In an article entitled, "Wolves May Aid Recovery of Canada Lynx, a Threatened Species" which was published to the ScienceDaily.com website, it is stated:
"As wolf populations grow in parts of the West, most of the focus has been on their value in aiding broader ecosystem recovery -- but a new study from Oregon State University also points out that they could play an important role in helping to save other threatened species."
"In research published in Wildlife Society Bulletin, scientists suggest that a key factor in the Canada lynx being listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act is the major decline of snowshoe hares. The loss of hares, the primary food of the lynx, in turn may be caused by coyote populations that have surged in the absence of wolves. Scientists call this a "trophic cascade" of impacts."
This new research certainly indicates how important wolves are to the ecoystems which they live in, and it shows that we humans have no business engaging in culls of animals such as wolves, when we think their populations are too high.It also shows that people such as ranchers who are demanding in some states in the USA, and some other places in the World, that wolf culls occur, have no right to suggest these wolves need to be killed because they are a menance to livestock, when wolves are playing such an important role in the ecosystem! If these ranchers find some way to get the Governments in these states to sanction wolf kills, all this is going to do is faciliate a surge in the coyote populations in these states, and consequently this fact will result in the loss of hares and a decline in the lynx populations in these states! In other words, if humans interfere in the natural order of things in nature, we invariably cause harm to other species on this planet, harm which may not ever be undone!
When are humans going to accept the fact that all life on this planet is interconnected and interrelated in a deep way, and that we have no right as a species to deliberately reduce the population of a species of life on this planet, because it is acting in a natural way (in the case of wolves they are acting as predators in their interaction with rancher's cattle?) Instead of culling wolves, other solutions to these Cattlemen's problems relating to wolves acting naturally need to be found! Culls will solve nothing, in fact the research I mentioned above shows that wolf culls will have a deterimental effect on the Canadian lynx species!
To read the entire arcticle please click on the following link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830144530.htm
Soure of image of Timber wolf: http://www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/wolves/index.htm
Source of image of Canadian lynx:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canadian_lynx_by_Keith_Williams.jpg
Source of image of coyote: http://www.weforanimals.com/free-pictures/wild-animals/coyotes/1/coyote-3.htm Photographer: Brian Harry
