Predator removal/reintroduction study

[feddoc]

The focus is aligned with losing predators.

Researchers find adverse effects of apex predator reintroduction: 'The conservation message is don't lose them in the first place'

A 20-year study on the effects of reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park was just published.

www.thecooldown.com

 

[jims]

Predator management impacts on prey species are extremely complicated. The opposite response has occurred with unchecked populations of mountain lions on wild sheep.

Here is an article about mountain lion impacts on wild sheep in California. There is a similar long-term lion-wild sheep publication from New Mexico with similar results. In both cases, wild sheep populations were endangered and successfully recovered once an apex predator was controlled with hunting.

The lives of a small number of mountain lions are being saved at the cost of many Sierra bighorn, favoring an animal with wide distribution and a large population over one that—at least so far—has barely escaped extinction.

California has in effect permitted an animal-rights agenda to override science-based conservation, which focuses on the health of populations and ecosystems, not the fate of individuals.

Commentary: Can the Sierra Nevada bighorn dodge extinction? It may mean reining in another wild animal

The high peaks of the southern and central Sierra Nevada are home to a unique and endangered animal, the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep. John Muir called them "the bravest of all the Sierra mountaineers," and indeed they have weathered both ancient and modern climate extremes, human-introduced...

phys.org