Sunday, 9:00 AM. 8 degrees, wind W, calm to light. There are broad bands of ice forming across the channel, the sky is overcast and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies. For the first time in days, it is not snowing.
I have been thinking again about the probable role of wolves in the depletion of the northern Wisconsin deer herd, and have to note that even if the wolf population in the state was 1000, and if each wolf killed 15 deer annually, it would only be 15,000 deer, a small percentage of even the diminished deer herd.
I also reread yet again Aldo Leopold’s short but elegant essay on wolves, Thinking Like A Mountain, probably the briefest (three pages), most logical and most poetic ecological treatise ever written. He explains the role of the wolf pack in maintaining the health of the deer herd, the ecological damage done by an overpopulation of deer, and the esthetics of wolves. Although we should be objective about wolves, and not anthropomorphic, they probably are not an overwhelming factor in the numbers of deer, and overall are beneficial to the deer herd and the health of the ecosystem. And who would not thrill to the cry of the wolf on some moonlit wilderness night?
My favorite book regarding wolves is Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. He is a Canadian author of immense talent who is one of my favorite writers, and a major figure in wolf ecology. Never Cry Wolf is insightful, poignant, and wildly funny. He comes to the same conclusions as Leopold. I highly recommend it and his other books as well.
I've read all those books and more.
ReplyDeleteThe reason there is cronic wasting diease in
Southern Wisconsin is because there are no wolves. Nothing to cull the herd of the sick and old. There is a reason for the wolf in the ecosystem. There is a reason for everything.
TO BAYFIELDWIS.COM: GLAD WE ARE ON THE SAME PAGE(S).But,can you imagine timber wolves in the backyards and parks of Madison, Milwaukee, Waukesha and etc.? I don't think that's gonna happen.
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