The Value Of The Wolves In History

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The value of the wolves in history

Before his persecution by humans, the wolf (Canis lupus) had the greatest distribution of all the world’s terrestrial mammals, except man. Its immense range included most of North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The wolves were exterminated from much of this vast area, however, they have now returned to many locations where they lived before. However, the intense and violent persecution of the wolves continues to this day.

Ironically, many of the people who passionately exterminate the wolves and act as if the wolf were ‘the greatest enemy of humanity’, are at the same time lovers of the owners of dogs who consider the dog, descendant of the wolf, such as the ”MAN BEST FRIEND ‘. Their attitudes seem especially contradictory when they consider the fact that companion dogs, such as wolves, sometimes kill cattle and other pets.

In addition, every year, dogs kill or hurt many more people than wolves. In 2012, the World Health Organization reported that, worldwide, more than 55.000 people die annually, 99% of them infected with dog bites. Children run a special risk, since dogs bite them between 3 and 5 times more than adults..

Although wolves can also become infected with the rabies virus and spread it, they almost never sting humans because they do not live in close association with humans. Consequently, the transmission of the rabies of wolves to humans is rare compared to dogs. Therefore, you could legitimately argue that dogs are a much greater danger for humans than wolves.

Many citizens are curious about the wolves and would like to know more about them. Unfortunately, the media do not always provide the public with complete and reliable information. The researchers explain why:

‘The media are attracted to the controversy, and the recovery of the wolves, the predations, the control programs and most other issues related to the wolves seem irresistible. Yellowstone wolf reintroduction was the subject of intense coverage by sixty international media. Popular information about wolves is usually partial or inaccurate white. When stories of wolves appear, the extreme opinions of the opponents and supporters of the wolves are often highlighted, even more polarizing the subject. The way in which the media cover the wolves gives the impression that they are a problem greater than other animals.

Because the wolves sometimes kill cattle and pets, cause the anger of the farmers and pet owners. However, one of the most distressing aspects of the recent debate on the restoration of the wolf has been the fixation of the media, almost exclusively, in this aspect of the interactions between humans and wolves. Therefore, the debate is biased, focuses mainly on the negative and ignores the many positive ways in which the wolves benefit humans.

This review summarizes some of the forms, both positive and negative, in which the wolves interact with humans. We hope you help people on all sides of the debate about the wolves to think more clearly on the subject. Our analysis is based on the best information currently available, but we emphasize that it is necessary to carry out more research on all the topics discussed. Science still has a lot to learn about the wolf.

DEPREDATION IN CASTOR

Every year, beavers cause millions of dollars in damage to human communities when building dams that flood roads, railways, houses and farmland.

B eover also damages and destroys valuable timber resources by flooding forests, surrounding trees, cutting trees and eating tree seedlings.

In addition, beavers cover the ditches and sewers with wood, forcing landowners or taxpayers to hire someone to clean the disorder and restore water flow.

Many large predators occasionally feed on beavers, however, only the wolf does it regularly and to the extent that it has the potential to control the number of beavers.

For example, a study in southeast Alaska found that 31% of wolf feces contained household remains. Significant frequencies of household remains were also found in wolf feces in Latvia, Minnesota, Belarus, Quebec and East Ontario, indicating that this eating habit is common and generalized.

It is not surprising that beavers are afraid of the wolves. The experiments show that the beavers avoid the paths of the forest where the smell of wolf has been placed, but continue to use paths where there is no smell of wolf. This fact can have some ecological meaning, such as the reduction of the felling of beavers on the paths used by the wolves. However, no one seems to have studied this issue.

In Quebec, an experiment was conducted to prove the effects of wolves on the towns of Castores. Two large areas were compared (each of 265-275 km 2), one where the number of wolves was reduced by 60% and the other where the wolves were protected.

In the area where the wolves were reduced, the number of beavers increased by 20%. However, two years after the reduction of wolves ended, the number of beavers decreased to their previous levels. An important management recommendation that arose from this study was that humans should not reduce the number of wolves when the density of beavers is high.

The wolves that feed on beavers provide a valuable economic service to human society. Of course, capture can also reduce or limit the number of beavers, but it is often not effective. This is because the capture is more necessary when there is abundance of beavers. However, at that time, the greatest number of beavers creates an excess of supply of skins, which makes Castor’s skins decrease and reduce the economic stimulus for capture.

Another reason why catching (and hunting) beavers often is not a realistic solution is that, to succeed, all owners of an area must participate. Speaking in practical terms, such cooperation is usually difficult to orchestrate because land owners are often not agreed on ethics or convenience of capture (and hunting).

Because the wolf is a wild animal, it does not need permission to hunt private property and can enter any land to catch beavers. He is hungry even when Castor’s skin prices are low.

Ungulate depredation

The wolves feed widely with ungulates (ugulated mammals). Examples of ungulates are deer, classes and wild boars. These predations reduce the number of ugulated or decrease their increase. Lobos are more able to reduce the number of ugulated during periods of adverse weather or in the company of other large carnivores.

