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Comment by maria2 | Hacker News Reader

Wolf reintroductions to Yellowstone, for instance, totally changed the ecosystem for the better.

Animals evolved to keep each other in check. If you remove one animal, but not its prey, then the prey can cause an even greater loss of biodiversity by excessive proliferation. In the case of Yellowstone’s wolves, their absence allowed elk to proliferate. Elk then ate too much vegetarian, which prevented forests from developing. The lack of forest lead to a decline in song bird and beaver populations. The decline in beavers lead to a decline in dams, which removed key habitats for other animals.

To flip your question on its head: the reintroduction of wolves was clearly beneficial for Yellowstone. What is the argument against reintroducing the wolf, or reintroductions in general?

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Having been very, very close to this issue when wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone, the vocal opposition to this was that a handful of ranchers near Yellowstone who are very much Welfare Queens didn't want to loose cows to wolves that were on the other side of the fence.

Not sure its fair to call them "welfare queens" but no one likes to see their livelihood threatened.

If I remember correctly wolves returning to Yellowstone generated 5 million dollars each year to the area only by the increase in tourists. Plus environmental benefits

This has nothing to do with the livelihood of the farmers

Imagine that you are that farmer. To start, you can buy a lot of cows with five millions of dollars

Or your city could provide you with better services now that they have five extra millions each year. Better roads would allow you to move your cattle faster or to export your products better. So you lose some, but win some also.

Or maybe you will not need it, now that the new local restaurants opened want to buy your meat to feed the tourists. More competence and lower expenses to put your product in the market will allow you to sell your meat at a better price.

Tourists will want to buy souvenirs also. Maybe in stores owned by members of your family.

Your city will attract researchers. Science has a curious proven effect; each single researcher position creates tens of auxiliary jobs around to sustain their research.

In resume, the young adults in your city will have a range of new opportunities to settle, work and start a live project in their own city if they would desire so.

Or you can forget all of this and keep your cow

Be honest, do you really liked so much that stupid cow?

Yes. The farmer chose to live way out there far from people, and would appreciate the dang tourists going away.

In a society everybody must sacrifice something if is for mutual benefit.

Wolves had proven again and again that produce more money that they remove. Had proven also that can save human lives reducing car collisions and that they positively protect agriculture and fixate water sources in the area.

Why should a few farmers (I agree that I should be more precise and use ranchers instead) force their will over the whole population and block the development of a local area?. Isn't this a democracy?. Who are this people to decide that their village can't receive tourism and that everybody in the area must be a rancher or migrate?

Environmental services aren't free. Some resources will need to be sacrificed to keep the machine working, and in any case cattle owners can reduce their losses to an acceptable level by several traditional and well tested ways.

And about the "dang" tourists, we need to remember that US citizens have full rights to visit and enjoy public spaces and protected areas open to public in the whole country. Granted by constitution.

Why? Because is their country also. Is --their-- land also.

They have exactly the same right to enjoy a well adjusted National park as any local

Your initial argument was that farmers should want the development, "do you really like that stupid cow?" -- and my attempted point was that yes, the farmers do in fact like that stupid cow. All the benefits you propose of the increased tourism and 5 million dollars pale in many farmers' minds to the downside of having more tourists, who clog up the roads, complain about their farming practices, drive up land prices, and want to build developments. Farming is a lifestyle well suited to loners and cow farming in particular is well suited to very remote areas; thus added tourism, making it a less remote area, decreases the local farmer's reason for existing there.

To reply to your new point, an important part of democracy is the right of self-determination, and people get very upset when faraway majorities impose their wills despite the local majority disagreeing. Consider Catalonia, or other independence movements throughout history, or any number of instances of imperialism throughout history: should a national majority be able to force a local majority to give up their way of life / national independence / raison d'etre? That's how local residents who've been there for 20, 30, 60 years feel about outsiders coming in to diversify the economy or introduce wolves to eat their lambs -- why are the outsiders coming in and imposing their negatives on their apparently perfectly good way of life?

> an important part of democracy is the right of self-determination

You need to check again the definition of democracy. This self-determination fairy tale has been repeated a thousand times but is still false.

> should a national majority be able to force a local majority to give up their way of life / national independence / raison d'etre?

Hum, yeeees? This is exactly the point of having a central government making the laws for the entire nation

No one is talking about farmers at all. Farmers grow crops intensively on their own land.

Ranching is a very different activity which in the west usually involves a cheap grazing lease on thousands of acres of public land... it is the governments land and they balance the concerns of all stakeholders.

Welfare ranchers are ranchers who rely on cheap/subsidized grazing leases on federal land. It includes a shocking number of billionaires making big money off public land.

Yes and it happened when a guy simply decided to stop waiting for people to fight and simply gathered the money and bought the rights to the ranchers land.

This is a good example in particular because state and federal agencies have been extremely judicious when it comes to doing reintroductions since then.

In the rest of the West (CA, OR, WA, ID, MT) there have been basically zero wolf reintroductions recently. Wolf packs are spreading naturally back to their historical range, and agencies are instead focused on tracking populations and working with local communities to regulate hunting, protect the livelihoods of ranchers, etc.

It's much more than that even. Without the wolves the elk and deer graze along creeks destroying willows that shade the water leading to warmer water temps and fewer fish, more erosion and less water retention / flood control. This even impacts downstream farmers who take water out for irrigation.

Also the wolves keep mountain lions, coyotes and other predators in check (through competition and even predation) and wary. I suspect mountain lion encounters in California will go way down if the wolves ever come back.

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