Joe Fleming had heard that a very large coyote-like animal had been prowling the area near Spillars Cove on Newfoundland’s Bonavista Peninsula.
And avid coyote hunter, Fleming decided to see if he could call this creature in when he went coyote hunting on March 12 of this year.
He was using an electronic calling device that is typically used to call in coyotes, and when he made a male challenge call, this thing came running out. He killed it with a single shot at about 200 yards.
The animal weighed 82 pounds, which is about twice the size of an average male coyote.
And the animal’s DNA was tested, and when the results came back, it was revealed to have been a wolf.
It was the first wolf confirmed on the island of Newfoundland since about 1930.
The DNA evidence also revealed that this wolf had come to Newfoundland from Labrador. The wolf traversed the ice in much the same way that polar bears do, and this year, more polar bears were seen on Newfoundland’s coast than in normal years.
Coyotes came to Newfoundland in much the same way. Coyotes are thought to have come to Newfoundland by crossing the frozen Strait of Belle Isle from Labrador in the 1980′s and 1990′s.
It means that wolves in North America are expanding their range in much the same way they are in Europe.
Bit by bit, they are spreading back into places where they once roamed.
And although this Newfoundland wolf was a straggler, it might not be very long before the island has a breeding population again.
All it takes is just a few more wolves wandering across the ice for a population to become established.
As a whole species, things are looking good for Canis lupus.
It’s going to survive.
Now is the time to come up with scientific management programs to ensure that wolves and people can coexist.
Wolves are returning.
We have to be ready to live with them.
And that means making certain adjustments in our thinking.
Yes. It does mean that some wolves will have to be killed– particularly if they are causing problems.
But it also means that some practices will have to be changed in order to prevent conflicts between wolves and people.
They are coming on their own volition.
We just have to think carefully.
We are the more intelligent species.
We have the capacity for destruction.
But we also have the capacity for reason.
And it will be reason that allows us to live in forests with wolves and other large predators once again.
I don’t see us trying to exterminate entire populations of wolves and bears in North America ever again. The public simply won’t allow it.
So we’re going to have to figure out something.
And I’m pretty sure we can.
one can hope. I have livestock, so I understand the issue many ranchers have regarding predators. But generally, it’s easy enough to prevent most predators from getting into livestock and to target the specific problem animal when that fails. It isn’t necessary to exterminate anything and everything that “might” interfere with how we want to run our lives.
Good luck with that. You are more optimistic than I.
I have to be optimistic about this species. Because it’s one of the few that can learn to live with our civilization and isn’t so specialized that it will very easily go extinct as the climate changes and human populations encroach into their habitats. This animal exists in relatively wealthy countries, which don’t have millions of very poor people who certainly take priority over wild animals.
If any species of large carnivoran is to survive, it is this one.
This is so sad :-(
It’s sad, but it does mean there is hope.
Another picture of proud killer and dead victim shamelessly portrayed. Good news of course that Nature is attempting a rebalancing in Nova Scotia, but how many more grinning gunmen lie in wait in that well armed part of the World?!
Um…
There are only 1.2 million firearms owners in Canada out of a population of 33 million.
1.2 million is still a lot of guns in a country which is at peace and never threatened by neighbours within living memory. It’s only the four legged Canadians which are seriously at risk, we hear.
Many Canadians live so far back in the wilderness that it costs so much to buy food. They also live so far from supermarkets, that a moose is their main source of protein.
4% is a lot?
1.2 million rifles, for example,would have armed most of the German army attacking Russia in 1941.
And who are we going to invade? America? Russia? Both countries would rape us up the ass. For freakin’ sakes, Americans never really fully trusted us because we pandered to the Soviets since we were in the fall-out zone if a nuclear war ever was to occur between Moscow and Washington D.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
I think you have more to worry about the French than you do from us.
Reading here that the coyote killers use bespoke electronic “calling devices” reminds one just how dedicated is the killing club and how less likely the wolves especially will make it in areas away from the extreme wilderness – without goverment protection strictly enforced, anyway.
Maybe what is most needed is a radical change of public mindset – and that would need support from politicians – and that means voters well educated in the value of conservation – and are they? What is the role of schools. School children in so called third world countries are taught to have empathy with even tigers and leopards. Yet one hears that the so called “gun lobby” is all powerful in America and they have always appeared to have a more cruel and aggressive agenda. Can any of you comment on that who are nearer to the scene?
Even as we speak we hear of protection being withdrawn from wolves, for example. Yet, conversely, wildlife protection officers in parts of Africa and Asia are now being authorised to shoot poachers on sight – as a last resort in order to stop endangered species from being made extinct – and others becoming endangered.
I’ll just say that as an American, I don’t support the National Rifle Association.
I believe it engages in really irresponsible politics and rhetoric.
Federal protection is being withdrawn from some wolves in the United States, but they are are still being protected and managed by the state governments.
Some states, like Idaho, aren’t managing them well.
Others, like Minnesota, definitely are.
Idaho, unfortunately, is pretty close to returning to broad scale persecution of wolves.
Guys, you might not know what happened in Finland lately when one “problem wolf” was about to be killed. In that hunt, they first killed a totally different wolf which soon revealed to be a collared leader of a pack. Then after that, they caught the right one.
The pack of the leader got lost and separated, and some of its pups were seen on the ice near Aland !
This is the killers as I see them. They call themselves “great nature lovers” and “kenners”, but all they can is a pull the trigger.
The nature don’t need us to eliminate, but we need it.
