Snow goose population expansion

SantaFeJoe wrote:

pleverington wrote:

Joe I do not propose or support short term damage control. I support tangible long term solutions. If the tundra dies then it dies.. It might just take such an event to wake people up once and for all. But they won't as long as we slap patches on a sinking ship. I don't want that, but the tundra around the bay is only one of a million areas to get real about.

If you think about it, the attitude of just letting the tundra die is a problem! It's much like "Nero fiddling while Rome burned", although that story is not true! You mention endangered species, but fail to see that the loss of the tundra is affecting endangered, as well as other species as you mention below:

I'm fine with the concern about the Tundra, but what about all those species on the endangered lists?? What about the future and what also is going into crisis? Why don't we start converting farmland back to habitat instead of paying farmers to let it sit idle?

See #4 in the EIS. It tells of other species that the loss of tundra affects. I also read about endangered species being affected.

You know I gave a whole bunch of ideas, thoughts, and proposals already--why do you pretend I have come up with nothing? 

I'm talking about the immediate need for a solution, not long term. You must have some ideas so that the can is not simply kicked down the road!

All your trying to do right now is push me in a corner so I  have to say we need to send in the hunters. Yeah if we go only by your limited and narrow understanding of the problem that's what I guess a person would have to say...grab the guns. Fortunately as thinking people we all can see a bigger picture and better solutions.

I'm only asking for those better solutions. I'm not suggesting that hunting is the only option, since I prefer another solution if it is available and effective in the near term. That's why I keep asking you for ideas. For now, hunting is the only solution that seems to work. I welcome any alternative, if it works!!! I'm not trying to promote hunting but, rather, looking for any viable alternative. The problem is larger than hunting versus non-hunting!!!

Don't be so self defeating Joe ...anyone can be Darwin, a Jane Goodall, a Rachael Carson, a John Muir. You just gotta try....Well maybe not..but one thing is for certain true..if you do nothing you'll get nothing. I would think if your really concerned about the Geese, but then I guess your not as you want them dead, but if you really care about the tundra you would be writing your congressman and Senators, support new ideas, influence those around you who would influence those around them and so  on and so on. But it sounds more like you just are stuck in that gun toting world and a belief that balancing nature via killing is the way forward. I don't personally. I'm sure most hunters are drooling over the free range of options now to blast away all under the delusion they have something to do with conservation and environmentalism, but once again the truth is they are once more a part of the whole problem.

I'm trying to be as clear about this as I can be. Doing nothing is the worst option and, as I said above, I welcome and would support new ideas, as long as they work and don't mess things up in other ways. I keep asking you for them. Eliminating farming is not going to happen and you know it!!! I prefer a non-hunting option, but none that is viable has been presented, thus there is nothing else to support, at present.

Well do this little mind exercise if you will and maybe you can see where I am coming from. Pretend using guns and killing were not options at all. What would you do then solve the problem?? My guess is your going to dodge by dismissing the question with another one of your deflections, but if you don't, and on the ponder intently and seriously for alternate ideas, new solutions will pop into your head. Just ponder what to do if slaughter is off the table. It's sort of like our leaders saying to each other at a meeting how do we deal with the Soviets or Iran if nuclear weapons are off the table. They find a way is all I'm saying.

That is exactly what I'm asking you to do if you read any of what I'm saying!!! Have any new solutions popped into your head so you can answer my eternal question to you?????

Joe


Paul

True to my words once again you deflected....

Come on Joe ....

Well, Paul, if you consider addressing your questions and claims as directly as possible, deflection, so be it! I'll let the readers be the judges. This is not a debate of who wins with words, but rather a study of facts and figures on a serious subject that may imperil much wildlife. I've provided plenty of links that give much info on the subject as is necessary to analyze the situation with an open mind. If anyone really cares to study what's happening with an open mind, the info is there, both from a pro and con angle. Let those who take time to read come to their own conclusions. I just don't care to see people who are uneducated in the facts of the matter give answers, from a closed mind, that they can't back up. I have said enough on the subject and provided enough info for anybody to start their own in-depth study if they have any interest at all. Enough said! I need not post anything further on the subject.

