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733 Massacred Wolves

733 Massacred Wolves

 

The scientist group led by Dave Hervieux chose aerial gunning and poisoning to kill at least 733 wolves over a period of seven years in the range of the Little Smoky caribou population in west-central Alberta, Canada.

Methods used – aerial gunning of wolves
For this study, individual wolves from different wolf families were located and captured via net-gun to fit them with radio collars for subsequent release. These collared wolves were then used to locate and kill additional family members by aerial shooting. After all family members were shot, the radio-collared wolves were killed too—a total of 579 wolves died this way. Considering that shooting moving (fleeing) animals from helicopters is primed with challenges and, depending on the landscape, ‘skills’ of the shooters and guns and ammunition used, wounding and painful injuries, and inhumane kills inevitably occur. Apparently, the welfare of individual wolves was of no concern to the researchers as they provided no data on the fate of the wolves gunned down from the air.

Methods used – strychnine poisoning
An additional 154 wolves were killed through ingesting (undefined) bait laced with strychnine that was distributed at 15-20 bait locations and checked every 8 days to collect the carcasses of the wolves who had died nearby. An additional 91 ravens, 31 red foxes, 4 martens, 2 weasels, and 2 fishers presumably died as a result of strychnine poisoning. Again, this is a minimum estimate given animal movement and long periods between checks for poisoned animals. As pointed out by Brook et al. (2015) , studies have shown that scavengers and predatory animals die in large numbers due to secondary poisoning at considerable distances from bait sites. The following is an excerpt from an excellent and thorough critique of the study of Hervieux et al. (2014) in which the authors describe the inhumanness of the methods used by Hervieux et al. and emphasize the importance to consider the welfare and fate of individual animals (as opposed to just the population).

“Strong evidence suggests that strychnine causes suffering. The poison is a highly-toxic alkaloid registered for restricted use in Canada as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as rodents and birds (Blakely 2009). Through competitive inhibition of glycine, a neurotransmitter, strychnine causes unimpeded stimulation of motor neurons affecting all the striated muscles of the body to produce generalized rigidity and tetanic seizures (Khan 2010). Clinical signs usually develop within 30-60 minutes after ingestion, but onset can be delayed by the presence of food in the stomach. Clinical signs include frequent periods of maximal muscle contraction (tetanic seizures), occasional cessation of breathing, and hyperthermia (body temperature ≥40°C) (Khan 2010). Sudden movement, sounds, or changes in light intensity can induce tetanic seizures. The seizures involve most of the body’s musculature and affected animals often assume a ‘sawhorse stance’ due to spasms of the neck and back muscles causing extension of the head and neck, while spasms of the leg muscles cause the legs to become rigid and wide-stanced. Tetanic seizures can last from a few seconds to a minute and become more frequent over time. Death from exhaustion or asphyxiation during seizures typically occurs within 1-2 hours of the onset of clinical signs (Kahn 2010). Consequently, death by strychnine poisoning is inhumane because affected animals remain conscious and appear to suffer pain and anxiety from the onset of clinical signs until death. Importantly, humans who have been poisoned with strychnine report feeling intense pain (Wood et al. 2002; Parker et al. 2011). Accordingly, the use of strychnine for euthanasia is considered unacceptable under any circumstances by both government agencies and veterinary organizations (CCAC 2003; AVMA 2013). Notably, Hervieux et al. (2014a) ignored the CCAC guidelines and used standards developed by Alberta government agencies, which allow the use of strychnine for the purpose of predator control in Alberta” (74-75).

You may ask yourself, why in the world was this study conducted in the first place? It is because of certain values and beliefs common in wildlife conservation and expressed in this study, such as:

Value statement—anthropocentric belief system
The study was conducted with the understanding that it is the extraction industry (oil, mining, and logging) that are causing habitat destruction and ongoing demise of the woodland caribou. Yet, the researchers made the choice to deal with the problem indirectly, by killing wolves in order to see if caribou numbers could be boosted that way.

Value statement—one species is more valuable than another
The motivation that becomes apparent in this study is that endangered woodland caribou are more valuable than wolves, which led the researchers to cause a high number of wolves to die for a questionable, unknown outcome—the protection of caribou. Inherent in this study is a clear expression of a belief system that values members of an endangered species more than members of a more abundant species.

Value statement—kill methods that cause suffering to wild animals are justified
The fact that the researchers chose to employ such brutal methods of aerial gunning and poisoning, and failed to describe any impacts on the wolves killed, displays a significant lack of concern for the welfare of individual animals. This stance that views the population as more valuable than the individual animals comprising it, is common in traditional conservation where the focus is on the whole—the species or the population—in order to justify the sacrificial killing of individual animals.

Studies like the one by researchers Dave Hervieux, Mark Hebblewhite, Dave Stepnisky, Michelle Bacon, and Stan Boutin, should have never been approved, conducted, let alone published.

[1] Ryan K. Brook, Marc Cattet, Chris T. Darimont, Paul C. Paquet, Gilbert Proulx. 2015. Maintaining Ethical Standards during Conservation Crises. Canadian Wildlife Biology & Management (CWBM): Volume 4, Number 1. 

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