Just to put our own modest conservation efforts into a context, we hear today that a species of bumblebee which became extinct in Britain in 1988 has this week been reintroduced from a last remaining population recently discovered in Sweden. Well just goes to prove – that while there’s life there’s hope – just, such as in the case of those species which only survive today in parks and zoos. Move over guys, you will soon have others needing to share your final refuge place.
This has become a planet overcrowded by us and we are having to think radically about our food supply and that certainly should not mean eating the wild animals.GM crops must be carefully introduced and new ways of producing protein which we will also enjoy eating just as we may enjoy eating what we eat now. It may not be sustainable to go on eating cattle for example (red meat is generally not very healthy for us anyway, we are told, yet conversely the seas are becoming devoid of fish and fish farming has its drawbacks we are discoivering).
GM crops is no solution but birth limitation is.
BTW, there’s no safe ways to “intorduce GM”, as you say. It’s like, lets introduce carefully a motorway thru’ this forest – or any other intervention the human has introduced to this planet. All of them are nothing but a growing disaster to the most of the nature.
I expect you may agree Bridget that this is a planet in extremis. Innovative solutions must at least be carefully looked at before being discounted as too dangerous. But I get the general objection – one big mistake and we are all stuffed.
Take as a small example the research going on into wheat less than twenty miles from here in the county of Oxfordshire at this very moment. Several hectares of wheat are growing there of a new variety containing a gene artifically inserted with an interesting effect (already tried at micro lab level but now for the first time a field trial is being run) I’m no kind of expert of course but just a person listening to and reading the news which has just come out.
Reportedly this new variety of wheat contains a gene which causes aphids to move away from it (the effect was shown on tv last night) but does not affect any other insects especially those that pollinate. If successful (and it has already been shown to work at a small experimental level) such an innovation will have hugely important potential for world agriculture. Think of it – a crop which is safe from the insects which most harm it but without the use of pesticides. WOW!
The perceived danger from those who urge caution or who just won’t even listen is that potentially this gene could in effect escape and get into the genomes of species with which the new wheat might hybridise and with presently unknown consequences among the hybrid plants that result.
Hundreds of people have in the past few days converged at the scene where the crop is being grown behind an Israel sized fence and police are present. I personally suspect there may be backup trials not disclosed in other locations, but I’ve no direct knowledge of if and where.
I only wish I knew enough to even take sides on this issue. But from your comment “no safe ways to introduce GM” forgive me but it sounds you may think you have a definitive answer to it – but I suspect maybe you don’t any more than the rest of us, but yes there must be some risk I would think. The thing is genetic modification is bound to vary according to species and techniques and the genes involved, that is it is not just one experiment. Also here in Britain we already eat some GM products grown in America if my undetailed information is correct on that.
On the matter of controlling numbers of humans. That was a simplistic remark, do you visualise compulsory limitation, enlarge on what you mean please., Bridget, or anyone else who might favour some ‘chinese’ style solution.
Just to be clear, we in Britain are far from being ‘goody goodies’. Our human population has goine from about a million to sixty million in little more than a few hundred years/ What is the figure? about ninety per cent of our flower meadows have disappeared since the first world war. The pollinating insects have so declined that some species only cling on courtesy of gardeners. How bizarre is that? Maybe we should be subsidising gardening as well as the failing banks!
Oh, you say that 90 % of the meadows have declined – I didn’t know.
It’s like in the 1980, there were millions of koala bears – now only 40 000.
Or mountain gorillas. Or whales. Or wolves… Or ducks. Or…
Gosh, this is just too fast , don’t you feel the same ?
In the United States, both duck and wolf numbers are on the increase.
I won’t tell you why ducks are. You won’t like it.
I guess it’s the odd weathers, i.e. rainy autumns and snowy winters in the resent years in North-America (just like in here) that recreated a lots of pools for these birds .
Peter, the issue of human impact on nature isn’t going to be solved by using GM plants or animals or “smart cars” either. The fastest and most effective way to reduce human impact on the planet is to reduce the human population. As for the hunter shooting the wolf, well, having done that, i expect that some rules will be forthcoming to keep any future wolves from being shot by coyote hunters, so it is probably a good thing in the long term. As for those of the UK telling those in the Americas how to preserve wild animals — having exterminated nearly everything you had, I don’t think you can argue from a point of moral superiority. The UK has no native wolves, bears, bison, aurochs, etc. The deer that live there are mostly introduced and certainly highly managed.
It’s easy to lecture others on how to manage their lives. But I don’t see the reintroduction of wolves, bears, etc into the UK happening any time soon, nor the creation of vast preserves to allow them to thrive there.
Hunting has been found to be one of the best ways to preserve wild animals — you may not happen to like it, but most evidence is that it’s what works.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-martin/kenya-a-contrarian-view_b_1542148.html
http://tinyurl.com/7pu5ccr
I wouldn’t know where to start, Peggy, on all of the things I think you may have been over simplistic about, got wrong or have exaggerated in that posting, but just mentioning the human population issue; you make an obvious point of course, but neither you nor anyone else readily outlines any practical solution that humanity can yet stomach.
Even the dictatorial political masters of that fifth of the World population which lives in China are having second thoughts on their ‘one child per family’ policy as they relentlessly run out of younger people to care for the older generations or even to keep the factories going – and they may even have to consider what to do about an inbalance of the sexes.
However, Peggy, innovative scientific measures to increase food production with existing land availability is something our species knows it must get on with NOW – even if it is a dangerous road ahead. Obvious too that it’s no use blaming earlier generations as we are where we are. The past was not our fault but the future will be if it goes wrong.
