Wake Up James Unsworth/ Donny Martorello… you have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt!! Look at your track record…. you killed wolves last year… your experiencing more ISSUES THIS YEAR!! ATTENTION: researchers found that when wolves were killed one year, more livestock were killed by wolves in the next.
On the surface, killing wolves that kill sheep and cattle seems like a way to control predation, but the data paints a not-so-simple picture.
When predators clash with humans, debate grows fierce. Wolves, heralded as iconic North American animals, also draw the ire of ranchers who have to deal with the ones that kill their livestock. Wolf hunts are one way of dealing with animals that inevitably cross human-drawn lines, but—as the authors of a new study observe—there isn’t much research that looks into whether those hunts actually reduce livestock deaths.
The answer to that question might seem intuitive, but the new findings run counter to that expectation: Washington State University researchers found that when wolves were killed one year, more livestock were killed by wolves in the next. They published their research in PLOS One.
Source: Killing Wolves Actually Leads to More Livestock Deaths | Smart News | Smithsonian