From: CBARNES@tamvm1.tamu.edu (Chris Barnes)
Newsgroups: rec.hunting
Subject: Re: Wilderness and Wolves
Date: 8 Jan 93 17:42:29 GMT
Organization: Texas A&M University
Originator: hunting@osnome.che.wisc.edu

In article <1993Jan5.102459.939@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
   motto@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto) writes:
 
>I've been reading the (uncharacteristically emotional for this group)
>discussion about wolves and just have a brief comment.
>
>*Let's not let our affections for our canine companions affect our judgement
>in dealing with wolves as a conservation and wildlife management issue.
>If we open ourselves up to using emotions to make decisions, we are in
>a weak position when confronted by animal rights activists.  They exploit
>this to their advantage and to our detriment.*
 
 
Very well said.  And it's a point that I'll bring up again in just
a moment.....
 
 
>Now, on the subject of "wilderness".  There is no real wilderness anymore.
>Wilderness has no boundaries.  What we have are "wilderness preserves"
>where we can pretend that there is a wilderness, but it will be affected
>by everything outside of it anyway.  The polution of the sky and the
>acid rain and the diseases carried in by animals and people and polution
>of the waters all make the "boundaries" meaningless.  There are no true
>wildernesses anymore.  There is no place on earth that we have not affected.
>We must view the "wilderness" areas as part of a larger management scheme
>and view them in the harse light of reality.  They are not isolated;  they
>are not apart.  They are integrated into the environment and need to be
>managed because of it.  We have got to stop pretending that it is otherwise.
 
Again, very well said.  And it makes a tremendous amount of common
sense.
 
 
>In August of 1973, I heard a talk given by a member of the Forest Service about
>a plan to handle the "pine beetle problem" in the Yellowstone and
>Grand Teton National Parks by letting lightning strike fires burn out
>naturally.  In May of 1974, I wrote a paper which refuted the arguments
>for letting fires burn, based mostly on the fact that the parks could be
>extensively damaged and the fact that the intense use of the areas made
>them unsuitable for the proposed "natural" management plan.  Sadly, the
>devastation of Yellowstone's forest land was the result of this misguided
>plan, and my warnings, and those of countless others concerned with
>conservation could not avert the tragedy.
 
But now we disagree.  It appears to me that you are guilty of the very
thing you had previously warned us about (letting our emotions get in
the way of what makes scientific sense).  The fact is that Yellowstone
was NOT devastated (follow me here for just a moment).  Sure, for 1 year
the area was not suitable for the purposes that people had become
accustomed to.  But in the long range, allowing the fires to burn did
far more to benefit the area than putting them out would have done
(actually, 1 year later isn't really long run, but that's how long it
took for the area to recover).  New growth forests are extremely import-
ant to areas like Yellowstone.  Therefore, IMHO, it would have been a
tragedy to have put them out.
 
 
>The point is, these parks and preserves are not truly wilderness.  Our
>concepts of them as wilderness do the land and the animal inhabitants
>a disservice.  We've got to stop pretending and face the facts that we
>have to take responsibility for managing these lands for what they are;
>parks.  They are people-created areas with people-defined boundaries
>-- boundaries which are not recognized by nature.  They may be as close
>as we can come to a real wilderness, but they do have unique non-wilderness
>characteristics which must be accepted and managed.
 
It sounds like you are aruging that all areas should be managed such
that people get the most USE from them.  I would argue that they
should be managed such that people get the most BENIFIT from them.  Do
you see the distinction?  With BENIFIT, one could argue (and I would)
that people would get more BENIFIT from having places that are treated
as "wilderness" (even though they are in fact influanced by factors
outside of that wilderness area).  That means people get more benefit
by simply having something besides human usage as the most important
determinant in managing an area such as
bears/wolves/name-your-favorite-non-popular-preditor or having the
best bio-diversity possible (such as is provided by periodic fires).
 
      -----------------------------------------------------
Chris Barnes            |   President - Bryan/College Station
cbarnes@tamvm1.tamu.edu |         Retriever Club.
(409) 846-3273 (home)   |   "Dedicated to the betterment of
(409) 845-4437 (work)   |               the retrieving breeds"