Killing off predators has a cascading effect that comes back to bite you in the ass. They killed off all the natural predators of deer in Indiana and now, not only are there deer everywhere (people in Bloomington have to fence in their gardens because of an urban deer problem), if enough of them aren’t culled by hunters every year, they eat up all the food and not only do a bunch of deer starve to death, but so do all the other animals that they share that food with.
But talk about re-introducing wolves and bears and cougars to Indiana and people think they’ll be murdered in their beds… as if there are constant maulings in the parts of the U.S. with those animals. You’re more likely to be killed by a deer running in front of your car in Bloomington in the middle of the day. Which sure as hell almost happened to me once.
less prey means predators have less food, so they don’t reproduce as much or die of hunger, this decreases predator population, this means prey has better conditions to reproduce, this means that prey population grows, this means that predators now have more prey available, this means that predator population grows, which limits prey population. it’s a cycle, it’s pretty long, and nobody remembers that’s how it rolls before it completes. it’s not very regular, but sensitive to random inputs
Killing off predators has a cascading effect that comes back to bite you in the ass. They killed off all the natural predators of deer in Indiana and now, not only are there deer everywhere (people in Bloomington have to fence in their gardens because of an urban deer problem), if enough of them aren’t culled by hunters every year, they eat up all the food and not only do a bunch of deer starve to death, but so do all the other animals that they share that food with.
But talk about re-introducing wolves and bears and cougars to Indiana and people think they’ll be murdered in their beds… as if there are constant maulings in the parts of the U.S. with those animals. You’re more likely to be killed by a deer running in front of your car in Bloomington in the middle of the day. Which sure as hell almost happened to me once.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka–Volterra_equations in action
That is way over my ability to understand, but I will take your word for it.
less prey means predators have less food, so they don’t reproduce as much or die of hunger, this decreases predator population, this means prey has better conditions to reproduce, this means that prey population grows, this means that predators now have more prey available, this means that predator population grows, which limits prey population. it’s a cycle, it’s pretty long, and nobody remembers that’s how it rolls before it completes. it’s not very regular, but sensitive to random inputs