Pretty cool discovery in Yellowstone, How Wolves Change Rivers.

The finding after re-introducing fourteen Wolves back in to the park after a long period of time when there were none!

 

Oh, it's that clip again.

Constantly being used by clueless wolf lovers in my country as a justification to reintroduce wolves, even though we're having quite the opposite challenges of what Yellowstone faced.

 

Wolves’ Returning to Oregon Brings Conflict, Opportunity...

Wolves’ Return to Oregon Brings Conflict, Opportunity
November 23, 2017 — Wolves were once so plentiful in the abundant forests that would become Oregon that the earliest settlers gathered from far and wide to discuss how to kill them. Those "wolf meetings"in the 1840s, spawned by a common interest, eventually led to the formation of the Oregon territory, the precursor for statehood in 1859.

 

What is the opposite challenge exactly?

 

Too much wild vegetation, as opposed to overgrazing.

And then the urbanites thought it would be a good idea to introduce wolves, because they want to see wolves when they're out and about, walking in areas that are accessible to the public because of domesticated animals grazing in those areas.

Well, the farmers in those areas where the wolves are introduced, go out of business, and species reliant on the cultural landscape goes extinct too.

But at least there are wolves there now, not that people will ever see them, as the areas turns into really bad hiking areas.

 

Too much vegetation? Where exactly are you? Wolves are at the top of the food chain and they maintain a healthy balance in the ecosystem. Ranchers are reimbursed for wolf predation do your allegations that they go out of business is false.

 

I'm struggling to understand why this is a problem Otern. Is it really having a big effect on grazing for farm animals in Norway?
Wild vegetation supports far more diverse wildlife than monoculture grasslands and is arguably better for the longterm soil conditions than mass grazing. Birds, insects and small mammals rely on the diversity in plantlife and ground cover created by it. I know you are an environmentalist and I know you come from a farming background. Can you expand on this for me so I can have a better understanding of why you are so opposed to the protection of wolves.
I get your anti-urbanite stance but I hope you know better than to lump me in with that crowd.

 

But it's not monoculture grasslands in Norway. The cultural landscape is an entire other sort of ecology, than whatever is in countries where industrialized farming is the norm, which is why it's so hard for people outside of Norway, and in many cases, the urbanites in Norway to understand this.

Here, there are insects, birds and small mammals dependent on the cultural landscape. Which is only preserved through smaller farms, and grazing animals. Those small farmers are the ones going out of business, when the "wolf zone" is expanded, since they can't operate their farms in the same manner anymore. Of course huge factory farms, dependent on soy imports from Brazil can still thrive, but that's the factory farming methods with monoculture and all that.

A lot of the nature people think of as "wild" is not truly wild. It's also not monoculture. This is a concept that is very hard to actually explain to people, since most people tend to look at farmed fields and think "oh this is human made" and then look at some wooden areas, and think "and this is the wild", while the wooden areas in fact are just as influenced by humans as the farmed fields. But since it LOOKS like wild nature, it is perceived as wild nature, to the untrained eye.

Basically, we're introducing wolves to this country, thinking it will expand biodiversity, but in fact, we're losing biodiversity, by dismantling the cultural landscape, with all its species, and creating a system where only the large industrial farms will survive. In Europe now, it's pretty much only Norway and Switzerland that are maintaining a cultural landscape. Germany dismantled theirs a long time ago, and have experienced an absolute insane loss in biodiversity. But people won't notice it, since it's primarily insects and less photogenic species than wolves.

There's plenty of truly wild nature all over Europe, particularly in Russia, where the wolves do have their place, and they won't destroy biodiversity. But Norway is pretty much the worst place to introduce wolves, especially from an environmental standpoint.

Wrong. In the "wolf zone" in Norway. The farmers have been forced to stop. They're not getting reimbursed fully for their losses. And in other areas, where the farmers are supposed to be prioritized, new regulations have made it really hard to get paid for losses, as the burden of proof makes it hard for farmer to get paid if they can't find the cadavers, or even if they can find the cadavers, but can't prove beyond a doubt that wolves took it. Farmers aren't reimbursed enough for their losses. I'm not a farmer, so I have no stake in this game, but I know how the system works, and it's really set up against the farmers.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not saying wolves can't have positive impacts anywhere. But I am saying they can't have a positive impact everywhere. Norway is one of those areas where introducing wolves will have a negative environmental impact, and a negative socio-economical impact.

