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That depends on how many more days of hunting season(s) and planned mass killings of prey animals by wildlife agencies you'd like to introduce into the calendar.
No problem, thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. Will definitely suggest the use of lures instead. I agree with you completely, what they're doing seems ineffective and I'm also very much against live feeding.Originally Posted by RabbitLuvr
Thank you for writing! You should suggest the "lure" system to them, it certainly sounds like a viable option to me.
I don't have any desire for wild predators to be forced into extinction, but if the purpose of teaching these particular animals to hunt, or to keep them hunting during rehab, then having their dinner walk right up to them is not going to help the animals at all.
Obviously, I would also like them to stop using live rabbits as food.
That would depend on how much do you care about prey animals either being mass culled or the overpopulation of them starving to death.
None. I'm against killing.
I'm not for destroying anything, but I question saving animals we can't possibly live with, unless they're kept in isolation, on protected reserves, which will grow smaller and smaller with time, and will be no better than glorified zoos, where we maintain flocks for them to kill. Is that the idea: to keep predators as pets?Human destruction of predators results in nothing but more human destruction of prey with a profit motive attached, governmental and private.
I don't think the idea is to keep predators as pets, no. They're trying to reintroduce these bobcats into the wild.Originally Posted by Capstan
None. I'm against killing.
I'm not for destroying anything, but I question saving animals we can't possibly live with, unless they're kept in isolation, on protected reserves, which will grow smaller and smaller with time, and will be no better than glorified zoos, where we maintain flocks for them to kill. Is that the idea: to keep predators as pets?
And you know this, because...? I know of no such rule. If they survive, fine, but I expect the world can adapt to living without them. There's nothing in nature that says we HAVE to have big predators. If anyone is opposed to feeding them live bait, in order to help them, then why help them, just so they can kill more animals?
Who can say? Maybe being culled or starving to death is better than being eaten alive. Turning predators loose on prey animals seems as cruel as anything else.
I know this because I know how ecosystems work, you can't take a huge piece out of the equation and expect balance to be maintained. Destroying large predators will mean that prey populations will explode to unsustainable levels. Without predators to thin them out grazing animals will devour all the food available to them and mass starvation and disease will follow, which will affect all the other plants and animals in the ecosystem too. Everything is connected.Originally Posted by Capstan
And you know this, because...? I know of no such rule. If they survive, fine, but I expect the world can adapt to living without them. There's nothing in nature that says we HAVE to have big predators. If anyone is opposed to feeding them live bait, in order to help them, then why help them, just so they can kill more animals?
You would rather have people going out and killing deer with guns or letting them slowly starve to death? Really? And see a bunch of other species of plants and animals go extinct too? Oh my.
So you see when you kill off large predators they aren't the only creatures hurt by it, the damage goes all the way down the food chain to smaller mammals, birds and insects who all depend on the food carnivores indirectly provide. Without that balance the results would be catastrophic.With no natural predators to keep them on the move and prevent over-browsing of one area, deer have contributed to the failure of the natural process of regeneration of woodland by nibbling tree shoots and destroying saplings. Complete exclusion of deer is not necessarily the answer. Our native forests evolved with browsing herbivores keeping the more vigorous understorey plants in check and allowing slower growing plant to compete. When these browsers are excluded, for example by deer fencing in forest regeneration schemes, the understorey that grows back is dominated by the faster growing species and diversity is much lower than in the original forest. Seed germination is also affected by the lack of wild boar to disturb the ground. Berry bearing shrubs rely on a certain amount of 'pruning' by browsing deer to promote denser shoot growth and abundant berry production, but over-browsing will also reduce berry crops.
Thus, forest biodiversity and productivity benefits from the presence of deer and wild boar, but relies on the presence of predators to prevent overgrazing. In Britain, hunting can be argued to have replaced the pressure of natural predators, but the pursuit of economic gain rather than ecological benefit has meant that deer numbers remain high and there is very little forest regeneration.
