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Opening Arguments

This is a hoot

I accept it that government takes actions that pick winners and losers sometimes when it's got no business doing so, but this seems a little extreme:

To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.

[. . .]

The government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect the owl, but the bird’s population continues to decline — a 40 percent slide in 25 years.

[. . .]

The plan to kill barred owls would not be the first time the federal government has authorized killing of one species to help another. California sea lions that feast on threatened salmon in the Columbia River have been killed in recent years after efforts to chase them away or scare them failed.

Maybe this shouldn't bother me as much as it does. After all, there are times when we ask government to take sides, as in, "Help us keep those nasty Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan." But choosing one specices over another seems more justifiable when there is some human benefit involved. Cattle may not be any more deserving of life than coyotes, but ranchers have a strong economic interest in thinning out the ranks of coyotes. Choosing one owl over another seems like an arbitrary bow to diversity for diversity's sake.

Comments

RAG
Wed, 02/29/2012 - 6:48pm

To save the western elk, maybe the federal government should consider killing a few wolves.  Sooner or later when their food runs out they will either starve or move to other states where the eating is still good.  Some may think they are majestic, very intelligent, and very beautiful animals.  I agree on all three counts.  But, they don't make very good neighbors.  If you think differently, maybe we should re-introduce them to Indiana.

Harl Delos
Thu, 03/01/2012 - 3:08am

I'm not sure, RAG, why you think killing wolves would make the food run out. The surviving wolves have an greater supply of elk, which means more wolf cubs will survive to maturity, and on a few years, the otiginal ratio will return, 

If you want to increase populations or destroy them, you need to add or destroy habitat.  In the 1960s, we tore out fencerows, and switched from corn pickers to shellers, which mean pgeasant populations fell dramatically and deer populations fell.

Hunters try to kill trophy animals. Wolves harvest sick and injured elk.  It's the wolves, not the hunters, that improve elk genetics.  I'm not anti-hunting, but let's recognize the importance of wolves.

RAG
Thu, 03/01/2012 - 5:58pm

Mr. Delos, thank you for the english lesson.

I will try to clarify.  Wolves are at the top of the food chain.  The re-introduction of wolves out west with no legal hunting pressure on the wolves has allowed the the wolves to thrive.  The elk populations are not what they were because of the wolves.  Wolves do not just pick on the sick and injured elk.  The wolves kill the the baby elk.  Wolves work as teams and will kill full-size elk, full-size mountain lions, and full-size bears.  Wolves can weigh 80 to 100 pounds.  Even 40 pound coyotes will take down full-size healthy white tail deer.

Sooner or later wolves will run out of elk to eat.  The wolves will either starve or move.  There is no balance because there were too many elk originally and the wolves are making little wolves like those elk meals will be there forever.

The government wants to shoot owls.  Let's get real, the feds will probably just poison them.

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