>>>>>>>> innovative scientific measures to increase food production with existing land availability is something our species knows it must get on with NOW – even if it is a dangerous road ahead >>>>>>>>
Peter, why is that ?
Why we just don’t make new rules that no-one can more than 10 000 EUR per month ?
What a good for nothing person this Joe Fleming is. Using an electronic calling device to hunt is so un-hunter like. This un-hunter needs a shot through his Ar*e too.
Now, Peter, there are professional hunters, who are actually helping the cause of conservation. But for Newfie hunters, conservation is the last thing on their minds.
As a professional hunter, one must first confirm what he is bringing down.
Wolves are good for Newfoundland and Labrador for there is a population explosion of Moose there. However, due un-hunters like Fleming, I am a tad pessimistic.
There are no professional hunters in Canada. Sales of wild meat is illegal.
And how is it Fleming’s fault? It responded to coyote call in a province where wolves were unheard of for almost a century. Wolves do not respond to coyote-calls out west.
However now that we know this wolf exist, the DNR can actually start funding hunter’s education course on how to identify a wolf and levy a heavy fine for anyone who is caught poaching.
The only thing we have who could be called professional hunters are hired guides for outfitters who take foreigners, mainly from Australia, UK, United States and Nordic countries, out into the bush for a rare chance at shooting a moose, an elk or a bear.
These people do not have conservation in mind. In fact, the revenue generated by foreigners for conservation is minute compared to residential hunters.
Are you being serious,Suhail, suggesting that (some) professional animal killers help conservation? I can’t believe you said that!
Yes, he is.
Read the history of conservation first before going on about an ideology that was introduced to Britain almost a century after the North Americans pioneered it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_in_the_United_States
From University of Alberta, a well-respected university in the international community, “Conservation Hunting & Sustainable Development”: http://www.ualberta.ca/~ccinst/CH/sus_dev.htm
Oh, lookie here “European Charter on
Hunting and Biodiversity”: http://www.cic-wildlife.org/uploads/media/Hunting_Charter_EN.pdf
Note all these researches are backed by respected institutes who are world-wide famous for conservation of wildlife such as IUCN?
From National Geographic, a well-respected magazine famous for working toward conserving wildlife ” “: Hunters: For Love of the Land”: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/11/hunters/poole-text.html
Another document backed by the European Union “Sustainable Hunting
Principles, Criteria and Indicators”: http://microsites.umweltbundesamt.at/fileadmin/inhalte/chm/pdf-files/Englische_pdfs/Sustainable_Hunting._Principles__Criteria_and_Indicators._Revised_and_extended_edition_2006.pdf
From National Geographic Magazine:
Hunters: For Love of the Land
Strong supporters of land and wildlife conservation, hunters in the U.S. are in decline. Will a new generation take the field?
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/11/hunters/poole-text.html
An excerpt:
“The great irony is that many species might not survive at all were it not for hunters trying to kill them. All the wings provided to Norman Saake and his colleagues throughout the country come from hunters, who fold them into prepaid envelopes, record the date and place of harvest, and mail them in. It is but one example of how the nation’s 12.5 million hunters have become essential partners in wildlife management. They have paid more than 700 million dollars for duck stamps, which have added 5.2 million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System since 1934, when the first stamps were issued. They pay millions of dollars for licenses, tags, and permits each year, which helps finance state game agencies. They contribute more than 250 million dollars annually in excise taxes on guns, ammunition, and other equipment, which largely pays for new public game lands. Hunters in the private sector also play a growing role in conserving wildlife.”
luring prey in by using imitation calls goes back to prehistorical times. Some methods are very simple (rattling antlers in the bush to lure in competitive male deer, for example), or imitation of a call with one’s own voice. I don’t see that using an “electronic” device makes it any more or less moral. The idea that stalking is more moral than luring is based on the concept that it is a “sport”. As a sport, one is supposed to “play by the rules” and give the opponent (in this case the hunted animal) a fair chance to win. But in hunting for survival or to eliminate a problem animal (as with eliminating a maneater, for example), giving the animal a “fair chance” is plain stupidity. The pure hunter tries to make the odds as much in their favor as possible. It’s probably one of the major reasons for the domestication of the dog. Just using a dog to flush game or track it down is a major advantage over say, the Neanderthal who didn’t have one.
Regarding “sport hunting” –using a lure is sometimes allowed (that’s the point of duck decoys and the point of say, Nova Scotia Duck tolling retrievers) and sometimes not. I’ve no idea if using an electronic “coyote caller” is allowed in Newfoundland or not. However, if it was, I really don’t see that using one makes one less of a hunter. If the device is so effective that it makes the odds of success virtually 100%, then it’s not very sportsmanlike. What should be the odds to make it sportsmanlike? 50/50? or less?
I am presuming that coyote “hunting” is done in Newfoundland to control the coyote population as I don’t know of anyone who eats coyote. So it was done as a sport. Apparently some places consider electronic or other calls as lures to be sufficently sporting and some don’t (http://www.tntremote.com/Law%20Chart.pdf).
It isn’t a game of cricket, Peggy with rules of sporting procedure, rather what you speak of is the wanton destruction of animal life for amusement by western man in an age of communication and education when he should know better. Actually there is no excuse, we do all know better.
Somewhere you made a passing reference to Neanderthal man. Now there was a great hunter who was entirely carnivorus according to research Those of European descent can also take pride (or otherwise) in possessing a few neanderthal genes within them, according to the latest information.
