“A Canadian Province Killed 463 Wolves for No Good Reason”
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:51 am
“A Canadian Province Killed 463 Wolves for No Good Reason”
By Sabrina Imbler, The Atlantic, July 14
Commentary: (Re-posting from a July wolf news roundup on the WolfQuest Discord server) This article talks about the just-published rebuttal study to the 2019 study that deemed the wolf cull. For that reason, I think it’s worth a read. I do want to say that this article is otherwise problematic. First, the article doesn't note that there are 8,500 wolves in B.C and 60,000 total wolves in Canada. Numbers are a luxury that wolves have, unlike endangered mountain caribou. Calling the wolf culling a "needless tragedy" and omitting caribou from the headline strikes me as irresponsible. Whether the wolves should have been culled is up for debate especially after this rebuttal study, and I agree that industrial development should be focused on more as a cause for problems with the caribou population. However, language/headlines like these place more attention on non-endangered wolves and less on the caribou which needs actual help, particularly when one also omits population statistics. It's frustrating. While the April 25 article that I shared (see above!) from The Narwhal also omitted wolf population statistics, it did a much better job of addressing the challenges surrounding the wolf cull in B.C. without using harmful language.
By Sabrina Imbler, The Atlantic, July 14
Read the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... es/614134/This winter, 463 wolves died in British Columbia. Their deaths were not due to a freak accident or a natural disaster, but a government-sponsored cull meant to save endangered mountain caribou. Killing wolves is often controversial, and in this case their deaths may have been in vain: A group of scientists says the decision to cull the wolves rested on a statistical error.
Commentary: (Re-posting from a July wolf news roundup on the WolfQuest Discord server) This article talks about the just-published rebuttal study to the 2019 study that deemed the wolf cull. For that reason, I think it’s worth a read. I do want to say that this article is otherwise problematic. First, the article doesn't note that there are 8,500 wolves in B.C and 60,000 total wolves in Canada. Numbers are a luxury that wolves have, unlike endangered mountain caribou. Calling the wolf culling a "needless tragedy" and omitting caribou from the headline strikes me as irresponsible. Whether the wolves should have been culled is up for debate especially after this rebuttal study, and I agree that industrial development should be focused on more as a cause for problems with the caribou population. However, language/headlines like these place more attention on non-endangered wolves and less on the caribou which needs actual help, particularly when one also omits population statistics. It's frustrating. While the April 25 article that I shared (see above!) from The Narwhal also omitted wolf population statistics, it did a much better job of addressing the challenges surrounding the wolf cull in B.C. without using harmful language.