Joe

Paul...in wildlife terms, cull refers to the ones that were killed.  So the culled ones are not coming back with a vengeance and reproducing more.  



But I do agree with you:  No matter the chosen course, the system will recover.   No matter how many waterfowl die from disease or how much habitat is damaged....the entire system will eventually recover.  That said, the damage is already very serious Paul.   I do not think that you see this or agree with it.  Take a look at the slide show Paul.  The geese are eating the very roots of the plants they rely on during nesting.  It is crazy.  

But even then, you are still right....the system will recover even when the goose population collapses.  .

As long as there is sunlight, water, carbon dioxide and soil nutrients....the system (including the geese) will recover
    

This case is unique.  I know that I have never heard of anything like it.  I can stand corrected though.  I do not believe that hunters will kill enough geese to significantly reduce the population.


If the agricultural problem that caused the population to explode in the first place......continues.....then even if you significantly reduce the population, you are going to continue to have this problem every year.  So Joe, when you say that the agricultural problem is not going to change, then prepare to see an overpopulation of geese every year.  It is that simple.



Bottom line:
    1.  I do not believe this problem will be corrected with liberalized hunting regulations. 

Either way, no matter what technique you choose or even if you do nothing at all.......It is going to become much nastier for the geese than it already is. 

And those wildlife managers already know this.   They are just not telling you, me and rest of the public.......yet, because the public will become outraged when they hear the population reduction techniques that these guys are worried they will have to use. 


    2.  Now, add the fact that the agricultural problem is not going to be corrected:  The lesser snow goose overpopulation will be ongoing. 

After saying all this......I could be all wrong. It is interesting for sure.  What a mess man has made.  How shortsighted man can be.   


Robert King
itsaboutnature.net 

Robert...Your sensitivity and consciousness after viewing your website is not only visceral for me personally, but an experience that others here at NSN need to begin to appreciate. I'll get back to the subject of the snow geese, but seriously, folks need to give your site a view. I have seen many websites and they all seem to be about things that I feel are ego driven or just something I can't relate to, but your site is completely different. I get it. I relate completely.

How lonely it seems that me and you and Santa Fe Joe seem to be the only ones out here on the frontier at times. Either we just don't get it or  maybe, just maybe others don't. For those others I can only say...speak not and you shall not be heard.......

Paul

Hi Paul

We think alike.  Most probably think that we are environmentally extreme.  We're not.    

Many times I have read your words and thought....if everybody had just some of those beliefs, we would be in harmony with nature.  Instead we are witnessing a continual war that nature is gradually losing.  

Man is so arrogant that he refuses to believe that he is part of nature to the extent that to destroy nature is also certain self-destruction.  This cannot be sustained....impossible.  

You do not have to believe me.  Please read the Malthusian Theory...from way back in the 19th century: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

We are now seeing that his predictions are going to come to pass.   It is inevitable.  While most people stand by and carelessly watch it, you are resisting it the only way you know how.

Regardless of how loudly, we who love nature cry, nature is still becoming weaker globally.  When I think of what is happening out there, I think of the lyrics "the truth is plain to see" (Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale).  But most either do not see it, refuse to see it, or have just become numb to it all.  And there are those, such as Rush Limbaugh, who have masses believing that there is no problem at all and it is impossible to destroy nature.  Ha!  
      

Eventually, no matter how smart man thinks he is, the world will face collapse of human populations. It is coming.

Monsanto and the rest, with their new, efficient ways of producing foods....cannot possibly change the inevitable.  It is all delusional.  

What angers me is that such corporations are making billions off all of this....at the demise of the natural world.  And we seem to be able to do little about it.   But we will keep beating the drum here and elsewhere.  I do appreciate the likes of you and Santa Fe Joe...and several others.   And the others are reading and considering.


Thank you so much Paul.