Wolves need to be reintroduced in many parts of the U.S. Here in Indiana, hunters have to keep the deer population down and even they can't do a good enough job. Other states have even bigger problems with feral hogs. Wolves are essentially no threat to humans but there's always scaremongering.
Meanwhile, these ranchers are throwing a shit fit about TEN WOLVES.
Ranchers and farmers are the biggest welfare queen piss babies. Can’t wait for the wolves! - CO voter.
They take all the land, water, and government handouts and then cry that single moms on food stamps are ruining the country.
Yep it's infuriating.
No threat to humans? Have you ever heard of teen wolf?
I said wolves, not werewolves.
On the other hand, if we had werewolves keeping the deer and boar population in check, the ranchers couldn't complain about a wolf problem!
What about swearwolves?
Fuck yooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
That's just what an awarewolf would say
Wanna bet they also QQ about deer and/or hogs running amok?
Probably not because those won't affect their bottom line as much. Wolves harass cattle herds and run the weight off of them, requiring more workers to protect the herd and also reducing sale price. With wolves reintroduced, the price of beef will increase.
That being said, we definitely still should reintroduce them, they have so many positive effects on the environment. Even if not reintroduced, it won't be long before the wolves in Wyoming start making their way down anyway.
I farm right next to (within 10km) pristine forest stretching for a few thousand km in a couple directions. I've seen plenty of wolves, but they never really come into the farming areas, and even if they do, the cattle aren't very concerned. You have a couple hundred head together in a field, they aren't worried about wolves, cougar or coyotes. They'd stomp them into a paste.
We have neighbors that bitch and moan about the coyotes "killing calves". I've seen plenty of coyotes chewing on dead calves, but I feel it's pretty unlikely to have been them that killed it, they're just cleaning up a late miscarriage that might have walked around for a while looking for a place to die. It's almost always calves I've looked at and thought they weren't going to last long.
And there are more than enough deer, moose and elk around for these predators to go after that they would much rather take anyway, rather than risk an angry bunch of momma cows mopping them up.
Frankly, if the price of having a healthy wildlife population means losing a few sick calves to them and a couple tonnes of grain to deer, I'm fine with it. That ecosystem benefits us in a lot of ways.
Interesting. Maybe the reason so many ranchers complain to the Wyoming Game and Fish is so they can get damage payouts. Perhaps they're over exaggerating the issue.
Maybe it's a very small amount of people complaining and the story is being made about them, and not the thousands of other ranchers that don't give a fuck.
Don't underestimate the size and support of the Cattlemen's Association
I really doubt 10 wolves will change the price of beef so much you would be even able to quantify it.
No, but I bet someone along the supply chain will use it as the reason they had to jack up ~~profits~~ prices.
“About…. 5 bucks a pound. These idiots will be pissed at the wolves and we’ll have record breaking profits! Like the Egg industry.”- Big Beef, certainly
10 wolves today, but in the future it'll be hundreds or thousands potentially (which I'm fine with) but it's shortsighted to think it's only ten
the price of beef won't increase because of this. The meat packing companies set the price that they'll buy beef. they also set the price that they sell beef. they've been keeping their buying price down and increasing their selling price. it's a fucking racket. Don't let anybody sell you the idea that supply and demand effects this.
Speaking of reintroducing species- It's too bad we can't convince America (who I doubt we can convince to get off meat entirely in the foreseeable future) to switch from cattle to bison. Not only would it put the fauna we replaced back where it's supposed to be, I just think it tastes better. You can usually only get it at local places for a premium, but back when I ate meat, it was definitely worth going out of my way for a buffalo burger.
It can't be that difficult to farm them, because I drive by a pretty sizable (but still clearly owned by one family) bison ranch on the way to my mother's house on a fairly regular basis and they seem to be doing fine on the same pasture I see the cows grazing on nearby. If anything, there are more bison per square footage than cows and the bison don't seem to be suffering. Considering they used to be in herds so huge that indigenous Americans would regularly stampede them off of cliffs for their meat and have plenty left to do it again, I'm guessing they can be farmed in greater density.
Bison are quite a lot less feed efficient and a fucking pain in the ass to work with since you can't get in with them like cattle, or work with horses. Treating them when they're sick is a good way to get hurt or killed.
But yah, it tastes better. So does elk, but that's another species that's better left wild.
That sounds like the same sort of excuse some herder would've said about his aurochs back in the day. Better get goin' on that domestication!
aurochs
hahahaha!
Sounds like they should invest in better fencing
Even if not reintroduced, it won't be long before the wolves in Wyoming start making their way down anyway.
They already have. It's not been publicly acknowledged because there are powerful land-use interests that want us to believe that they are only shooting "coyotes."
That said, the cheapest and most effective way to protect herds is with dogs. They've been doing it in Europe and parts of Asia for thousands of years, so it's not as if the knowledge isn't out there. It's what your giant breeds like mastiffs, great Pyrenees and Anatolian shepherds and the like we're originally bred for.
Creating jobs and driving down prices? Sounds like a win win to me
Just caught someone raising some kind of live stock (prolly dairy cows,) talking about the deer problem here in MN- getting into her feed by the hundreds (perhaps an exaggeration on her part.)
It definitely is cutting into her bottom line…. She wants the DNR to kill the deer because it’s too expensive to put up fencing around her feed pile. (Yeah, they had to fill that part in… is the interviewee probably realized she was pushing it already.)
I'm not pushing for one side or the other but you should really look at the costs for deer-proof fencing. It's not just setting up some barbed wire lines like it is ranch animals
I’m aware that it’s expensive.
It’s also part of… doing business.
Is QQ supposed to be a crying emoji?
Yeah. Well, from a time before emojis, sure,
(Now I feel old. Before emojis, there was the smilie. And the vampire kirby. <(‘, ,’<) )
Believe it or not I am old enough to remember them, I am just so old I couldn’t remember wtf smilies were called.😞
I can probably still send a whole t9 text from my pocket though.🤣
No, they convince rich assholes to spend $3,000 to shoot a hog on their land.
It's a huge problem here in Texas where hogs are destroying everything, but all the ranchers are leaning that charging people to hunt his on their land brings in more money than the damage the hogs cause.
They’re perfectly capable of doing both,
Will wolves control feral hog populations?
https://feralhogs.extension.org/natural-predators-of-feral-hogs/
Red wolves were. Grey wolves probably would be.
Sounds like a marketing opportunity!
I’m so tired of the cattle industry in Colorado. From their extreme water usage in a water strapped state, to their entitlement to using federal land to graze, to their insistence on killing the wolves that the state voted to introduce, to their election of Lauren Boebert. It is selfish bullshit after selfish bullshit and enough is enough
There are very few people in this world who feel as entitled as rural westerners do. Their default position is that the land is theirs to do whatever they want on and the rest of us can fuck right off. Nevermind that their precious "way of life" is barely a century old and rides upon the back of Native American genocide and massive public subsidies and corruption together with the destruction of entire ecosystems and vast swathes of public land. While a lot of them are perfectly nice people otherwise, ranchers are among the worst offenders in this sense.
Those cattle mongers should see the doctor about the state of their gut fauna (relevant XKCD)
XKCD is always right on the money.
The deadline to put paws on the ground
😘👌
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