Constant meddling not doing nature any good
By Curt Andersen
News-Chronicle
With all the fur flying about chronic wasting disease, a neurological
disease that weakens our whitetail deer herd, I wondered why this problem
arose in the first place. By chance, I again watched the movie “Never Cry
Wolf” and, a few weeks later, read the Farley Mowat book for the first
time. Both the book and the video are excellent for all age levels, though
the video may be hard to find.
In this true story, a Canadian researcher was sent to Northern Manitoba to
study why the caribou herd was disappearing. Canadian trappers reported
that wolves were viciously killing large numbers of caribou, then leaving
the carcasses to rot, with no feeding whatsoever.
Mowat, a biologist, flew into the frozen wilderness, where he set up camp
and began his study. He was fortunate to meet two Innuit natives, who
helped him with his research. One of them, Ootek, tells him the timeless
Innuit story about how the Creator gave the caribou to feed the people.
The herd grew and grew, making life easy for the Innuit. Then, however,
the herd began to die out. That was when the Creator gave the wolf to
maintain the health of the caribou herd by culling the weak.
Mowat’s study found that the wolves did not kill wantonly, as reported.
(That remains the hobby of mankind.) The wolves killed just enough to feed
themselves. Actually, trappers and hunters were killing enormous numbers
of caribou to feed their dog teams. Even more important, trappers and
hunters were killing wolves in large numbers, to get their valuable pelts.
Fewer wolves meant the sick and inbred could multiply, making the entire
herd more susceptible to disease.
Mankind has continually meddled with natural systems that have taken eons
to evolve. I am not saying that by killing the wolves, we brought this
whitetail crisis to a peak. I am saying that we have given the sick
animals an easy go at reproducing and infecting others of their kind, and
maybe even mankind.
We began the elimination of Wisconsin’s wolves more than 80 years ago. At
that time, farmers and ranchers were worried about depredation of their
farm animals. Biologists of the time, with no real research, took the easy
out and killed the wolves instead of developing better fences.
We let whitetail numbers rise to current levels, much higher than before
the white man began to despoil this land. The larger numbers of deer are
putting enormous pressure on available food supplies, such that they are
eating everything, even tomato plants, which used to be thought of as
toxic, especially in suburban areas.
People are feeding the deer, whether it is to bring them near a window
where they can be watched or in feeding stations by hunters, who hope to
make a kill more likely. Because deer leave saliva and phlegm on the
apples, grain, or corn, these stations are spreading the disease.
There is an old saw that states, “When you’re not happy with how something
is working, you fool with it until you break it or fix it.”
We broke it. Now we’ve gotta fix it. The large numbers of deer that made
it almost easy to get one during hunting season may prove to be the
undoing of the entire herd.