I get that the "environmentalists" have good intentions and all. But they simply don't understand enough about farming, or nature to make good decisions in this case.

 

Are there no dog breeds like the Spanish Mastiff which can be used to protect the livestock from wolves?

Norway had large wolf populations in the past I'm assuming, what did they do then?

 

Its funny. All the animal huggers like to claim that wolves only kill the sick and weak and only for food, yet all the actual outdoorsy folks from places with lotsa wolves hate them and will cite inumerous instances of wolves 'thrill-killing' anything they can corner.

They're just big coyotes.

I wont deny that wolves have a right to exist as one of Gods creations. They serve a purpose. But that purpose is not near people.

 

I'm pretty sure I've told you before how this is not a viable solution.

Anyone can walk anywhere in Norway, due to "allemannsretten". Having large, extremely protective dogs running loose around would be a menace not only to wolves, but to people too.

In the past, we killed them, whenever we saw them. Also, in the past, a family could arm a kid, and tell him to watch over a flock for an entire summer. Now, they need to go to school, or get paid, so it's not a solution anymore. A sheep herder could at maximum watch over 100 sheep, and you'd need to hire six of them working in shifts to abide by worker's regulations. Keep in mind, the average farmer in Norway makes minimum wage already, so he can't really afford to hire sheep herders, especially not six of them, when all six has to get paid more than the farmer himself.

 

I don't think we have discussed Mastiffs before. Maybe that was someone else.
I can see that they might be a danger to other dogs but properly trained they are no danger to humans. Not a perfect solution I'm sure but it worked well enough in the Spanish mountains. There has to come a point where farmers stop exterminating preditory animals or they will just cease to exist. Maybe wolves in Scandinavia is not where the line is drawn, I don't know the consequences as well as you do obviously but I see a version of it over here where badgers are being exterminated to stop TB spreading from farm to farm.
Too much feelz I'm sure but it would be nice to leave some space somewhere for Europes wild animals.

 

I'm not entirely sure how those mastiffs work in the Spanish mountains. Are they up there alone with the sheep? Or are they accompanied by a dog handler at all times? Either way, it wouldn't work in Norway. Too large distances between too small flocks of sheep for the mastiffs to cover them, and too high wages to have any person up there handling dogs or shepherding sheep.

Also, we're not going to the point where we're exterminating all predators. I'm fine with lynx, wolverines, eagles and bears here. Because while they can be a problem, they're a manageable problem. Wolves increase by 30% every year, if they're left to their own devices, and they're notoriously hard to hunt, while at the same time killing way more than they eat. The lynx also kill more than it eats, but they have nowhere near the same reproduction rate. The wolverine also kills more than it eats, and they're hard to hunt, but they're not reproducing as fast, or traveling as far as wolves.

It's possible to have those four predators here, because it's actually possible to reimburse the farmers. That's not possible with wolves, because the losses are simply too damn high. They'll put one farmer out of business over night.


Wolves will not go extinct. Humanity has tried exterminating them since we evolved into humans. And we haven't managed it yet. And there's plenty of land in Russia and Canada, not populated by humans, where wolves can roam free without causing trouble to humans. No reason to introduce them to populated areas, as they're not having a beneficial effect on the environment at all there.

 

No, they aren't alone with the sheep. They need the shepherd with them.
Any chance of turning Norway vegetarian so you won't need to farm sheep anymore
If not I'm out of ideas.

 

Didn't know you were in Norway. In the US ranchers are reimbursed for wolf kills. Also in the US we have a lot more open land that can support wolf populations at least out here in the west that is. In Norway I can see how trying to reintroduce wolves into a heavily populated and industrialized area is like putting a square peg in a round hole. The era of wolves is over where you live and will be until some plague or war or whatever wipes out civilization. Someday I imagine where I live will look like Europe too with no room for wolves but I'll be dead by then thank God.

 

There's wolves where I live and I don't hate them. In fact on the rare occasion we hear them howling you will find my wife and I out on the porch in perfect silence. It's really something to hear in these modern times and something the vast majority of people will never hear.

 

Well, if they need a shepherd, the shepherd needs to get paid. 24/7 coverage of a single sheep flock would require six full time employed shepherds for the time the sheep are outside. Considering the average sheep farmer makes minimum wage himself, it's not viable at all. The cost of keeping sheep would simply skyrocket.