Maybe when we look in the mirror many of us will appreciate the truth about our neanderthal heritage Poor old neanderthal, theory goes that his last known home was on Gibraltar, so was he trying to make for Africa hoping to find the last of those big ice age mammals that had sustained him so long but couldn’t take the heat, or was he just trying to take refuge from us more violent new kids on the block. At least it’s now good to know he is still a little bit with us.
It is amazing to me how the hunting helps the world tendency makes up convoluted arguments to justify unnecessary destruction and cruelty. towards those declining species with which we undeservedly share the planet. I think maybe this self delusion among the pro hunters is more a manifestation of a guilty conscience.
And why should we take the words of a lowly British posh over an educated biologist working at a scientific institute?
The all of scientific literature is there: with proper management, hunting is good for the environment where there are no apex predators and too many mesopredators.
“lowly British posh”.
Except that he mentioned cricket, game of the Lords in a post above, instead of football, game of the commoners. I say Peter has got style :-)
“Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win.” – Gary Lineker after losing the 1990 World Cup semifinal to Germany by penalty shootout.
In other words, all you have done on this blog was sprout ideological drivel preached by wannabe-hippies instead of providing research backed by scientists.
Like.
>>>>>>I think maybe this self delusion among the pro hunters is more a manifestation of a guilty conscience.>>>>>>>>>
Somehow, weird, I think it is !
I’ve studied a quite amount of the hunting history, and also I have hunted (but not any declining specie), so I have some perspective on this subject .
Although you experience personal moral conflicts about hunting on your own accord, you do understand why the government and scientists have no moral qualm about allowing hunting? And why non-hunting academics actively support it?
Dave once again.
I like hunting. I have killed animals by bare hands :) and even cooked them into food. So I’m not against in moral comflicts with that.
I’m critical on the hunting power-arms (including bows).
I think it’s good to be critical, because there’s no other sport that kills and injures so many best friends, neighboroughs, even out-siders. Tho’ it’s rare, it or the “it was close” happens every week in the season. When the season begins, thousands of Sunday-shooters go to lakes and forests with their friends and booze and feel happy… you know, everything may happen, then.
It’s important to give a very strict signals for the mass about the easy of hunting and power-arms. It’s like in driving – basically it’s a potential killer machine, too.
So are you going to kill a moose with your bare hands?
I can’t quite see your average hobbyist animal killer taking his gun out into the countryside with the pure motivation of wishing to adjust the balance of Nature. It is my opinion that some people like hitting moving targets. as well as having some more complicated mental issues.
You still have not yet came up with any literature why conservation hunting is bad for the environment. So far, all you have done is pull the moral cards.
Recreational hunters have no need to adjust the balance of nature on his own accord. Biologists writes up a report to the government on how many permits should be issued each year. There is a quota that is set. If a hunter does not get his permit from the government, then the quota is already full and he cannot hunt for the season until he reapplies the next year.
Scientists tell the government how many hunters are allowed to take an animal and the government adjusts accordingly. It is really that simple.
In many cases “balancing the Nature” – is shit-talk.
The basic rule is the more human intervension, the more harm to the nature.
Like, elk (moose) hunting- there’s supposed to be less car-accidents.
I don’t think it really makes a difference, approx. 1300 moose-car accidents per year.
Of course, wolves would be much more effective in that than us. But we have so few wolves here – 300. So no help for the moose in the traffic .
Admit it ,Dave, it’s just the primitive urge in some to kill which makes a person take up killing animals for a leisure activity. You needn’t attempt to make intellectual arguments about killing to conserve as a false justification.
Actually, no. I was very anti-hunting until I saw how food is produced with feedlots and how monoculturism of wheat, canola, soy and corn destroyed the ecosystem.
It is really quite obvious how much healthier the ecosystem is in areas absent of agriculture.
Dave, true.
i just saw a doc on the Lake Winnipeg. Sad. They now haul big fish out of it, but it won’t last long till the oxygen is gone. Even the marshes are dead and quit, no ducks or any birds. And it’s the agriculture, phosphor and nitrogen.
Millions will obviously agree with such as Dave about the bad effects of intensive agriculture and the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. if that was partly what he was referring to.
Locally meanwhile, I hope the GM promoters are right that new genes put into wheat designed to deter aphids but not pollinating insects, (which are presently being tested in some fields less than twenty miles from this computer) succeed.
On the UK national news today there has been footage of mainly middle class protestors surrounding this experiment of massive potential importance near Oxford and kept back by police and a high fence A fence I think from its size that must have been copied from those master fence builders the Israelis.
Obviously these activists are not necessarilly ‘luddites’ in that they genuinely fear the release of new genes into the environment that will not be subsequently controllable and may have unforseen consequences when possibly getting into wild plants through cross polination. “Contamination” is the key word of these protests.
I have no idea what you mean, Dave, about a “healthier ecosystem in areas absent of agriculture”, it makes no sense unles you meant to refer especially to intensive agriculture. I mean how would a highly populated world be fed without agriculture per se, for heavens sake?
At the risk of sounding selfish, the main issue in the world facing the health of ecosystems are: poverty, consumerist consumption, gender equality and unequal distribution. It is not economically feasible for northern areas, where biodiversity is secured in temperate areas, to enter into a massive agricultural operation to feed the rest of the planet.
Europe is in an ageing decline and so is Canada. Without immigrations, North America and Europe would be in a population decline. So, basically, the top billion is declining. So, the question is not whether or not who will feed them, but who would deconstruct the urban landscape to allow the forests take over the eyesore of sprawls.
