Ballot for Reintroduction of Wolves

[SurfNTurf]

I guess I see the risk of things going tits-up as pretty low. Or more accurately, the risk of big long-term consequences is low. If it turns out wolves in Colorado was a really bad idea (which is possible! who knows), just kill them off again. Sounds like there's no shortage of people willing to help out.

Does human meddling in nature go tits-up:
A) Never
B) Rarely
C) Sometimes
D) Often
E) Always

By the time it has turned out wolves in Colorado was a really bad idea, relocating them will be damage control and will neither undo whatever harm caused us to pull the plug nor unspend our money.
Conversely, it's possible this is a good idea that will do wonders for our ecosystem (more resilient, healthier game herds sounds great), but given our track record of ecological underperformance I'm dubious on the likely outcome.

what has happened in wyoming, montana, idaho is that wolves have been taken off the endangered species list after successful re-establishment, hunters are then used to manage wolf populations

Not that it's a 1:1 comparison, but yeah, we have plenty of recent case studies from other regions that prove wolf reintroduction is possible without "going tits up."

[Boggy B]

When loggers plant trees after a clear-cut, no one gets mad at them for "meddling in nature." The same goes for when native cutthroat trout are reintroduced to a stream. People only bring up this argument because there is some other reason they don't want this to happen.

My ulterior motive for expressing these thoughts is to not waste precious public dollars.
My secondary motive is to not cause unknown harm to existing ecosystems. I don't hunt, so I'm not familiar with that whole chunk of the debate beyond what has been said recently here.
My tertiary motive is to not see your children and pets (I have neither) eaten by wolves in the summer when it's not possible for them to be further than 10 or 12 miles from a human, much less a road. I don't farm, so I'm not familiar with that part of the debate either, though I can see why ranchers would not be stoked and I certainly don't think public money should be used to subsidize wolves' diets.

The examples of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are similar to each other and different from Colorado in ways that should be considered strongly relevant to this issue, particularly in terms of human population density (and probably the size and diversity of existing prey and predator herds--that's an educated guess).

[Dave B]

I don't disagree that eliminating them was playing god, but trying to reintroduce is still playing god as well. This is humanity's biggest flaw, with everything. We think we have some sort of special importance in the universe, some given right if you will, to try to control things around us because we think we are different from other living things. Nature doesn't resort to the same ideology of control, nor does it include some sort of self-importance or reasoning behind doing what it does. It just does what it does without proclaiming it as something greater than itself.

and the key is that nature does what it does *randomly*....with no trajectory or linearity. humans fail to understand this crucial aspect of nature. it's why our attempts to manipulate the environment will most always fail.

Agree that attempts to manipulate the environment typically fail.

Disagree that nature works in entirely stochastic ways. All natural science fields rely on either statistical correlations - linear or not - or process-based models that represent the underlying physics in a structured way. Randomness contributes to, but does not drive, processes and often times what we consider "random" is due to poor understanding of underlying driving factors, or an inability to measure them.

[Imcp]

I don't have a strong opinion about this but I voted yes on it because it includes reimbursement for lost livestock and requires Colorado Parks and Wildlife to make a plan for wolf-prey conservation. Neither of those things will happen in a "wolves reintroduce themselves" situation. CPW doesn't want to touch the wolf issue which means no conservation plan for the wolf-prey ecosystem until it has become a big problem. And ranchers will have a lot of incentive to be killing "coyotes" if they aren't getting reimbursed. Polls were showing roughly 75% support for the bill with minimal change based on location and population density according to ballotpedia.org

[cottonmountaineering]

A question to the people voting no

Elk were near extinct in Colorado in the early 1900s, and were reintroduced from Wyoming. If it were elk being reintroduced instead of wolves on the ballot, would you support the bill? Why?

