Fire Hydrant of Freedom

The problem with the eradication bit is that they're not really overpopulating the area. Wolves are barely making a comeback from what we did to them in the past, and then the minute their numbers grow to even a third of what they originally were, we get all upset. Now, there is the issue of the livestock, and production value, and other such things. But, forgoing all of that, I really do think it needs to be mentioned that a lot of people into the eradication ideal haven't looked at it from a past perspective. Wolves roamed in much greater numbers in the past, and the ecosystem did not suffer. You throw humans in, however, a new mathematical variable, and then you run into the problems with the killing of livestock and the issues with the hunters. Two species butting heads over who wants to survive.

You can't really blame the wolves for eating the livestock though. If any of us were hungry in the cold snow, and someone laid out a hundred Big Macs for us, we'd probably eat them. It's not different with wolves eating livestock. In fact, some wolves avoid herds of livestock because they fear reactions from humans.

And if the population DOES get out of hand, I mean, to the point of elk and caribou literally becoming close to extinct in the area, then I would probably go for an "eradication" kind of answer to it, but again, nature was doing just fine until we imposed our standards of how things should go. But, granted, again i can't complain because despite my efforts not to be part of the problem I can guarantee I do wasteful things that do just as much harm.


Oh, and the roach thing. I personally don't like roaches, but I would try not to kill them. If it were one roach, ok, whatever, just take it outside and away from my door and I'm alright. If there's an infestation, however, I would most likely call an exterminator. However, if I had the chance, I would try to prevent the problem before it even happened. I once had an infestation in the house I used to live in. Everyone else was freaking out telling me to kill the rodents running around in the garage (apparently they found a few bags of chips and cheetos a few friends of mine had left back there). I thought about it, and opted to place some repellents around the house, and it worked. Never saw another one again. So, I have a tendency to see different solutions than a lot of people, but that's just me.

To Guro Crafty:

Sorry about that one. I found the wolves and canines thread about five minutes after posting this, I think I will probably delete this particular post from this forum and then move it to that thread.

To GM:

Yeah, just like any other human I am responsible for some of the damage to the planet and things of that sort. What I meant by "Lord Man" was my reference to how we have a tendency to see animals that are useful to us as those that should live, and those that are not, should not live.

As to the Bush Administration thing. Basically, from what I know on the issue, what happened was that I was wrong. I was looking up many different sources on the issue, and I suppose that many of them were a little more politically based rather than fact based. So I do apologize for the posting of incorrect information on this forum.

From what I do know, it would seem the law went up to the states. Alaska's governor actually has claimed that the killing of wolves in aerial shootings is a "leisure activity". Quite interesting, in my opinion, because aerial shooting was originally completely illegal, due to the Aerial Hunting Act passed in 1972. What happened was that Alaska passed a bill or two that allowed the hunting of wolves and bears to artificially inflate the moose and caribou population. From what I've read on the bill, the reason for this is that they want more prey animals for ever more hunters.

I'm going to post a few articles when I move this thread, but I wanted to answer your replies first.

I kind of agree with you in a lot of ways. I find it interesting that many people within the scientific community will speak very boldly about their denial of any supernatural being, but their own process seems to be not too friendly with the idea of completely denying something has happened or existed without proper evidence to support that fact. I think someone who was completely adhering to scientific ideals would probably look at all sides of the argument and exclaim: "We're probably all wrong!"

I myself, just as a little tidbit as to my take on the issue, am a bit of a deist. I have no doubt that there's something "other than natural" floating around out there, but I wouldn't say it's a shiny man on a throne who apparently needs gobs of cash. I also believe in evolution, which for some is surprising. I don't really understand why there has to be an argument amongst the two fields. God doesn't necessarily have to come into the scientific equation, so I don't see why it is that many scientists allow their opinions on the issue to flood the scene. I guess it's a human issue, for, as you can see, the super religious do the same thing.

I've always tried to anchor my "religious" thought with scientific theory. The Big Bang is admittedly a wonderful possibility, but many scientists will admit that the theory really doesn't cover all the bases. I've seen and heard many scientists mention that it's just "the best theory we've come up with". When I look at the law of conservation of matter and energy, it's clear that all matter and energy has a source, and can't necessarily come out of nothing, so it's hard to look at it Genesis style where everything is just "made" out of nothing (it would seem), but the scientific theory doesn't give us a source of all energy and matter. So, to me, they're deadlocked. There is no reason for the controversy, in my opinion.

Did that make sense?