Canada is not a very productive agricultural country. There are only three provinces which are good for production of grains for world-wide consumption: Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In other provinces, there is not enough suitable terrain expand outside of local population as its markets. it is like this in many other cold countries as well, the growing seasons are too short for export.
It is not that I don’t care about the other 6 billion people; however, it is entirely impractical, economically, to feed a country with a population density of 3.5 persons per km2 on a carbon-based economy in an environment that is hostile to agriculture and all attempts to tame intensively it has turned into ecological disaster such as the infamous Dust Bowl where monoculture stripped away the topsoil and eroded the land.
I really do hope Europe will deconstruct their urban sprawl as their population goes into a decline once immigrants realize they will not get the life they seek and cities start to become empty. Perhaps the young adults who stayed behind to maintain the population will be able to hunt locally without having to rely on agriculture.
Dave, you belong to the Amnesty ?
Tho’ I finished my studies in biology before graduating, my attitude is the one of biologist’s. Every one of them admits, the biggest eco- catastrophe is the over-increasing population of the human.
There is more than enough food to feed the world’s population; the problem is that it is not being distributed equally. However there are countries in Africa who are robbed of their agriculture and are left starving with no money due foreigners demanding products to support their luxurious lifestyles.
It is pretty fucked up when there is more food being exported out of Botswana to Europeans than there is food being fed to the locals.
It is easy to blame overpopulation, but the blame lies more in the top billion’s ridiculously high living standards. Every biologist I know admitted “overpopulation crisis in other countries” is a red herring to ignore and justify the high consumption in OCED countries.
Human nature is like that – one gets all, rest nothing. You really think that will change ? If you do, you’d better start the change to-day and please tell us what to do …
Dave, when we speak the over-population, it’s not only for the plain numbers and kilo-joules, no . As a biologist, you must count the ethology of the human species with.
Think, if there were 6 milliards gorillas living in the world. Do you think the eco system would stand it well too long ? Tho’ the effiency of using its environment of the gorilla can’t be compared to that of the human’s . Our territory goes over-seas and to the countries and people we’ll never know or meet.
Peter, I really wish not to believe the “GM promoters” much.
They make money out of the patent, and the poor farmers, if they ever get money to buy the new GM -seeds, have to get tied to that cultivatig system for a life-time. How about the land-race species, how about the ancient eco-systems tied with these old species ? The GM production will destroy the rest of your flower meadows.
Please don’t be so blue-eyed, read some facts, not just the adds, for Dog’s sake !
I can quite see where you are coming from on some of this Bridget after seeing a documentary about a Canadian farmer fighting a big supplier of GM seed. I won’t name the company but it seems they were trying to say this farmer, who had decided to ignore demands for seed money, presumably having saved his own seed again after once buying GM – was in effect still using their GM seed (small residual amounts in the seed hoppers or something) and the big company said that therefore the farmer had to pay them as they actually owned the gene. So you may be right to imply the problems come potentially from capitalist exploitation as well as from genetic infection.
A court actually agreed with the seed company after their lawyers had worked on it. To cut a long story short Canadian farmer said okay you come and remove the exact plants you say you own because I can’t tell them apart from the non GM ones. It ended there.
This programme was shown on ‘Russia Today’. I don’t know if that channel is available on north american tv but it is hugely interesting in giving alternative views to those we normally see in the west. However one must be aware of its apparent special agenda which, it seems to me, is to discredit the USA at every turn. I also don’t like their take on the problems in Syria, but that’s another issue well beyond the remit of this blog.
Peter wrote: Peggy with rules of sporting procedure, rather what you speak of is the wanton destruction of animal life for amusement by western man in an age of communication and education when he should know better
==actually, within the US, and I suspect within Canada, recreational hunting IS replete with rules for procedure. When you can hunt, what you can hunt, what you can use to hunt, areas you can hunt in, even the age and sex of the animals you can hunt. It’s hardly “wanton destruction”. This is quite different from survival hunting where it is “whatever you can catch and kill with the least risk to yourself”. There are still people who engage in survival hunting although it is a small % of the current population.
As for Neanderthal, I’ll note that Cro Magnon was also a hunter (being an exclusive hunter is non sequitur – it isn’t necessary to be an exclusive hunter for hunting to be essential for survival, as it was for H. Sapiens prior to the domestication of livestock and the later development of agriculture). All the evidence indicates that “homo” has long had hunting contributing to the diet in far greater % than diets of Pan, Gorilla or Pongo (and they aren’t pure vegetarian either).
Yes, it is currently essential that there be intensive agriculture in order to feed the existing human population – again, a lower population number would clearly reduce this requirement. But the requirement for this doesn’t change the fact that places like Yellowstone or the Amazon forest are clearly more ecologically balanced than the San Joaquin Valley (http://ceres.ca.gov/geo_area/bioregions/San_Joaquin_Valley/about.html).
There’s absolutely nothing in the article to indicate that hunting coyotes (with or without an electronic calling lure) in Newfoundland is going to exterminate Canis latrans. As a species, they are clearly doing quite well.
I also recall driving up the SanJoaquin Valley, Peggy, and seeing those dusty tethered cattle. I thought this kind of farming was about to be phased out in California because basically it is too dry for it. What is the latest on this as I haven’t been there lately.
