Human indecency – predator culling
Several environmental justice leaning sites recently published updates about Alaska state government’s predator culling program. For ease of discussion, Grist’s article is easily accessible, and I think is a ‘should read’ around human / nature morality and ethics. The magnitude of the killing is alarming even beyond the questionable morality of the actions themselves.
While last year’s bear killings were particularly egregious, similar cullings have gone largely unnoticed. State data shows over 1,000 wolves and 3,500 brown and black bears have been killed since 2008 alone.
Grist
The gist is that for a myriad of reasons, climate change being predominate, prey animals like caribou are declining in Alaska. Birth rates are down, herd sizes are down, and for political expediency predators are blamed – specifically brown bears and wolves.
With conditions rapidly changing as the planet warms, wildlife managers nationwide are facing similar biodiversity crises. Rather than do the difficult work of mitigating rising temperatures, state agencies across the country are finding it easier to blame these declines on predation.
“We don’t want to talk about how the tundra is changing, because that’s something we can’t fix,” says Christi Heun, a former research biologist at Alaska Fish and Game.
Grist
Herein is the core of my issue, which is two-fold.
First, why do humans seems to always take the easiest path to hide symptoms rather than solve the root problem? It’s not just Alaska that follows this path.
In Wyoming, where a deadly winter decimated pronghorn and mule deer, the state spent a record $4.2 million killing coyotes and other predators and is considering expanding bear and mountain lion hunts. Wildlife officials in Washington are contemplating killing sea lions and seals to save faltering salmon populations from extinction. In Minnesota, hunters are inaccurately blaming wolves for low deer numbers and calling for authorities to reduce their population. Culls like these are appealing because they are tangible actions — even when evidence suggests the true threat is much more complex. “You’re putting a Band-Aid on the wrong elbow,” says Heun, who now works for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife.
Grist
Second, how can humans treat other residents of their state so inhumanly? For centuries (millennia?), humans have killed competitor predators for reasons sometimes ethical, but most unethical and immoral. Beyond the purposeless taking of life, the manner in which this killing is done is just beyond my comprehension – how can humans be so cruel, immoral and indecent.
As the crew flew, it watched for the humped shape of brown bears lumbering across the hummocks. When someone spotted one, skinny from its hibernation, the crew called in the location to waiting helicopters carrying shooters armed with 12-gauge shotguns.
Over the course of 17 days, the team killed 94 brown bears — including several year-old cubs, who stuck close to their mothers, and 11 newer cubs that were still nursing — five black bears and five wolves. That was nearly four times the number of animals the agency planned to cull. Fish and Game says this reduced the area’s bear population by 74 percent, though no baseline studies to determine their numbers were conducted in the area.
Grist
Beyond the morality and ethics of these political decisions, they also seem to go against the science for political outcomes. Decisions supporting this level of culling are not being made by scientist, but politicians without knowledge or morals.
When Demma tried to analyze the existing wolf control program, he found he didn’t have the data he needed to see if removing the canines helped calves survive. In fact, from 2010 to 2021, when Fish and Game was actively shooting wolves, fewer caribou survived. So the researchers turned their attention to other challenges the herd might be facing.
His colleague, Renae Sattler, explained that preliminary datafrom a three-year study suggested there could be a problem with forage quality or quantity, especially in the summer. This could lower pregnancy rates or increase disease and calf mortality. In the 1990s, the herd had swelled as part of a natural boom-and-bust cycle, leading to overgrazing. The slow-growing lichen the animals rely on takes 20 to 50 years to recover. Compounding that, climate change is altering the tundra ecosystem the animals rely upon. She also found that today, 37 percent of the sampled animals had, or were recently exposed to, brucellosis, which can cause abortions, stillbirths, and injuries. Biologists consider such high levels of disease an outbreak and cause for concern.
Grist
Is this the best we humans can be? I find it indecent, immoral and highly unethical – an environmental justice issue.
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Featured image from Grist