The predation of wolves on wild ungulates is a valuable service for human communities for 3 reasons: wild ungulates cause many traffic accidents, wild ungulates feed and kill seedlings, which reduces the regeneration of economically valuable timber speciesAnd the anointed are bloods. Where there are many ungulates, the number of ticks and ticks in humans increase dramatically.

In Sweden, a country of the size of California but with only 9 million human inhabitants, the ungulates cause thousands of collisions every year with cars. Only in a year, the following number of such collisions in Sweden was reported:

Ungulados colliding with collisions cars

ALCE (ALCES ALces) 7.227

Corzo (Capreolus capreolus) 36,107

Red deer (Cervus elaphus) 246

GAMO (Lady Lady) 805

Jabalí (its scrouf) 2,445

Total 46,830

You can imagine how expensive it was for car owners and insurance companies repair all damaged cars in these 46,830 collisions. The worst accidents were those of Alces (Alces Alces), in which 5 people died and 42 were seriously injured (trafikverket statistics). Alcos collisions are especially dangerous because Long Legs of Alce raise most of their great body to the car windshield level.

The wolf is the main predator of the Ambs and is also widely feed on the other wild ungulates. While no study has still investigated how many car accidents are prevented by the predation of the wolves and how much money the wolf saves to the car owners, it seems reasonable to assume that the contribution of the wolf to the safety and the economy of traffic could be even moresignificant if their populations were completely restored.

LOBOS AND PUBLIC HEALTH

There is a growing evidence that some predators, such as wolves, can benefit public health by killing sick wild animals that transmit infectious diseases of wild animals to humans and domestic cattle. Until now, only preliminary studies have been carried out on this issue, however, they show intriguing results that must be followed with additional investigations to establish the cause and effect.

For example, tick -transmitted encephalitis (TBE) is a serious life -free -like disease. Every year, it destroys the quality of life of thousands of human beings in Europe and Asia. A recent study in Sweden found that an increase in the number of red foxes (Vulpes Vulpes) correlated with an increase in the number of human cases of TBE the following year.

Lobos cause a dramatic decrease in the number of foxes. They do it by killing foxes and driving them from the areas frequented by the wolves. In the Stockholm region of Sweden, where the wolves have been exterminated, then there have been great increases in the number of red foxes and in the cases of TBE in humans. Therefore, researchers wonder if the frequency of human TBE could be reduced by restoring the populations of wolves there to their previous abundances.

We can ask similar questions about other diseases such as anger. Medium -sized carnivores, such as wild dogs, red fox, gray fox (Urocyon cineroargenteus), Mapaches (procyon lotor) and mapache dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoids), are guests, reservoirs and important vectors of the rabies virus.

Since the wolves drastically reduce the number of these medium -sized carnivores in an area, one wonders if the wolves reduce the spread of rabies to humans, cattle and pets. One also wonders if the contribution of the wolf to public health could be even more improve.

Cattle depredation

Lobos sometimes kill cattle, which causes economic losses to farmers and ranchers. However, a studio in Minnesota found that even when cattle density was high and density density and classes was low, wolves mainly fed on native wildlife species.

The number of cattle that is said to have died at the hands of the wolves is often exaggerated. One reason is that government programs generally compensate for owners for cattle lost by the wolves, but do not pay money for the cattle killed by other predators such as coyotes, foxes, wild dogs and domestic dogs. Therefore, there is a strong economic incentive so that farmers and ranchers claim that their cattle were killed by Lobos, even when the wolves are innocent.

A typical example illustrates this problem. In Minnesota, a farmer reported that one of his cows had been killed by Lobos and demanded compensation from the State. The researchers from the State Natural Resources Department (DNR) examined the body and followed the fingerprints of the predator. They quickly discovered that the cow had been killed by a German pastor dog who lived on a neighboring farm (source of information: an employee of the DNR).

The new forensic DNA methods allow researchers to determine whether cattle have been attacked by dogs, wolves, dog-lobo hybrids or other predators. The first case that was investigated with these new methods was in Sweden. There, two sheep had been attacked and seriously injured by an unknown predator who believed he was a wolf. However, saliva DNA analysis around bite wounds showed that the predator was a dog that did not live on the same farm.

Another reason why the number of dead animals in the wolves is often exaggerated is that, until recently, there was no reliable method to distinguish the stool from the wolves of those of the dogs. Since the majority of studies on the eating habits of the wolves were based on the remains of dams found in the feces, and since many dog feces were mistakenly identified as wolf stool, the wolves of eating were blamedcattle that, in fact, was eaten by dogs.

Fortunately, the stool and wolves of similar appearance can now be distinguished by DNA analysis, allowing researchers to clearly document the differences in eating habits between dogs and wolves.

One of those studies in the Basque region of Spain, found that most of the wolves contained wild dams, while most dog feces contained the remains of domestic cattle. It is unknown how the cattle died the dogs. While dogs could have killed the cattle they ate, they could also have eaten winning that had died of illness. However, the results suggest once again that uncontrolled dogs can be responsible for many of the cattle attacks that are usually attributed to the wolves, creating negative public attitudes towards the conservation of the wolf and increasing their cost

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