Turning Norway vegetarian wouldn't help either. Then we would be more dependent on imports. Sheep is probably the most environmentally friendly food you can eat in Norway, since they're not dependent on foreign grain imports, but graze wherever there's no possibility to grow any crops, which is most of Norway.

The farmers are SUPPOSED to be reimbursed here too, but they're not getting paid fully for their losses, for various reasons;

A common misconception about loss reimbursement here in Norway, is that it is the farmers themselves that decides if they're getting reimbursed, or decides if sheep were taken by predators or not. That's simply not true, and it never has been. The loss calculation is done by the municipality, and the farmers have no say in this matter. All they can do, is report losses to the municipality, and then THEY are the ones doing the investigation. And they used to be able to do this, not perfect, but at least manageable. They would look at the losses, and compare it with natural losses, like disease, or accidents, and if the losses were higher than what would be considered normal, and predator activity in the area implied it was predators responsible for it, the farmer would be reimbursed. Not fully reimbursed, but enough to not go out of business.

Then the rules changed. The municipality no longer could reimburse the farmer for probable, or extremely likely predator losses. But each and every sheep killed, would need to be found, and proven taken by a protected predator. So, let's say a farmer has 200 sheep, and would expect 5 or so to die from disease or accidents during a season. He loses 100 of them, and the municipality do their investigation, they find 20 dead sheep, ten of which they can accurately prove have been taken by a predator. The farmer will only get paid for the ten, even though common sense, statistical analysis, and the wildlife management says it's pretty much for sure at least 90 of the others are also taken by predators.

The wolves are not put into a heavily industrialized area. That would actually be less damaging than what's happening now. They're being introduced to a cultural landscape that is not suited for wolves. Norway is pretty different from most other western nations in its rural communities. The most similar country would be Switzerland. We have no huge unpopulated areas, even though we have a small population density. We're just spread out all over the country. No truly large cities, but thousands of small communities.

 

You'll be 100% renewable within a decade, you can sell all that lovely crude to buy imported crops and let whale meat pick up the slack in terms of protein. Unless you've got a problem with globalism or international trade as it used to be called.

 

We are already 100% renewable. Lots of elevated water here.

Relying on food imports is a stupid idea for most countries. Especially when you have the opportunity to make your own food. Relying on foreign food imports more than we already do, would just put further pressure on Brazillian rain forests, and increase the pressure on the black soil in countries like Ukraine, USA and Brazil. And it would mean more industrialized farming and monocultures.

The world is getting more and more people, and we're losing more and more farmland. Stopping food production because wolves are cool, and they ARE cool, is incredibly stupid.

 

Not until your transport is all electric you're not.
I was just pulling your leg on the food imports by the way.
If what you say is true (I'm sure it is) you must already import a lot of food though. Man cannot live on lamb alone.

 

In ''collapse'' Jared Diamond suggested that Australia stopped trying to produce it's own food because the soil degradation and salination was so bad it was unsustainable. They have enough mineral wealth to do it but the culture of western agriculture is so strong in them they would never do it.

 

We do, and we do not at the same time;

We import an absolute shitload of grain to supply our farmed salmon industry. (Which btw is the least environmentally friendly food you can eat here, it's also a really important export).

But for the actual food consumed by people, almost all of it is produced in Norway. Of course, some of it is also somewhat reliant on foreign food exports for feeding the animals, particularly feeding chickens.

Electric cars are good and all, but they're not the best for driving large distances in the cold. Also, electric cars need to get energy from somewhere. Electric cars fueled by coal power plants is not exactly good for the environment.

 

You still have coal powered electricity generation?
You can use electric trains for large distances. I know you have a good rail network, I looked it up.

 

No coal power plants no.. We do have electric trains, the rail network is indeed good. But gasoline and diesel powered cars still have their place, and will continue to do so.

The thing about sensible environmental policies, is that they're complex. There is no end all solution to anything. We could do with eating less meat, or driving less gasoline cars, but 100% replacing whatever is "bad" will in most cases be just as bad.

Germany is a good example. Stopping nuclear power, and shifting cars to electric. Sounds good, but now their electric grid is more dependent on coal power plants, which pollute more than regular cars, and actually release more radiation than a nuclear power plant.