Originally Posted by brianspetcare

I am a biologist and in my ecology class in college they discussed what happens when things are signficantly changed. When you add or remove a species it has drastic changes to the whole ecosystem. When I went to Yellowstone years ago (as a driving through the park visitor) I learned that because of the wolves the herbivores stopped eating the plants by the streams because they were too out in the open (easy prey for the wolves). This let the plants grow more, which shaded the streams, which cooled them, which allowed the trout to return. This sounded good to me and really demonstrated the far reaching effects of a top predator. I even had a question on a college exam about this exact situation.

In this case when you introduce a predatory species that has been gone for decades, which allowed its prey to increase in numbers, you will get a HUGE increase in the population of the predator. It will be so big that it will drive its prey almost to extinction. The long term effect of the drop in prey is a big drop in the predator. Then the prey comes back, then the predator, etc. Eventually you will hit a more natural balance (which still usually goes through cycles). The problem is that this is on a very long term scale (many decades to centuries).

To me it seems like hunting the wolf is an absolutely perfect way to keep their population from rising so sharply that they bring their prey within sight of extinction. They were there before, in balance, but it would be a LONG time for it to ever reach that naturally, if it did.

In my opinion someone should have the right to keep animals on their own property under control. I know when the squirrels get out of control here (literally chewing on the deck and house) the problem doesn't last long...