Wolf makes a comeback in France

[Ashley Cawley]

Article on BBC News - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14637701


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54776000/jpg/_54776661_wolfpack.jpg

[Savagewolfrm]

Thats great news to read, i for one am glad that they are doing well, although I do feel for the Farmers etc but if they are getting compensation, why the fuss. Look forward to seeing where this will lead to.
Thanks Ashley

Rick

[Proventurer]

The million dollar question is, what has brought the wolves in to the area?
If it's an easy meal in the form of the local sheep, then I'm not supprised the farmers are peeved, (the compensation payment, appears substantial, but I think it's a bit more complex than that, otherwise the farmers would just surrender the flock to the wolves and claim the money).
Is there adequate wild food sources for the wolves in the forrests?
We all like to see wild life on the comeback but at what cost?

[comanighttrain]

Even if you get compensation, you need to go to market to bulk out your herd and you wont have as much to sell (say a pregnant ewe got felled, you'd just be buying another ewe and would have to wait until next lambing season).

The only way to save biodiversity is to limt/reduce the human population - after all it is us who pushed them out and destroyed their eco system.... that will never happen though. I'm sure we will see much more extinct species in years to come :(

[Raven]

I agree, it's a sad fact of life that one species has to suffer for another to gain, I don't think that there are any easy answers to this problem , only hard ones , let's face it farming Isn't enviromentally sustainable, so I'm with the wolf on this one!!!

[Ashley Cawley]

Even if you get compensation, you need to go to market to bulk out your herd and you wont have as much to sell (say a pregnant ewe got felled, you'd just be buying another ewe and would have to wait until next lambing season).(Good point!


The only way to save biodiversity is to limt/reduce the human populationGoing on historic evidence perhaps yes, but I don't think it's strictly true, if we actually put our minds to it and we became truly civilised I think we could achieve a lot better :)


... let's face it farming Isn't enviromentally sustainable, so I'm with the wolf on this one!!!Reminds me of a quote by Ray Mears:


"For 99.9% recurring of our history we were hunter-gathers. About 12,000 years ago we came up with this concept of farming, which in my eyes is still an experiment in food-gathering, because we've still got to prove we can do it without actually destroying our environment."Source: http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/quote-by-ray-mears-on-farming.html

[fish]

there were wolves near where i lived in the south of france,as far as i know the wolf has been there since year dot.

[Proventurer]

Ok, so let me play Devil's advocate here, when I moved to SA in the early seventies I expected to see lions on the road between Cape Town and Simonstown (having been brought up on a feast of TV programmes based around Kenya).
But no they had disappeared a good couple of hundred years before, Man/civalisation had happened, forcing them out.
My point is this, we want to see the wildlife and where possible slip into and live the wildlife. In the UK, ancient laws permit the right of way over land which is for the main part in the hands of farmers / landowners etc, they in turn, permit this (mostly!) defering to past problems Ashley has encountered, what do you think the situation would be if your favourite walking,rambling or hiking area was under the control of bands of hunter/gatherers, would safe passage (freedom to roam) be part of every day life?
I think not!
These farmers / landowners form the backbone of our so called civilisation and growing crops and keeping livestock, are an integral part of that, of course it's not as simplistic as (that wolf killed my sheep, give me money) there's all sorts of planning and resource management to take in to consideration. so what do we want?
Farmers who do their best to provide our food, under sometimes trying conditions, whilst allowing caring bushcrafters to come and go.
Or do we slip back to a situation where wild animals are free to reign over anything and everything in site, along side hoards of post modernistic bush dwellers?

[Raven]

you make a good point, i do not think that the farmers are to blame in any way, they are just doing what our society pushes them to do, the fact remains we have changed the face of this planet forever, there is no going back, and like you say would we really want to, regardless we can't, the majority of humans wouldn't entertain the notion, nor would it be possible with the current population levels on the planet i'm afraid that is that, some say that is a pessimistic view, i think it a realistic view, at best we can attempt to manage some of the damage to the animals we haven't made extinct, like putting a paster on a severed limb, there will always be a compromise, with any animal that comes into conflict with humans the prognosis is bleak, they will get labelled vermin and eradicated! when it comes to compromise, humans weigh it heavily in our own favour. we seem to be a very selfish species by nature, which is sad because we are capable of better. who knows maybe we'll come up with a way to make it all good, but would that be any better? bring back animals we got rid of, swell populations we have deminished? there is a reason that we come into conflict with animals, because we are supposed to!! its not the conflict that is the problem its the solutions we choose to overcome it.

paul