From: rigg@osnome.che.wisc.edu (Tim Rigg)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Self Regulating Populations
Date: 24 Aug 92 02:58:38 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chemical Engineering
In-reply-to: russ@wpg.com's message of 22 Aug 92 20:12:57 GMT

In article <BtEItn.D4z@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:

   Russell Lawrence writes:
   rl> Is this the only logical conclusion?  Of course not.  Here are 
   rl> four more possibilities that quickly come to mind: 
   rl> 
   rl> 1) A fence would be too expensive to erect and maintain;

   From article <RIGG.92Aug22122824@osnome.che.wisc.edu>, by rigg@osnome.che.wisc.edu (Tim Rigg):
   tr> Many hunting resorts have fences enclosing thousands of acres.  It
   tr> seems AR folks are asking folks to pay a very high price that they are
   tr> unwilling to pay themselves.

   You're not thinking clearly, Tim.  The fact that one particular 
   group can afford fences whereas another particular group cannot 
   afford fences says nothing about the respective committments of 
   hunters as opposed to AR advocates.  To illustrate, let's suppose 
   that a well-endowed AR organisation had erected such a fence 
   whereas a poorly-endowed hunting "resort" had failed to do so.  
   Would this lead you to conclude that AR activists are more willing 
   to pay the cost of wildlife management than hunter groups?  
   Probably not.  

My comment about hunting resorts installing fences was to illustrate
that large scale fencing is quite possible.  I assume that the LACS is
adamantly against culling.  If a fence was a viable alternative, I
also assume they would have installed it.  They had enough money to
buy the land and made a big deal about letting the animals take care
of themselves.  If the animals could have done so, it seems reasonable
to assume the LACS would have facilitiated them.

   rl> 2) A fence would be affordable, but not magically effective in
   rl>    reducing overpopulation already caused by encroachments of
   rl>    the deer on the surrounding terrain;

   tr> But you have claimed such magical effectiveness.  If the area is large
   tr> enough (which it seems to be based on posted desciptions), your
   tr> self-regulating idea should work "magically".

   The fact that adipose tissue turns androgen into estrogen, thereby
   regulating fertility, isn't magic.  Please take the time to read
   the article I cited previously.  Frisch, Rose. "Fatness and Fertility",
   _Scientific American_, March, 1988.

Please take the time to read my words.  If the addition of artificial
feeding on crops is the only thing standing in the way of the
fat-fertility mechanism you describe, then a fence would have been
effective.  The introduction of the term magically was your doing.  I
just repeated it since you seemed to be questioning it yourself.

   rl> 3) The LACS is unaware of the research showing that fertility
   rl>    is controlled by fat tissue.

   tr> Perhaps they have not read the specific articles you have but most AR
   tr> folks think animals are not effected by unnatural environments such as
   tr> those without predators.  They tried to let them control their own
   tr> numbers and it did not work.

   As I explained previously, the natural regulatory mechanism isn't 
   going to work in unstable environments.  As long as the deer in a 
   given preserve are provided with handouts or allowed to dine on 
   neighboring corn crops, they'll remain both fat and fertile.  The 
   fact that such deer would starve to death when the handouts and 
   corn crops are no longer available would _not_ lead a critical 
   thinker to conclude that the natural regulatory mechanisms don't 
   work.  

Why do you keep mentioning handouts?  It was clearly stated that no
such handouts are given.   Such a conlclusive statement would lead a
critical reader to rethink his arguments.

   rl> 4) The LACS is aware of the relationship between fertility and
   rl>    fat, and the relationship between food and fat, but still 
   rl>    believe that it's somehow wrong to arrange things so that
   rl>    deer end up on subsistence diets.  [Note that many humans make
   rl>    no distinction between hunger and starvation]

   tr> Perhaps they realized that some predation was quite natural.

   There's a difference between beliefs and truths, Tim.  The
   fact that predation may be "natural" for wolves doesn't mean that
   predation is "natural" for weapons-bearing humans.

   In any case, I think you'll have a hard time proving that starvation
   is inevitable in the absence of predation.

Numerous example have shown that a sickly diseased herd is the result.
I'll find a few examples.

   rl> Please read the article I cited previously if you wish to continue
   rl> the discussion:  Frisch, Rose.  "Fatness and Fertility. _Scientific
   rl> American, March, 1988.  It's written in a clear lucid prose and
   rl> well documented.  

   tr> It seems quite reasonable that reduced food will decrease fertility.
   tr> Our disagreement is whether such a decrease would be enough to balance
   tr> the population.  There are numerous example where deer have destroyed
   tr> small islands and were ravaged by disease when there was no natural
   tr> predation.  If they were able to self-regulate, such situations would
   tr> not happen.  To answer your coming question, I will look for
   tr> documentation of such situations.

   Uh, huh.  Are you referring to "islands" in the Everglades, by 
   any chance?   Please present your evidence.

I have not heard anything about the Everglades.  I have read about
islands off the South Carolina coast and others.  I'll find
documention.

   Incidently, I would readily agree that natural predators reduce disease
   by killing and consuming infected animals.   As Gerald Hough has pointed
   out on several occasions, wolves have an uncanny ability to 
   recognize illness in animals that would appear to be completely 
   fit to human eyes.  It seems rather obvious that the actions of 
   wolves in killing such animals may be good, not only for the 
   healthy members of the herd, but for the infected animals as well.  
   Unfortunately, human hunters are less selective.  

What is the effect of situations without predators to remove the sick
animals and to keep the population below stressful levels where such
diseases can flourish?

tim
--
    ...  Then they came for me,
	   and by that time there was no one
	     left to speak up for me. (Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945)