What The Hell is Science-Based Management?

[VikingsGuy]

Social SCIENCE!
Montanans love wolves

I would guess the change in "tolerance for wolves" match changing resident demographics more than change of hearts.

 

[bmt99]

I would guess the change in "tolerance for wolves" match changing resident demographics more than change of hearts.

I am sure you are right.

 

[noharleyyet]

Science Based Management:

 

[Mtn Dawg]

Its basically kill or save as many animals for what is socially acceptable.

The fact that we try to "manage" wildlife is just weird. Other than not killing them, we believe we can play god and control species by killing this or that, manipulating populations, and habitat. While we succeed at times, we seem to fail at the long game, because ultimately we can't control the largest contributing factor, weather.

I have serious doubts that some animals will ever recover to population levels of even 20 or 30 years ago, let alone any sort of historic levels. IMO, wildlife management just slows the bleeding.

I’ve got to respond to this. The first 2 sentences are your take are not in any way related to science as we understand it. They are totally subjective. Why is the fact that we try to manage wildlife weird? Just for an example. It doesn’t seem weird at all to me. We as a species have a deeply seated need to interact with the natural world. It is in our genetic code. This is a basic impulse that drives wildlife watchers, nature lovers and hunters alike. In order to accommodate the hunter side of it we have to regulate it in some way, otherwise we would kill off all the wildlife. So we came up with a concept to ensure that we don’t in fact kill it off. Whether or not one can see that hunters can actually love something that they want to kill and eat , it exists nonetheless. I don’t think using buzzwords like playing god etc adds anything productive to the conversation- it’s another judgmental your take approach. It does more to incite emotional reaction rather than reasoned discourse.

Other than that I am afraid you may be right about recovering game populations. Too many people with too many different needs all vying for control to suit arguably selfish needs.