Although here we have greener fields and the cows look healthy, it is somewhat at the expense of not having enough wild flower meadows etc and therefore a shortage of pollinating insects. This must be addressed and changes made. It is also debateable whether we maybe have too much dairy farming and, looking around us lately, maybe too much yellow oilseed rape, for example. But choices have to be made in the more limited space, choices that are going to have to include, as I was saying, an increasing proportion of GM food. Where cows will feature in the is open to reassessment.
Increasingly there is a mood more in favour of wildlife and respect for it. For example. farmers are now being encouraged to leave margins of fields for wild grassland flowers and pollinating insects . Replanting of destroyed hedges is going on apace. No longer it seems do we seek to cultivate every square inch. We pay the price for this in many ways but at last we are wising up – not enough yet, but new generations of better educated farmers are beginning to see more sense.
New woodlands have been progressively planted over recent decades, some species are expanding again others being better protected, some even being reintroduced. Climate change is causing new insects moving in from the continent but leavingothers threatened. However a lot of help is needed to redress the disasters of the twentieth century in terms of loss.
As for our only wild canid friend in Britan the beautiful red fox, well he seems able to adapt superbly to whatever us stupid people try to throw at him. Atbleats we don’t now chase him to death with dogs. In the main the British people iuncreasingly love brer fox, though not all of course, However the balance of good publicity is increasingly in his favour, which helps.
Right now a family of suburban foxes is featuring on a favourite wildlife tv series called Spring Watch. Last evening we watched the amazing litter of eleven cubs being superbly brought up in a suburban garden by their single mother and all surviving so far with the help of some food from the neighbouring humans. Statistically on average only around half will survive the first year, but at least this big family is presently doing incredibly well. The weather just now is sunny and warm and an enthralled British public will be following their fortunes avidly over the next few weeks, fingers crossed.
Later I expect we will be following the progress of some family of badgers, maybe an even more iconic species here, albeit a cloud hangs over those in one part of the country where an experimental project is about start to exterminate badgers in a given area to see what effect this will have on the spread of TB in cattle. This is an emotive issue. We are not even sure what role badgers play in the spread oF TB. or whether culling some will only lead to further spread from the refugees joining other colonies. One thing is certain, the public here will not allow badgers to be culled extensively.
You in the states have your bears, we have our badgers, the largest of our predators – which in this case predate mainly on earth worms. Every wood near every village in England has its badger colony obvious to everyone as it consists of huge mounds of earth surrounding holes or setts. Many such colonies have been there since before the villages were built. Our european badgers evoke almost as much of a lovely sturdy black and white image as China’s giant panda to which they have a slight superficial resemblance. Can’t wait to see them on Spring Watch in high definition.
Many years ago I took my nine year old granddaughter to badger watch in our local wood one summer evening. We had to wait until after ten before the first badger appeared above ground, followed by wife and children. However by that time Danielle had gone to sleep and I had to carry her back home.
Tonight’s live Springwatch episdode showed that the mother of the litter of eleven fox cubs has a ‘little helper’, another vixen which acts subserviantly. The consensus was that the second vixen is probably a daughter from last year. With the help of the second vixen and decent weather plus some humans leaving food out this whole huge litter could even survive intact.
Another part of the coverage showed pine martens in the Scottish wilderness. This super omnivore is Britain’s second rarest after the wildcat also in Scotland but both species are also reportedly spreading, one to Wales and the other to the English Lake District. Otters have returned to every river in the British Isles where until recently they had been driven to the edges. We have the world’s largest population of grey seals around our coastline and a majority of its gannets.
Then finally we went to a wetland area called the Somerset Levels where several new species of bird have flown in, including the giant egret from Africa I believe. However I do envy the variety you have in north america. Only our fellow British island, Ireland has less variety of wildlife, but it’s a work in progress to make it right for more species to come in.
The blue tits nesting in my garden nest boxes I suddenly realise are having babies only now as we approach June. The wettest April here on record may be responsible for that late start.
Hah, another blind hunter, this Joe Fleming !
Just can’t figure out how he saw this big wolf as a coyote ? But it’s true only hunters can be such blinded bats to shoot their best friends, their girl friends.. even let their dogs to shoot themselves… don’t know another sporting group that can do that ..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066891/Hunter-kills-accidentally-shooting-friend-dead.html
If I was shooting coyotes, as I used to on the Prairies since everyone grew up shooting coyotes and ground squirrels, I would had shot it without knowing it was a wolf. The ones out West don’t even respond to coyote calls.
Hell, the canine in the photo does not even look like a wolf we have out West either.
The problem the East is facing is that wolves and coyotes have genetic admixture, due to wolves not finding enough suitable mates– so they mate with coyotes. However, at the same time, coyotes are so common, that people living in the city demand them to be culled so they do not attack children, dogs or cats in the downtown areas.
And why are you so anti-firearms?
According to the homicide rate in Finland, I am much more likely to get stabbed by a mentally unstable Finnish male as soon as I get off the plane in Helsinki on June 4th, 2012 than I would be shot by a hunter anywhere in North America during the fall.
Yet no one in the world is threatening to boycott Finland for not improving access to mental health.
And you are a pro-firearmer, then ?
I’m a critic. Seems the only one here – within the 3000 readers of this blog. Dat’s something !
The less arms, the less shooting accidents. The less fools running around and haunting others with just their talking about the guns they have in their cabin… Less risks.. less fear. Plenty arms, like plenty cars, don’t make us happy, as we can see when we look the the US.
To this context, there’s a debate going on if hunting should be allowed in the Finnish national parks – or not . And this is so small country.
I’m pro firearms because it’s part of our identity as Americans.
Yes. Cars and guns, that can’t be taken away from the picture that makes your country.
