It’s not easy being a wolf in northern Minnesota.
Every year dozens of the animals die of starvation, disease, parasites, vehicle traffic and poaching.
But the No. 1 killer of Minnesota wolves may come as a surprise: agents of the federal government, acting with the full force of the law.
Here’s an idea: instead of using shitton of cash to murder wolves, use a shitton of cash to pay for fencing that keeps wolves out. Like, if the government is really using millions of dollars to kill wolves, surely they could use that money to build fences instead, right? I’d be okay with that. They’re gonna be spending the money anyway, and farmers/ranchers don’t tend to have a whole lot of money unless they’re corporate, so expecting them to use their own money probably isn’t a great solution. Give them fencing instead.
Widespread fencing is very detrimental to ecosystems, it could have an even more severe effect on local wildlife than just culling the wolf population. Along these same lines, this is why many eco-orgs support deer hunting (when regulated properly by state organizations); deer season is a stand-in for the natural predators that deer used to have to contend with and allows the deer population to exist without wreaking havoc on other areas of the same ecosystem that supports them.
Here’s an idea: instead of using shitton of cash to murder wolves, use a shitton of cash to pay for fencing that keeps wolves out.
The agency documents and verifies those complaints, and looks for non-lethal ways to protect threatened livestock, like wolf-proof fencing.
I’m not defending killing wolves, but it was right there in the article.
Expecting the government to do something forward thinking? Especially the one funding the meat industry? Not gonna happen lmao
Yeah, but if you put “we build anti-wolf fences for you” on the meat industry’s plate, they’d probably say, “oooo, government handouts, gimme gimme gimme”.
Spoken like a bunch of people who have no idea how detrimental fences and other barriers can be to local ecosystems.
They literally have done the thing you are suggesting, and there is an example linked in the article.
I’m pretty sure that the scale of these ranches would make for an astronomically expensive fence. And it would have to be well maintained, because any little opening will be found and exploited by the animals.
Surely there’s some other solution…
How about, like, a shit-ton of dogs trained to protect the cows from the wolves?
Sounds more feasible to me than a fence, though I don’t know much about how wolves and dogs interact. Can/will wolves kill dogs?
I’ve known dogs that treat fences like a minor inconvenience and they’re well fed!
I don’t know that the mass killing is the perfect solution but I don’t have any ideas and I know fences aren’t it.
Feed any wealthy 🤑 rich CEO , banksters ETC that’s done corruption on mass scale… Feed them to the wolves
I think 🤔 the solution is ALWAYS to subsidize/ have a safety net for small “mom n pop” businesses. Not gov bailing out Evil Banksters… Help the poor class , help the middle class and everything should be “ok” . Helping wealthy 🤑 ruling class ONLY ; ruined/ruins this country.
And yet, lately, helping the corpos is all we seem to be doing
We should stop subsidising the ranchers
Oh hey I’ve seen this story before!
It fucked up a LOT of shit…
There are about 2.2 million cows in the state, according to USDA data. The five or six dozen documented and verified wolf kills in a given year amount to a few thousandths of 1 percent of the total population.
But the USDA’s actions in response inflict a steep toll upon Minnesota’s wolves. The 142 kills amount to fully 5% of the state’s estimated wolf population.
Those are quite the statistics.
Rather have the wolves than the ranchers. Grow some damn potatoes, you fuckers.
Fuck ranchers completely and forever. Destroying our environment so that we can continue to slaughter animals pointlessly.
poor wolves, always in friction with humans, unless they turn into forever puppies
