hotsauceman1 wrote:Wait....so doe that mean that the gak my scout master was peddling about hunting controlling animal populations wasnt true?
Serious question, because that always seemed off to me.
Human hunting is very different to more natural hunting systems. Because we don't rely on one animal food source and because we can hunt via remote methods we can basically make hunting both exceptionally efficient and safe for us.
Humans are thus also able to select the best individuals within a target species rather than the weaker/sick/older/younger. Most other predators, if given choice, will focus on easier to kill individuals within the group or ones they can isolate. They are less likely to go for the prime and most healthy because those individuals represent the greatest threat and also have the greatest chance to escape. Important considerations when you have to risk your life in every hunt.
As a result humans can cause a lot of damage to stock because its possible to keep removing the herds best individuals, leaving behind the weaker elements which weakens the prey species at large. Plus because hunting can be conducted in a remote fashion and we can use traps; we can take out larger amounts of prey in one go. Consider how humans have wiped out many species this way even though we were at the same time relying on them for food - like the passenger pigeon or how they nearly wiped out the bison.
With proper species study, regulation, restriction and the correct attitude human hunting can control species populations in a general sense. Of course when you couple that to long term population rise/fall patterns our ability to predict and understand how populations will react and thus how to cull and manage them; can be hindered. Which might result in a species becoming "overpopulated" by our estimations or underpopulated. Both bring risks - overpopulation can result in increased food use which might result in the species invading into more farmland (increased negative human-animal interactions); meanwhile underpopulation could lead to fragmentation of the population (different herds/groups become isolated) and reduction in the breeding capacity and quality.
If you mean hunting in terms of prey and predators - ergo natural systems -then broadly speaking yes its false. Predators do impact prey; but prey also impacts predators. The result is neither one is superior in the system and its a balancing act that is most often in a constant state of change. Some cycles are softer and others are more extreme. Honestly the whole concept of mapping food and diet impacts between species can become very complicated because its rarer that there's just one predator-prey interaction. Often there's a multitude of impacts and variables.