What a pointless remark, retrieverman!
You think it’s pointless.
But exactly how much of the territory of North America between Canada and Mexico does the crown own or have within the Commonwealth of Nations?
Oh. Yeah.
No territory at all.
Because we had guns!
Our right to own firearms is a right.
It’s not a privilege given to us by the state.
It was a right that was enshrined in our constitution.
Americans and guns are like the British and bad teeth.
America was founded as an exception to Weber’s state.
But historically, British commoners were allowed to have weapons, which made them lethal warriors against the various princes and dukes in France.
This is 2012 not 1812, retrieverman. And just why would any civilised adult person in the modern world in which we live want to play with guns. Is that a good example to the young of yours or any country?
I disagree with a lot of what my country does. I oppose the death penalty, and just about every war that’s come up.
But there are many good things about my country, and one is that we don’t regulate firearms the way you people do.
Switzerland has nearly the same gun laws as the United States, but no one complains about them.
Peter, you are asking to be banned.
You are trying my patience, and the comment I was forced to delete this morning was perhaps the most libelous thing ever written about me.
I told you not a month ago that no everyone shares your animal rights values or your desire to have firearms banned.
Many people, including me, find both ideas patently absurd, and do not appreciate it when foreigners, especially foreigners from nations who used to oppress us, tell us how to run our affairs.
I would highly suggest you refrain from trying to hijack threads on this blog and trying to force your views on other people.
I’m not trying to do this at all.
This is your final warning.
Of course you are correct in saying that not everyone shares the view that animals may have rights, but surely both America and Britain, to name but two of many, have laws which seek to prevent animals from being mistreated. And on the other subject about which you say we disagree, not many countries in the world allow ordinary citizens to carry firearms, for all the obvious safety and anti criminality reasons.
In the case of Switzerland, since you refer to that country, they are a bit of an exception I agree. However, the reason that Swiss men (not women) possess arms, I believe, is because all the county’s men are reservists and have to be ready to defend the country according to that country’s law. It also spares Switzerland the expense of having a standing army, although even as a land locked country they do have a navy I believe.There is the wonderful Lake Geneva of course.
America was founded based upon the ideals of the Dutch Republic and (secondarily) Switzerland. At the time, those were the only successful republics on which we could base our system.
Until the Vietnam War ended conscription, America was full of reservists.
Hunting is so important to us as a culture, and we just don’t appreciate it when people from other countries tell us that it’s evil.
Britain’s system of game management was an ultimate failure. Ours is very much a success.
Well at least we can still debate these various democratic issues – in English.
When I was growing up, I lived across the street from a middle class couple that was as normal as normal could be. They had a house full of guns. Almost every weekend they competed in marksmanship competitions.
I own guns because I live quite literally in the middle of nowhere, and there are varmints, both human and animal. The local sheriff takes a minimum of forty minutes to get here. I also live in a Castle state (google it.)
It is not for you to decide whether people who choose to own guns are normal or not.
I have repeatedly told Scottie he should ban you, because you literally contribute nothing to any of the threads here except knee-jerking emotionalism and time-wasting stupidity, and you are the main reason I rarely comment here any more. I think Dave may be the only long term regular you haven’t managed to alienate. Proud of yourself?
Pro-firearms? No. There are too many idiots who play with hand-guns which serve no purpose other than shooting in a firing range. Pro-tools? Yes. A rifle is much more humane than a bow or a spear.
And why you keep comparing a country of 330 million citizens with 20-30 million hunters to a country of 5 million with 5% being active hunters as well? It makes no sense. With 30 million hunters, you will hear about it in the news far more often than a country of 250 000 hunters. So?
We have already went over this in another thread. Half of all hunting accidents in Finland is self-affiliated. Less than 20 was reported. Zero fatality over the last 3 years. All incidents involved shooting at water-fowls.
Should you be afraid of cars and demand ban of car-ownership because in America, 90 people die every day in car accident?
From my understanding, biologists are suggesting to the government to open up the national parks because the moose have learned to take refugee in the parks during hunting season. And when the moose take refugee in the parks to hide from the hunters, they are doing massive ecological damages to the spruce and pine which decimate the conservation value of the park.
Besides, from asking people about how many people actually go for a walk in the national park– during the fall and winter? Almost zero foot traffic. So given that there have been no moose-hunting related accidents in a long time, it actually makes sense to open up the parks to cull the over-populating moose.
“..how many people actually go for a walk in the national park – during the fall and winter?..” I suppose it might be a bit difficult to walk through, Yellowstone in January – so yes, send in the troops, wipe out most of the moose, obviously that’s the logical thing to do.
Is that right Dave, you actually have more armed citizens prepared to kill wildlife for the fun of it than many countries have human population? Amazing, only in America…
In Canada, the number of active hunters is much smaller than most European countries.
Only 2% of the population in Canada are active hunters. In European countries, the figure ranges from 5-10%.
So who have more armed citizens prepared to kill wildlife?
touche on that Dave. You are right about the number of hunters, especially on small Mediterranean islands where the macho men of the village traditionally – and absurdly – sit in hides on mountain tops waiting for our north European songbirds to pass over when migrating to overwinter in Africa, whereupon these fine men blast these by then exhausted little finches etc to oblivion. Then, would you believe, they even make pies full of these tiny creatures. We think mainly these guys think they look big, being hunters and all.
