Wolf: Threat or Environmental Balancer?

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The wolf: long a symbol of freedom, ferocity, and brotherhood.  Starting again this August in Northern BC, the government is attempting to control the decline of the cariboo population by addressing the number of wolves that prey on them.  However, studies show that wolves are not the deciding factor in the caribou population decline.  Instead it is the continued modification of the environment for industrial use by humans that has most affected the declining number of Caribou in the north.  Scientists have long noted that predators population numbers are keyed to the number of prey available, so as prey declines, birth population and survival rates for predator also decline.  By interfering with the natural number of predator versus prey in order to rectify our own impingement on the caribou’s natural territory (and that of the wolf), some environmentalists argue that the government is applying the wrong solution to a problem that humans created.  Learn more about industrial development in British Columbia’s previously wild North, or visit the Northern Lights Wildlife Centre near Golden and get some hands on learning about these amazing canines.

Do you think that the government has the right to kill wolves given that human industrial development poses a larger threat to declining caribou populations?