How Ironic!

The other day, the first wolf came to Massachusetts in a long, long time and we didn't give it a very warm welcome.  The grey wolf has been extinct in MA since 1840 (although one believed to have escaped from captivity was spotted here in 1918), so this was a rare and special event.  The nearest wolves live in Ontario and Quebec, leading experts to speculate that this wolf was perhaps a captive animal kept as a pet, or a hybrid wolf/dog.

However, it doesn't really matter anymore what it was, because it was shot dead by the farmer whose sheep the wolf was eating. He got permission first from a state biologist (because farmers' rights exceed other endangered species' rights by law in the USA).

"In 2003  the world sheep population was estimated at 1.03 billion head".  With the exception of Michigan and Alaska, the wolf is an endangered species in the USA.  "Species considered by the ESA to be endangered are considered to be at risk of extinction in all of or a large part of their range."

I noted this event with some sadness, but I didn't get around to blogging it until I heard this news: the world's longest-living animal, a 400-year-old clam from Iceland, was just discovered.  And -- need I say it?  Killed.  Of course, the news article isn't about how we killed it.  In fact, it doesn't even mention that we killed it.  It just says it was "dredged from the water" and then there's a picture of it split in half on a table.

An endangered grey wolf comes to Massachusetts for the first time in 167 years and a state biologist give the OK to shoot it.  Man just killed the oldest living creature on earth and the articles are all "we can't believe how old it was!"  I wonder how old it would have gotten had we allowed it to remain alive?  Is it just me, or is something about the way we treat our home and neighbors seriously messed up?

Comments

[Iz]

Interesting discussion on this topic here:
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3149318&backwards=1&ok=1

[Ed Vielmetti]

Iz -

My stepdad was part of a team of biologists studying the wolf and moose population on Isle Royale (an island in Lake Superior in Michigan). It's a national park, the wolves prey on the moose, and the population wobbles around from year to year in a boom/bust cycle.

This is an awesome site on the topic:

http://www.isleroyalewolf.org/wolfhome/home.html

with pictures and more about how various populations are intertwined.