[disentangled]

All natural science fields rely on either statistical correlations - linear or not - or process-based models that represent the underlying physics in a structured way. Randomness contributes to, but does not drive, processes and often times what we consider "random" is due to poor understanding of underlying driving factors, or an inability to measure them.

yes, but that's exactly the point. the natural sciences are human frameworks for understanding nature. they're models which describe and predict patterns, but they are not absolutes. science has a way to describe plant reproduction as a general system, for example. however, if i have a plant in my yard which flowers and goes to seed, it's totally random where the seed will fall or where it will be blown by the wind; random whether a bird will eat it before it germinates; random whether enough water will make the seed germinate; random whether it will thrive and reproduce. one plant under the same conditions as another will often fail for no discernible reason. you could say that the process of plant reproduction is not random and, instead, it's the other factors which are random (rain, wind, soil, birds). but that's human error to see one aspect of nature as divorced from all the others. the problem of randomness plagues the GMO food industry because the collateral effects of engineering plants turns out to have unpredictable effects elsewhere. anyway... i take your point about science and agree that you've described "science" but not "nature".

[XterraRob]

There should be no compensation for ranchers who lose livestock to natural predators. Either watch your herd, have someone else watch it, or submit to nature.

Bring back Wolves, & Brown Bears!

[Dave B]

All natural science fields rely on either statistical correlations - linear or not - or process-based models that represent the underlying physics in a structured way. Randomness contributes to, but does not drive, processes and often times what we consider "random" is due to poor understanding of underlying driving factors, or an inability to measure them.

yes, but that's exactly the point. the natural sciences are human frameworks for understanding nature. they're models which describe and predict patterns, but they are not absolutes. science has a way to describe plant reproduction as a general system, for example. however, if i have a plant in my yard which flowers and goes to seed, it's totally random where the seed will fall or where it will be blown by the wind; random whether a bird will eat it before it germinates; random whether enough water will make the seed germinate; random whether it will thrive and reproduce. one plant under the same conditions as another will often fail for no discernible reason. you could say that the process of plant reproduction is not random and, instead, it's the other factors which are random (rain, wind, soil, birds). but that's human error to see one aspect of nature as divorced from all the others. the problem of randomness plagues the GMO food industry because the collateral effects of engineering plants turns out to have unpredictable effects elsewhere. anyway... i take your point about science and agree that you've described "science" but not "nature".

But none of those examples are random. Nature, whether big "N" nature or scientific nature behaves in predictable patterns. Some patterns are difficult to measure or determine, but that does not make them random.

If rainfall was random it would be plausible for your neighbor to have 100" of precipitation per year while you only get 20". It would be equally as likely for your neighbor to have soils or bird species more similar to Panama than similar to your back yard. But we all know that's not the case.

If randomness really drove all processes the earth surface would be an inconsistent patch work of random collections of climate and biological drivers with arbitrary boundaries and no discernable patterns; you'd have desert next to rainforest, next to subalpine, next to prairie. We know that's not the case. Patterns exist and can be summarized using math which makes it, by definition, not random.

[disentangled]

If rainfall was random it would be plausible for your neighbor to have 100" of precipitation per year while you only get 20".

if you live in albuquerque, this isn't implausible. sometimes it rains on my block and doesn't rain at all on the next block over. just saying.

yours is the perspective of a scientist. mine is not. i've no interest in discussing science on science's terms. that's not to say i reject science. my point is simply that humans organize the unpredictability of nature to fit their own values and beliefs, whether these are determined by science or otherwise.

[onebyone]

WE saved the elk in Colorado so that we can watch them as well as eat them. Some of us think that wolves should be able to eat some of these elk, too.

https://www.postindependent.com/sports/ ... rly-1900s/

It's all in the eye of the beholder and there is a lot of propaganda pushing one view or the other. Fact is that we have a heavily managed ecosystem in Colorado, everything from the animals themselves to 4 wheelers to hikers to hunters and so on. There is no reason why wolves can't be part of our managed ecosystem. You can't say we're playing God with wolves but not with everything else.
It often comes down to self interest and what things people should take priority over other things. There really isn't a 100% right answer and it's all heavily subjective imo.

[onebyone]

I also thought the link I posted was pretty interesting because it was written over a decade ago. And how much has changed since even then with herd numbers and various parts of the state. The of course, CWD. And I'm sure in another 10-15 years, things will be quite different from today.

[Dave B]

i've no interest in discussing science on science's terms.

Excellent strategy, why bother defending your world view when you can simply dismiss others' as irrelevant.