by Jim Beers

The following recent abstracts or summaries of 2 scientific papers and a news report are worth the attention of all those that are or will soon be living in Lower 48 States areas occupied by wolves. Please take the time to read them and the short comment that follows them.

1. From Scandinavia/ Finland:
IS THE FEAR OF WOLVES JUSTIFIED? A FENNOSCANDIAN PERSPECTIVE
Abstract. Following the recolonisation of southern Scandinavia by wolves, the public has expressed high levels of fear of wolves. In response, we have reviewed the existing data on wolf attacks on humans from Fennoscandia during the last 300 years. We were able to find records of people being killed by wolves from all three countries: one from Norway, 16 from Sweden, and 77 from Finland.

All cases were prior to 1882. The vast majority of victims were children under the age of 12. All the attacks were predatory in nature, as opposed to those done by rabid wolves. The incidents tended to cluster in space and time indicating that only certain wolves developed the habit of killing people.


2. From Alaska:
Predator Run-Ins Threaten Hikers in the Chugach
By Monica Gokey, KSKA - Anchorage | July 1, 2014 - 5:42 pm
A Fish and Game biologist says three wolves appear to have killed a hiker’s dog before stalking the dog’s owner on a popular trail just outside Anchorage last month. Another hiker’s account of a similar incident on a nearby trail may leave some wondering if canid predators are a growing threat on local trails.

3. From Iran:
Spatial risk model and mitigation implications for wolf–human conflict in a highly modified agroecosystem in western Iran
Neda Behdarvand a, Mohammad Kaboli a,⇑, Mohsen Ahmadi a, Elham Nourani a,
Abdolrassoul Salman Mahini b, Marzieh Asadi Aghbolaghi a

A Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran
b Department of the Environment, Faculty of Fishery and Environment, Gorgan University of Agriculture and Natural Resources Sciences, Golestan Province, Gorgan, Iran

A r t I c l e i n f o:

Received 19 January 2014
Received in revised form 17 June 2014
Accepted 25 June 2014
Keywords:
Conflict mitigation
Livestock depredation
Predatory attack
Risk map

A b s t r a c t:

Human–carnivore conflict is hampering carnivore conservation worldwide. Conflicts between humans and wolves (Canis lupus) in western Iran, especially Hamedan province (HP), occur in the form of livestock depredation and predatory attacks on people. These conflicts have become a major concern for the lives and livelihoods of the local people as well as an obstacle for conservation of the wolf. To determine the most important predictors of such conflicts and to identify the distribution of areas with potential risk of wolf attack on humans and livestock in HP, we employed Maximum Entropy (Maxent) algorithm to build predictive models with reported conflict data from 2001 to 2010. The resulting models correctly assigned subsequent attack sites from 2011 and 2012 to high-risk areas. We found that variables related to land use/cover types affected by anthropogenic influences on the landscape, such as irrigated farms and human settlements, were the most important in predicting wolf attack risk levels. The risk maps developed in this study are useful tools for identifying conflict


COMMENT:

Forget, for a moment all the information that I and others have mentioned in recent years about non-rabid Wolf attacks in Russia, Kazakhstan, India and in North American historical records of wolves killing and maiming people. Forget all the worldwide records of rabid wolves killing untold numbers of people since 100’s of years before Christ.

Consider for the moment, only these three reports (2 scientific and one in an Alaskan newspaper), and then ask yourself the following question:

- “Setting aside all the domestic animals that wolves kill and maim; setting aside the increased potential of disease and infectious threats that wolves present; and focusing solely on the documented, known and proven danger that wolves present to humans (especially children): what possible benefit do wolves bring to the settled human landscapes of the Lower 48 States that offsets the undeniable human deaths and human attacks that are inevitable?:

Does anyone dare to support that a kid killed every four or 5 years or a hunter or widow every killed 8 or 10 years in the human communities of the Lower 48 States is somehow worth wolves?

Reject any specious arguments about the reliability of old Scandinavian newspapers, or the failure of the Alaskan dog owners to behave differently, or the nature of Iranian wildlife research. Wolves kill people! The more dense the human population - as we see when we compare the Lower 48 States to Scandinavia 300 years ago or Alaska and Iran today – the greater the probability of encounters, especially as protected wolves habituate to humans that present little or no threat to the wolves.

Forty years ago, wolves only occurred in Minnesota and straggled occasionally into Montana and Idaho of all the Lower 48 States. Since then the Endangered Species Act has been used by bureaucrats and radicals to justify not saving abundant worldwide wolves, but to forcibly and ruthlessly insert and establish wolves into 13 States of the Lower 48 States and to foster the current spread and establishment of wolves into 9 more Lower 48 States and the eventual spread into more and more Lower 48 States.

There is NO justification for this and to add bureaucratic insult to injury to this debacle, NO BUREAUCRAT OR ENVIRONMENTAL RADICAL responsible for putting the wolves WHERE WOLVES WERE PURPOSELY EXTERMINATED AND HAVE NOT EXISTED FOR ANYWHERE FROM 60 TO 200 YEARS WILL BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT THESE THREE REPORTS CLEARLY DESCRIBES, BEGINS TO OCCUR IN THE LOWER 48 STATES!

Jim Beers
1 August 2014

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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net