They also shoot hundreds of thousands of these little songbirds on the return journey back to northern Europe. Catch 22! It is very bizarre this still going on in the twenty first century and no wonder some species are endangered from this ‘traditional sport’. Of course this sort of absurdity does not happen in my green and pleasant land. No we are much more methodical. We actually breed the birds we shoot (pheasants, that is) and since they seem reluctant to fly we also employ the lower classes to beat the bushes to get them up so they have a sporting chance – to get run over by a car.
But joking aside, Dave you do have me on that one LOL
It is a clear wolf; the size, even the colour .
He shot him just because he THOUGHT it to be a coyote – on the base South-East Canada is not supposed to have wolves …
Believing is not seeing .
Well, that’s because you’ve never seen an Eastern coyote.
That wolf weighed only 82 pounds, but there are coyotes in the northeastern and eastern Canada that are in the 70 pound range. Bitch wolves of this subspecies are about the size of the largest coyotes.
So it’s possible to make that mistake.
I’ve studied the pictures of the Eastern Wolf.
To me this one is a pure wolf, the head and long muzzle etc.
A typical nice sturdy wolf.
It’s just the modern fagots can’t tell the cow from their mom.
Or maybe they don’t want to.
Please refrain from using homophobic language on this blog.
But my gay friend… Don’t you mind me using the other insulting terms, like mom-cow ?
I’m not gay, but I will gladly tell you that gay people don’t deserve to be insulted because of their sexual orientation.
There’s too much of that nonsense going on in the world today, and they don’t need to hear this stupidity here.
One does not have to be gay to realize that attacking people for their sexual orientation is wrong.
Not nice, Bridget!
You wouldn’t know what an eastern coyote look like if it bit you in the ass. The wolf in the photograph does not look like the wolves found in western Canada.
http://www.rom.on.ca/ontario/images/risk/photos/ff-calu1.jpg
Is the photograph a wolf or a coyote? You wouldn’t know because out East, they both look the same.
All the popular depiction of the wolves in North America is based on wolves found in western Canada and Alaska which are of different morphology than wolves found out east.
It’s a hybrid.
But the shot one is a pure wolf.
Even my blind ass can see that !
Sigh with you Dave – I’ve been saying from the start better not to shoot if you are not sure what it is.
I think the hunter just lied. Of course he must have seen it’s a very much a wolf.
I don’t know if this wolf had coyote genes or not.
A lot of wolves in Eastern Canada do, but not all of them have coyote ancestry.
Western Canadian wolves look nothing like European wolves which you are used to seeing.
Your wolves are dinky small and much more coyote-like than the wolves commonly seen in Alaska. Even I was a bit confused why Europe seemed to be colonized by coyotes and not wolves. Because the morphology of North American wolves and Eurasian wolves are distinct.
What you call a wolf in Europe is what we would mistaken as a coyote.
I guess there is something in animals that manipulates their genes to be the best size for their environment and what prey they have around them. Thus the Alaskan brown bear at one extreme is about twice the size of our remaining European brown bears. Both extremes were housed at our Whipsnade wild animal park when I last looked some years ago which proved it. North Ametrican wolves evolved to bring down bison so of course selection would favour the largest wolves. Although ncome to think of it Europeran wolves msut have evolved to deal with our wild forest bison which is even taller than the north american bison.
Species living on small islands have two factors militatiing against large size: inbreeding necessity and more limited food supply. There was once an elephant living on a mediterranaean island which was tinier than a small pony
However I also suspect something more sinister if the theory is correct that once a wild population of animal starts to become rare it begins to suffer from the effects of inbreeding depression which includes a tendency to smaller size. and a drop in fertility.There are examples of this ‘shrinking’ in various animal populations around the world and it is a sad prospect. Of course other factors affect size. Even though the Siberian tiger is so endangered they are still big because representative of a species living in the coldest parts of its range need more body mass to combat the cold. Again the alsakan brown (or grizzly) bear must be one animal to which this applies.
This cold environment effect is also a factor noticeable in northern races of various smaller species for example in the European bullfinch where the Russian examples (called “siberian bullfinches”) were bigger and were chosen by English bird fanciers because the northerners won more prizes in the cage bird show because of their bolder appearance compared with the more ‘puny’England caught specimens. I expect there are a lot of nuanced
factors at play on size potential.
sorry for all my left in tyos, I was sober but it was late!
And the photograph is not a hybrid.
It is 100% pure wolf found in Ontario.
I’ll note that a lot of psychological studies have shown that people “see” what they expect to see. The individual involved expected to see a coyote. He had zero expectation of a wolf showing up. And size is something that is often very difficult to acertain (just check several studies of eyewitness accounts, even by experts). So I have no issue with the hunter shooting the wolf thinking it was a coyote. As for the validity in having people able and willing to defend themselves using armed force, one needn’t reference the 18th century. The current one provides plenty of evidence of that.
Yeah. Still the Labrador wolf shot as coyote is a beautiful example of a typical North-American wolf breed. It’s so white like the the wolves from the area are described to have been for ages. Seems the hunter do not know anything about the things outside his village – he was just “hunting a big, stunning good looking coyote, wow”. He was just too excited to think anything. Or, is this the good example of a good Canadian hunting education (Dave knows this, too?) ?
P.S. It’s also very hard to tell a difference between the two ducks Anser erythropus and Anser albifrons. The other is a legal (here), the other not. When you get the gun, u have to know which.
That is why I called this hunter a good for nothing person and I am sticking to my original take on him :-)
As this thread inevitably goes to bed, may I finally comment that it is one of those which has started me off searching more widely online – about canids for example, so thanks for that retrieverman et al.