WCS says wolves are good for pronghorn sheep

[Emily]

Wildlife Conservation Society researcher says that delisting wolves (and removing many) would be bad for pronghorn sheep. The WCS is the super-organization that grew out of the Bronx Zoo in NYC and now sponsors wildlife research projects worldwide. (Its also gobbled up all the zoos in other NY boroughs, plus the Coney Island Aquarium)

http://www.wcs.org/353624/wcs_bigbadwolf

Unafraid of the Big, Bad Wolf

©M.DaRocha

The big, bad wolf could use a few friends. If western states remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act—a decision currently under debate—consequences could be grave. Wyoming and Idaho announced they would reduce their populations of approximately 300 and 700 wolves, respectively, by 50 percent and 80 percent.

Amidst the debate, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) researcher Dr. Kim Berger is speaking out on behalf of an unsuspecting wolf ally: the pronghorn antelope, North America’s fastest land animal. In a study published in the latest issue of the journal Ecology, Berger says that healthy wolf packs keep coyote numbers in check. Since coyotes—but not wolves—can prey heavily on pronghorn fawns, the fawns have higher survival rates when wolves share their ecosystem.

“People tend to think that more wolves always mean fewer prey,” says Berger. “But in this case, wolves are so much bigger than coyotes that it doesn’t make sense for them to waste time searching for pronghorn fawns. It would be like trying to feed an entire family on a single Big Mac.”

Over a three-year period, researchers radio-collared more than 100 pronghorn fawns in areas with no wolves and areas with large wolf populations in Grand Teton National Park, part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. As they monitored the fawns’ survival throughout the summer, the researchers found that only 10 percent of the young antelope survived in areas that lacked wolves but had higher densities of coyotes. In areas where wolves were abundant, 34 percent of the fawns survived. Wolves reduce coyote numbers by killing them outright and by causing them to relocate out of the Park’s wolf territories.

While pronghorn are not endangered, the population that summers in Grand Teton National Park had been reduced to fewer than 200 animals in recent years. Since wolves were reintroduced in 1995, the Grand Teton pronghorn have increased by approximately 50 percent. These pronghorn migrate more than 200 miles roundtrip, farther than any land mammal in the lower 48 states. WCS has called for permanent protection of their migration corridor, known as Path of the Pronghorn, to prevent the animals from going extinct in the Park. Representatives from the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service recently pledged support for protecting the corridor.

“This study shows just how complex relationships between predators and their prey can be,” said Berger. “It’s an important reminder that we often don’t understand ecosystems nearly as well as we think we do, and that our efforts to manipulate them can have unexpected consequences.”

[horshur]

Don't believe it....they spend a great deal of there spare time eating mule deer fawns here in BC...fact is they will camp in a fairly small area and kill every night primarily on fawns......They will show no mercy when alternative game is scarce.

[BULLDOGGER]

the only thing that is hard on the antelope around here is bad winters and we have a ton of the fence breaking s.o.b. The eagles kill way more of them then the coyotes do.

[Cold Track]

They'll write anything to justify the wolf's presence, and even if that was true they fail totally to mention about how hard wolves are on moose,elk,deer, buffalo, and bighorn sheep. They don't mention how the elk numbers on the feed grounds have went way down as the wolf population has gone up, they fail to mention how they 've hurt the sheep populations in some areas, they fail to mention how they moose population in the park has rapidly decreased! But hell I'd keep em around, everyone goes to Yellowstone to see the thriving population of antelope! What a joke.

[cecil j.]

Wildlife Conservation Society researcher says that delisting wolves (and removing many) would be bad for pronghorn sheep. The WCS is the super-organization that grew out of the Bronx Zoo in NYC and now sponsors wildlife research projects worldwide. (Its also gobbled up all the zoos in other NY boroughs, plus the Coney Island Aquarium)

http://www.wcs.org/353624/wcs_bigbadwolf

Unafraid of the Big, Bad Wolf

©M.DaRocha

The big, bad wolf could use a few friends. If western states remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act—a decision currently under debate—consequences could be grave. Wyoming and Idaho announced they would reduce their populations of approximately 300 and 700 wolves, respectively, by 50 percent and 80 percent.

Amidst the debate, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) researcher Dr. Kim Berger is speaking out on behalf of an unsuspecting wolf ally: the pronghorn antelope, North America’s fastest land animal. In a study published in the latest issue of the journal Ecology, Berger says that healthy wolf packs keep coyote numbers in check. Since coyotes—but not wolves—can prey heavily on pronghorn fawns, the fawns have higher survival rates when wolves share their ecosystem.

“People tend to think that more wolves always mean fewer prey,” says Berger. “But in this case, wolves are so much bigger than coyotes that it doesn’t make sense for them to waste time searching for pronghorn fawns. It would be like trying to feed an entire family on a single Big Mac.”

Over a three-year period, researchers radio-collared more than 100 pronghorn fawns in areas with no wolves and areas with large wolf populations in Grand Teton National Park, part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. As they monitored the fawns’ survival throughout the summer, the researchers found that only 10 percent of the young antelope survived in areas that lacked wolves but had higher densities of coyotes. In areas where wolves were abundant, 34 percent of the fawns survived. Wolves reduce coyote numbers by killing them outright and by causing them to relocate out of the Park’s wolf territories.

While pronghorn are not endangered, the population that summers in Grand Teton National Park had been reduced to fewer than 200 animals in recent years. Since wolves were reintroduced in 1995, the Grand Teton pronghorn have increased by approximately 50 percent. These pronghorn migrate more than 200 miles roundtrip, farther than any land mammal in the lower 48 states. WCS has called for permanent protection of their migration corridor, known as Path of the Pronghorn, to prevent the animals from going extinct in the Park. Representatives from the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service recently pledged support for protecting the corridor.

“This study shows just how complex relationships between predators and their prey can be,” said Berger. “It’s an important reminder that we often don’t understand ecosystems nearly as well as we think we do, and that our efforts to manipulate them can have unexpected consequences.”

the best wolf is a dead wolf this side of alaska /this side of siberra

jack