Examples of how predators can regulate the impact of herbivores on vegetation can be found in the USA. Shortly after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, biologists noted that willow growth along streams and rivers began making a recovery, after years of over-browsing by elk. Beavers began to re-colonise areas of the park where willow was recovering, in turn creating wetland habitat for a number of other specialist species of plants, insects, amphibians and birds. This effect is known as a trophic cascade, where a change affecting one species higher up the food chain indirectly affects those lower down. Another example of a trophic cascade that has occurred in Yellowstone is the availability of carcasses to other species, from ravens, magpies, eagles, coyotes and small mammals and birds, down to beetles and flies.
The presence of large carnivores then, can influence the flora and fauna of an ecosystem and help to keep it in a more natural and diverse state than areas where there are no predators.
Hypothetical: let's take human hunters and other killer humans out of the equation. Can the earth develop an ecosystem, where grazing animals can maintain a harmonious balance with the rest of the world, without having to be weeded? I ask this, because everything you've said is based on observations of either the past or present. Can planet earth sustain a population of both people and animals, where neither has to kill? Just curious.Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl
I know this because I know how ecosystems work, you can't take a huge piece out of the equation and expect balance to be maintained. Destroying large predators will mean that prey populations will explode to unsustainable levels. Without predators to thin them out grazing animals will devour all the food available to them and mass starvation and disease will follow, which will affect all the other plants and animals in the ecosystem too. Everything is connected.
Then we should stop the hunters, since they're the problem.This is already happening in areas where people have killed all the wolves and cougars and deer populations are exploding as a result, then you get a bunch of hunters going out and slaughtering all the deer they can find in the name of being "humane"
I can't say for sure, but there definitely isn't much evidence for it. Maybe if grazing animals became super intelligent and learned how to use birth control and learned how to replant all the food they were eating. Also, many animals would still go extinct because they indirectly depend on carnivores for food. No predators would mean no scavengers either, and that includes a truly giant list of animals and insects.Originally Posted by Capstan
Hypothetical: let's take human hunters and other killer humans out of the equation. Can the earth develop an ecosystem, where grazing animals can maintain a harmonious balance with the rest of the world, without having to be weeded? I ask this, because everything you've said is based on observations of either the past or present. Can planet earth sustain a population of both people and animals, where neither has to kill? Just curious.
No, the hunters are just part of the problem. Stop them and you still have the mass extinctions from starvation/disease.
The question is, must the future be as the past has been? Can the future, with humane stewardship, develop a less savage nature, or are we "destined" to live with whatever nature dictates? People are changing nature; the question is, can we change it to a gentler one?Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl
I can't say for sure, but there definitely isn't much evidence for it. Maybe if grazing animals became super intelligent and learned how to use birth control and learned how to replant all the food they were eating. Also, many animals would still go extinct because they indirectly depend on carnivores for food. No predators would mean no scavengers either, and that includes a truly giant list of animals and insects.
You seem to be suggesting we labor to return the world to some point in the past. Is this right?No, the hunters are just part of the problem. Stop them and you still have the mass extinctions from starvation/disease.
Well, historically speaking humans meddling with nature hasn't ended well. And considering how complex a single ecosystem is and how interconnected all life is reworking the entire planet to make every creature herbivorous would pretty much mean getting rid of all the animals we have and starting from scratch, that sounds like a scary idea to me. Do we ethically have the right to doom billions of creatures to extinction?Originally Posted by Capstan
The question is, must the future be as the past has been? Can the future, with humane stewardship, develop a less savage nature, or are we "destined" to live with whatever nature dictates? People are changing nature; the question is, can we change it to a gentler one?
You seem to be suggesting we labor to return the world to some point in the past. Is this right?
Well, the issue with domesticated rabbits is they aren't hunting them. The rabbits are coming right up to them and getting eaten as surely as if they were a plate of already dead meat.