As far as I understand it, Idaho's Sage-Grouse has recently been put on the endangered species list due to a variety of factors (including mining, power development, and hunting--as well as ravens' predation). Idaho's plan to help preserve their numbers is to kill 4000 ravens. There's more to the story and can be read on the link provided. There is also a petition against this act on the link provided.
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
I'm so far against this for so many reasons. If we have a hand in this endangerment, lets solve our end, instead of committing a nature genocide.White and Red 'till I'm cold and dead.
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
...wow, just.... We..... I..... Really?
this just seems like the stupidest way to solve a problem.... Something is dying, let's kill something else.... Ok....
what kind of line of thought is that?http://catcrowsnow.blogspot.com/
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
The logic behind these kinds of things is flawed IMHO.
There have been similar plans here in Australia - but the situation was that there were hundreds of Corellas (cockatoos) shot because they basically "congregated in large colonies and pooped on people's lawns and cars and were otherwise noisy".Comment
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
I think we need more details. Sometimes when populations get wayyyy too out of hand, there isn't much other choice. Sometimes it gets bad enough that the alternatives don't work. I used to go to university at a school with a huge rabbit problem. I think the deal was that 20 years ago, students had rabbits and let them go and they bred like, well, rabbits. By the time I went there, there were rabbits EVERYWHERE. Like when you went onto the green, it was just RABBITS. Rabbits stealing your lunch as you eat it (seriously), rabbits burrowing into the soccer fields, rabbits getting into the buildings. Just....rabbits. They had no predators because it was the middle of a city. They tried trapping them and removing them but it didn't work. They tried a bunch of other stuff and it didn't work. Eventually, they had to poison them.
In this case, it may not be the best solution, especially since the grouse population is low due to a variety of factors...but, until we know the extent of the raven overpopulation and any other problems it may be causing, it's hard to say.Comment
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
A few articles with a bit of info:
And what "Fish and Game" have to say for themselves concerning the sage-grouse project:
https://fishandgame.idaho.gov/public...fe/sageGrouse/
and on what follow up they intend to do:
And on the poison that will be used:
http://www.feral.org.au/wp-content/u...03/DRC1339.pdf (for those not scared of chemistry)Warning: The above post may contain traces of sarcasm.
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
When I saw the preview of the title, at first I ended up assuming that Idaho was going to poison 4000 people for some reason. I wouldn't put it past the guvment to do something like that, and I'm sure they've already been poisoning us slowly over the years.
Now that I got my daily anti government rant out of my system, they really should find some other solution, like I don't know, respecting that area and not doing any development there? But alas, man thinks it's better than nature =/What one believes in is infinitely more important than WHO they believe in.Comment
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
Ordinairly, I'm not particularly against the culling of one species to protect another one. But, I'm not particularly for it either (unless the species being culled is non-native).
The reason for this is that most species aren't directly threatened by another species as the main instrument of their decline--unless that species is Homo sapiens (there are, of course, exceptions, but usually those exceptions are non-native species introduced by humans). And that seems to be the case here as well--habitat loss and degradation due to human enroachment and use seem to be the real culprit. The ravens are just convienent.
Unlike many, I don't blame Idaho's DNR-equivelent. They have a limited scope of things that they can concievably do. They are limited by what the state government of Idaho will do (nothing) to protect habitat (mostly states only do that when the federal government gives them no choice) and what the people of Idaho will do (nothing) to protect habitat (mostly people only do that when the state gives them no choice). But they can cull the ravens.
And, ecologically speaking, the raven cull is pretty negligable for the overall raven population--its one of the most common birds globally that has one of the widest ranges. It may, or may not, slow the decline of the sage grouse population. Or, it might (slim chance) relieve one of the pressures on the sage grouse population enough that they might be able to recover to a stable population size. I don't know enough about their data to make a call on whether or not this is the case.
But, I will say that I would support a DNR's choice to cull an overpopulated (or at capacity) wildlife population in direct competition with, or directly predating a near-threatened, threatened, or endangered native population, when a caustitive or strongly correlative (and likely to be causitive) link can be demonstrated. I would, of course, prefer that this be done in conjunction with relieving other pressures on the population--like restoring habitat and otherwise protecting the species.Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
I don't know about the ravens, but here we have a river. People build houses along the river to enjoy the scenic beauty and watch the wildlife.
Unfortunately, that scenic beauty and wildlife tends to poop on their lawns, so they have opened an in-town season on Canada Geese to get rid of their runny little butts.
Now that's crazy...
(Not the in town season - the hunters use shotguns, and shoot from far enough off shore on Thunder Bay that it's not dangerous. But the whole idea of getting close to nature, then killing it because you don't like that it's messy, drives me nuts)Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.
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Re: Idaho's plan to poison 4000 Ravens
That more or less sums up my feelings on the issue. I don't know a lot about it so I can't really make a direct comment other than what I said before, though the data MoonRaven posted was helpful and more or less led me here.Originally posted by thalassa View PostComment
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