Posted by:
JP
at Mon Apr 16 07:35:33 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by JP ]
First, let me say that I'm not advocating the removal of animals from the wild.
I do however, want to point out an interesting fact - that removing animals from the wild does not NECESSARILY reduce the number of wild populations. I know this is counterintuitive, but absolutely true. I know of several managed wild species where 30%-50% of each clutch of eggs can be removed with no measurable effect on the wild population. Turns out juvenile mortality is HIGHLY density dependant. In other words, if there are say 10000 babies in a given area, maybe 6000 will die in the first year (leaving 4000 survivors). Now take the same population, and remove 3000 babies. Keeping in mind that there will be much lower juvenile mortality, you may very well still have 4000 survivors after the first year, and therefore no net effect of the harvest.
Now there are other ecological principle at play, but I wanted to point out this one important point for discussion...
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Keep this in mind.... - JP, Mon Apr 16 07:35:33 2007