*Editor’s Note* – In an email exchange this morning to others on my email list, this is what I wrote (with a couple of edits) in regard to this piece of junk opinion that can easily be labeled as nothing more than a traveling medicine show.
“It is my opinion based on a few years of study, that when it comes to wildlife management and dealing with animals in general, we humans project our human and emotional rationale onto animals. When people, regardless of their education, place some kind of value onto an animal that is “human-like” it distorts rational thinking. I believe that a wolf is nothing more than an instinctive and opportunistic killer. If the opportunity is there, along with whatever drives a wolf to kill, it will…..period. We, as humans, attempt to rationalize a wolf (or any other animal) in some kind of human element, i.e. that a wolf can and does distinguish a “sick” prey species and picks that one over another. To form a conclusion that wolves “kill the old, the young, the sick and the weak,” can only be formed on human emotions and irrational thought.
Perhaps the “evidence to support” is there but it is probably supporting the wrong theory. If data shows, after the fact, that wolves ended up killing more “sick” prey, it happened, more than likely because there was opportunity NOT because a wolf processed in its mind that it would not have to work so hard to munch on a sick wolf versus a “healthy” one.[As certainly a wolf with that level of brain power would not willingly eat “sick” flesh.] I think this is what Jim B. calls, “Romance Biology.”
If anyone was to actually stand by their claims that wolves make prey species healthier, they would then struggle to answer the question as to why, if a wolf can distinguish a “sick” prey species from a healthy one, then surely they also can distinguish a healthy one and a healthy, pregnant female prey species and go for the gold.
I just think it is a bastardization of the scientific process when data is used to promote a humanistic-placed value on something because that’s what the human mind rationalizes…..irrationally!”
From the Jackson Hole News and Guide:
“In the main, the preponderance of scientific evidence supports the view that wolves generally kill the old, the young, the sick and the weak,” Mech began. “There’s so much documented field data behind it.”
All the things humans treasure about every wild prey species — their physiology, agility and resilience — are reflections of the predators that made them adapt and evolve over eons.<<<Read More>>>
