Hi Emma,
Thanks for your email. Judging from the level of
response, the "planned predator kill" has seemingly taken on a
media-driven "life of its own". Even though it's untrue.
Neither I nor the Marmot Recovery Foundation (MRF) have ever proposed or
endorsed a widespread "cull" of predators such as wolves and cougars.
Please refer to the letter from our Executive Director that is available
on-line at www.marmots.org/subdir/predator.html
The Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Team has endorsed a system of
"localized predator management" on the 5% of Vancouver Island that
provides habitat for Vancouver Island marmots. This is explicitly
identified in the National Recovery Plan for marmots (Janz et al. 2000;
the full document is available on-line at www.marmots.org).
The difference between a widespread "cull" and local "management" involves
more than semantics. "Management" will likely involve non-lethal methods
such as additional field personnel to "shepherd" marmot colonies, and we are
actively investigating other methods such as "visual barriers" (fladry;
Musiani and Visalberghi 2001) in addition to the "last resort" method of
killing individual predators that frequent marmot colonies. It is perhaps
revealing that David Mech, arguably the world's most recognizable force for
wolf conservation (e.g., Mech 1970), recently argued for lethal
"wolf-control" in the very areas in which he argued for complete protection
30 years earlier (Mech 1995, 2001).
The ethical questions raised by killing one organism to assist the
survival of another are many. But we need to maintain perspective:
extinction of a unique species (the marmot) versus removal of a handful of a
species (the grey wolf) that is not threatened or endangered, that occupies
a broad geographic range, and that has already recovered in large portions
of its former range (e.g., full recovery in Michigan, Wisconsin and
Minnisota, and growing numbers in Idaho, Yellowstone and the southern
Canadian Rockies: e.g., Mech 1995, Forbes and Boyd 1996).
The extraordinary ability of wolves to recover in the absence of direct
human persecution has also been demonstrated by their recent history in
southern BC and Alberta, where no reintroductions occurred. Rather, wolves
reintroduced themselves (from the northern Rockies and adjacent BC)
after being virtually wiped out by humans in the 1940s-1950s (e.g.,
Pletscher et al. 1997).
The history of wolves, deer and marmots on Vancouver Island is also
interesting. Bryant and Janz (1996) report on changes in marmot
distribution. Deer numbers apparently increased after logging (because
there was more deer food available in 2nd growth forests). Once
relatively uncommon on Vancouver Island, wolves increased in the 1970s
and 1980s and took advantage of this new resource (Archibald et al.
1991). Deer numbers declined dramatically, with most mortality
attributed to predation (McNay and Voller 1995). The typical "lag"
between predator (wolf) and prey (deer) numbers likely ensured that
wolves spent more time hunting alternative prey such as marmots.
I remain hopeful. Because the landscape is slowly recovering, deer and
predator numbers will eventually be restored to pre-logging levels, but this
will take time. The immediate problem is that without reducing predation we
will lose the wild marmot population, making prospects for successful
recovery much bleaker.
I have taken the liberty of supplying full scientific references for my
comments. My hope is that stronger alliances will be formed if partners
have access to the facts. I hope you will decide to continue your support
of the recovery effort.
Best wishes,
Andrew A. Bryant, PhD
Marmot Recovery Foundation
Literature cited:
---------------------------
Archibald, W.R., D. Janz and K. Atkinson. 1991. Wolf-control: a
management dilemma. Pages 497-511 in Transactions of the 56th North
American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference.
Bryant, A.A., and D.W. Janz. 1996. Distribution and abundance of
Vancouver Island Marmots (Marmota vancouverensis). Canadian Journal of
Zoology. 74: 667-677.
Forbs, S.H., and D.K. Boyd. 1996. Genetic variation of naturally
colonizing wolves in the central Rocky Mountains. Conservation Biology.
10: 1082-1090.
Janz, D.W., A.A. Bryant, N.K. Dawe, H. Schwantje, B. Harper, D.
Nagorsen, D. Doyle, M. deLaronde, D. Fraser, D. Lindsay, S.
Leigh-Spencer, R. McLaughlin and R. Simmons. 2000. National Recovery
Plan for the Vancouver Island Marmot (2000 Update). Report No. 19.
Recovery of Nationally Endangered Wildlife (Ottawa, ON). 34 pp.
McNay, R.S., and J.M. Voller. 1995. Mortality causes and survival
estimates for adult female Columbian black-tailed deer. Journal of
Wildlife Management. 59: 138-146.
Mech, L.D. 2001. Managing Minnesota's recovered wolves. Wildlife
Society Bulletin. 29: 70-77
Mech, L.D. 1995. The challenge and opportunity of recovering wolf
populations. Conservation Biology. 9: 270-278.
Mech, L.D. 1970. The wolf: ecology and behavior of an endangered
species. Natural History Press (Garden City, NY). 384 pp.
Musiani, M., and E. Visalberghi. 2001. Effectiveness of fladry on
wolves in captivity. Wildlife Society Bulletin. 29: 91-98
Pletscher, D.H., R.R. Ream, D.K. Boyd, M.W. Fairchild and K.E. Kunkel.
1997. Population dynamics of a recolonizing wolf population. Journal
of Wildlife Management. 61: 459-465.
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Andrew A. Bryant, Ph.D.
Marmot Recovery Foundation
2043 Minto Avenue, Nanaimo, B.C. Canada V9X 1R7
Phone/Fax: (250)754-1356
Email: andrewbryant@shaw.ca
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-------------------------------------------------------
Andrew A. Bryant, Ph.D.
Marmot Recovery Foundation
2043 Minto Avenue, Nanaimo, B.C. Canada V9X 1R7
Phone/Fax: (250)754-1356
Email: andrewbryant@shaw.ca
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