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Wolves make roadways safer

D

drneo66

Active member
Let's see... oil, tires, and wolves - probably some of the more controversial topics one can discuss on an internet forum, but I found this study interesting:

"Deer populations have surged in the United States, increasing from about 2 to 4 deer per km2 in the precolonial era (16) to 15 to 50 deer per km2 in some areas today"

"Recent studies uncover cascading ecological effects resulting from removing and reintroducing predators into a landscape, but little is known about effects on human lives and property. We quantify the effects of restoring wolf populations by evaluating their influence on deer–vehicle collisions (DVCs) in Wisconsin. We show that, for the average county, wolf entry reduced DVCs by 24%, yielding an economic benefit that is 63 times greater than the costs of verified wolf predation on livestock. Most of the reduction is due to a behavioral response of deer to wolves rather than through a deer population decline from wolf predation. This finding supports ecological research emphasizing the role of predators in creating a “landscape of fear.” It suggests wolves control economic damages from overabundant deer in ways that human deer hunters cannot."

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/22/e2023251118
 
Watch the video about what happened to the Yellowstone River when they reintroduced wolves.

It's good all around when we have top line predators.

[video]https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/wolves-yellowstone/#wolves-of-yellowstone[/video]
 
Thanks for sharing this interesting article, Drneo66!

Even assuming that the conclusions of this article are accurate (which I inclined to do), I suspect it will be a hard sell in agricultural areas to sell the idea to aggrieved farmers who have lost livestock. While the benefits of a lower number of deer-vehicle collisions is spread randomly across the entire population, the economic impact of livestock lost is concentrated on a relatively small group, the farmers. I suspect many farmers will be resistant to the conclusion that the wolves reducing the impact of deer on farm losses is greater than that of stock predation.

My apocryphal observation is that I suspect predators do indeed have a positive impact on deer presence and deer-vehicle collisions. I lived for 40 years in Connecticut. In Connecticut there are virtually no predators of deer. Even in this densely-populated state there were deer everywhere. I once had a dozen feeding on the seeds on the ground under one of our bird feeders. This was on a neighborhood of one-acre lots in suburbia.

I've been in Oregon living at the edge of a modestly-sized city for the last ten years. Although there are few wolves in western Oregon, we have a fair smattering of cougar and bear. Our 1/4 acre lot abuts neighboring farm land and vineyards. Yes, we have deer wander into our yard to feast on my bride's roses, but the number of deer I see on my rides here is far fewer than I encountered in Connecticut. Whether that's because the deer population is less dense or because the deer behavior is altered to make them less inclined to be near roads as this study suggests is beyond me, but I definitely see fewer here.

Thanks again for the article!
 
stooie said:
Thanks for sharing this interesting article, Drneo66!

Even assuming that the conclusions of this article are accurate (which I inclined to do), I suspect it will be a hard sell in agricultural areas to sell the idea to aggrieved farmers who have lost livestock. While the benefits of a lower number of deer-vehicle collisions is spread randomly across the entire population, the economic impact of livestock lost is concentrated on a relatively small group, the farmers. I suspect many farmers will be resistant to the conclusion that the wolves reducing the impact of deer on farm losses is greater than that of stock predation.

Thanks again for the article!
Click to expand...

Glad you found it interesting!

Agreed, the benefit/burden isn't shared equally across each individual, but you'd assume that the farmer could potentially reap the highest reward by not having a deer collision. Still, a hard sell, especially as the compensation program probably isn't easy or quick.

Interestingly, Montana has paid out ~$260,000/year for the last couple years - or to put it into truck terms, less than 9 new F150 pickup trucks (as hitting a deer at 75mph is most likely going to total your truck).
 
Just a few nights ago on PBS, they had a show on the effects of re-introducing wolves into places where they've been thinned out - In every case, it helped to restore the overall eco balance.
 
kbasa said:
Watch the video about what happened to the Yellowstone River when they reintroduced wolves.

It's good all around when we have top line predators.

[video]https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/wolves-yellowstone/#wolves-of-yellowstone[/video]
Click to expand...

Good stuff! Thanks for posting!
 
Here on the Long Beach Peninsula in SW Washington there's one community that has outlawed all hunting (& they allow unlimited irrigation of yards). The deer population is ridiculous in that area, it's not unusual to see a dozen or more in a 1 mile drive. I don't even ride through the area anymore.
I grew up in Oklahoma during the 50's & early 60's. We had a bounty on coyotes & I've seen hundreds of carcasses hanging on fences At the same time, the State had a poisoning program for coyotes using cyanide gas and a trigger using lamb's wool soaked with female dog urine as the bait. The program was dropped because many more domestic dogs than coyotes were killed. We never lost a single calf to coyotes but have shot 10-20 domestic dogs in one night running our cattle
 
Many people seem to have a visceral hatred of wolves. Wolves seem to engender a level of hatred, dread and fear that other predators are not subjected to. Not sure why this is. In children's literature, ancient tales and modern movies, wolves are seldom portrayed in a positive way. It is ironic that bears, mountain lions, snakes and even moose kill more people than wolves. In fact, the number of known cases of humans being killed by a wolf is very small. I've heard of three. One in Canada, one in Siberia and one in Alaska in 2005. In the later a young woman who was a new school teacher in a bush village went jogging outside the village and was attacked. Annie worked in the state virology lab at the time and did the necropsy on the wolf's head to determine if it was rabid. Wolves are to be treated with same respect as bears, lions and other dangerous wildlife, but they are an important part of our world and deserve equal protection.
 
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