understand how I can make this clearer: Just because something is small compared to other factors does not mean that it is not important. Deaths from natural gas explosions are an infinitesimal percentage of all deaths. That does not mean that people who take precautions against natural gas explosions are idiots.

Except this isnt just small, it's absolutely infinitesimal. This isnt deaths from natural gas explosions, this is death from being hit by an airplane engine that's fallen off a plane.

How can you miss how alarmist and STUPID advocating culling sounds when wolves account for almost none of the deaths by predation that livestock suffer?

You can sit there and tell us how you know more about this than the [...] [...] government agencies who are responsible for culling these herds, but it's just not credible.

Wait, why should I trust government agencies? You're usually the first one to roll your eyes and scoff, trotting out the same "you cant trust government" song and dance when someone else says that exact same thing to you.

 

[RightinNYC]

Except this isnt just small, it's absolutely infinitesimal. This isnt deaths from natural gas explosions, this is death from being hit by an airplane engine that's fallen off a plane.

How can you miss how alarmist and STUPID advocating culling sounds when wolves account for almost none of the deaths by predation that livestock suffer?

So are you saying that .5% of people who die of unnatural causes die from being crushed by airplane engines, or that .5% of a large number = none?

You're also ignoring the fact that actual predation is not the only cost of having the wolves around. There are the additional costs to the farmers of protecting their herds and the miscarriages, lack of growth, and other social effects on the herd.

Wait, why should I trust government agencies? You're usually the first one to roll your eyes and scoff, trotting out the same "you cant trust government" song and dance when someone else says that exact same thing to you.

The farmers who deal with this every day say that the wolves are a threat.
The government agencies involved in this every day say that the wolves are a threat.
Common sense says that the wolves are a threat.
Everyone acknowledges that the numbers of the wolves have grown far past the point that the government sought.
Environmental groups say that that still doesn't justify killing the wolves.

I know which side I find more credible. You may disagree.