"Bob Weinberger" wrote in message
news:11mvj.11268$wG2.6218@trndny09...

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

Snip a lot of good stuff in the interest of space

Wolves in southeastern Wisconsin seemed like a highly improbable scenario
just a few years ago. Now.......?

Wolfgang

Perhaps I should have been more specific when I said keep their
distance,on a regular basis. as I meant avoiding direct contact rather
than physical distance.

For pratcial purposes, I suspect that the difference is pretty much a matter
of degree.....the more distance, the less direct contact.

And I was only applying that to the parts of the inland west where they
are still purposely killed.

I haven't studied wolves in any depth, so I don't know much about mortality
figures, but I suspect from what little I've heard that deliberate lupicide
(well, they ain't "homo"....right?) ranks high among causes of death here,
too.

Recent human encroachment on their habitat, though a convenient theory ,
may not answer why so many species of wildlife that heretofore studiously
avoided populated areas are now a common occurrance in populated areas. I
live in a town of only 12,000 people, but while the population of the town
and the entire county (bigger in area than some Eastern states) has been
quite stable for the last 50 years and is in fact less than it was in
1900, wildlife sightings in town have increased markedly in the last 20
years or so. The part of town that I live in was established prior to the
transcontinental railroad coming through, and was the downtown area until
downtown moved to be nearer the depot. Altough my house is only on a 1/3
acre lot, I now commonly have deer bedded in my back yard. A neighbor a
block away had a cougar kill a deer in his yard a few years ago. Bear are
now common visitors in the fall in any year with a poor wild berry crop.
People in town now need to be sure to keep their small dogs and their
cats in at night if they don't want them taken by coyotes or cougar.
Three years ago we had a moose (which are not historically native to
Oregon , but are recently becoming established in this and our neighboring
county to the North - apparently from migrants from Idaho) walk down our
street. And in the last few years I have to be especially vigilant to not
hit elk at night at the west entrance to town.

I believe the prime reason for much of the increased interaction with
wildlife in populated areas is the change in our culture from one in which
anything that was edible (and many that aren't) was killed, and the long
time frame it took wildlife to respond to that change in culture and adapt
to human concentrations

O.k., encroachment was a simplification. To be sure, other factors come
into play everywhere to one degree or another. However, even in places such
as you describe human activity, regardless of permanent occupancy, is ever
on the rise, albeit with temporary local lulls.

Certainly, the cessation of indiscriminate (at best) slaughter and of
deliberate targeting for extermination has also made a great difference.
But there are also species that are still hunted avidly in many parts of the
country and that are thus pushed into relatively safe areas, like urban
centers. This is compounded in some cases, like that of the white tailed
deer here in Wisconsin, by policies which have increased the size of the
herd beyond all expectations in recent years. In this instance, it isn't a
marked diminution in hunting, or in habitat for that matter, that is the
source of the migration; it is instead a drastic expansion of the
population. But then, it isn't much of a reach to think of this as yet
another form of human encroachment. After all, the deer are in effect being
raised as just another domesticated livestock animal.

Here in southern Wisconsin, the ring-necked pheasant is a good example of an
animal whose population has suffered dramatically as a direct result of
human encroachment. Once again, it isn't necessarily.....or not
only.....occupancy of the land by ever increasing number of humans that is
to blame. Such occupancy IS increasing in many places as people find
themselves willing to commute ever greater distances between work and home
(at least for now......till the REAL gasoline crunch comes) but other land
use policies have also changed drastically in recent decades. Woodlots,
small wetlands and fallow fields have shrunk drastically in many places not
only as a result of residential developments, but also because of changing
farming practices as small private landholdings continue to disappear into
the may of agribusiness. As you doubtless know, fencerows and other parcels
of wildlife habitat (however small and fragmented they may have been)
continue to disappear at alarming rates all over the country.

BTW, if the relationship between coyotes and wolves there is anything like
it is here, expect to see a drastic reduction in the coyote population as
the wolf population increases.

It will be interesting to see whether wolves become permanently established
here. I suspect it won't happen. There may be a couple here and there for
a while, but there are just too many people, too much antipathy and too few
places for the wolves to hide. If they are here for a while it is
inevitable that they will be held responsible for the disappearance of
somebody's little Fifi, and quite possibly justifiably so. One of the more
interesting possible outcomes of the relatively stringent protection wolves
have enjoyed in the lower 48 in recent years is that for the first time in
the history of the occupation of North America by Europeans and their
descendants, wolves are not being shot, or shot at, on sight by virtually
everyone who has the opportunity. It's probably just a matter of time
before some of them lose some of their fear is bred out of them. If
populations increase enough it is also probably just a matter of time till
someone IS attacked, and quite possibly killed, by healthy wild wolves.
Then we get to start all over again.

Wolfgang