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Good points...
Posted by Michael Strahan on Dec 07 2005
Mark,
I appreciate your perspective on this. I don't understand all you're saying, but I do want to comment on a couple of things.
Hunters do indeed remove a lot of biological material from the field. My point is, in part, that perhaps we should consider the long-term impacts of that practice. A while back I tried to find out, on average, how many acres of willow it takes to make a pound of moose meat. I dug into it a while but couldn't come to any conclusions. I know it would vary depending on latitude and local ecosystem issues, but it would be an interesting statistic to discuss. They you have to consider the fact that once you have that pound of moose meat, you have to maintain it in good health for seven or eight or ten years, depending on how old the animal is when it dies. I'll bet it's a LOT. So if we have that quantity of material tied up in a moose, what is the impact of removing that animal from the system, both by terminating its life, and by physically removing most (all right, half) of it from the ecosystem, and depositing it in another ecosystem somewhere else? Is this a question of any significance, or is it just nonsense? I really don't know. This stuff is all woven together in complex ways that lie somewhere on the fringes of my knowledge. But it is a question that makes me think. Using your numbers of 2,624,625 lbs, (just for moose), that's a HUGE amount of biological material we're moving out of the field every season. I've got to believe there's some effect on the environment with this sort of loss.
On another note, I agree with you concerning the impact of our "leftovers". Nowhere in Alaska is this more obvious than on Kodiak Island, where bears have become habituated to the gunshots of deer hunters as an indication of free food nearby. "Pavlov's Bear"; they probably start salivating before the smell of cordite dissapates on the wind. Though I doubt that the deer kills of hunters have caused an increase in the numbers of bears there, I think it's safe to say that the bears are certainly better off as a result. But again, what effect is this having on anything? I don't know. Do the deer populations cycle up to make up for the ones hunters kill? I'd bet they do. Is there an ecological effect that results from deer meat being removed from the area? I'd bet there is. It might not be noticable on the short haul, but over time, who can say what will result from the incremental loss?
Interesting stuff.
-Mike
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