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

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
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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


Dang Wolf, lupicide is right up there with squoze...(which ain't in my
dictionary so I don't know if I'm spelling it right)

john