SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) evaluated around 120 dogs from three large breeds from Europe and Asia bred to be gentle around sheep and children but vicious when confronting wolves. The four-year study was carried out by the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center and tested how these dogs did guarding livestock against wolves and coyotes in the western US.
[...] Young and her colleagues zeroed in on areas where dogs had been bred to protect livestock from wolves and brown bears. They selected three breeds for the study: Cao de Gado Transmontanos, originally from the mountains of Portugal; Karakachans, bred by nomadic shepherds in Bulgaria; and Kangals, developed to guard livestock in Turkey. The dogs were gathered as puppies and sent to the U.S., where they were used to guard 65 herds of sheep in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon.
Another finding was that when the owner and the dogs had a closer bond, the dogs performed their jobs much better. Something that might not be commonly realized in areas where they are kept exclusively for companionship or entertainment is that the different breeds of dogs are bred to gravitate to and specialize in particular activities: they have jobs they like doing.
From The Scientist : The Breeds of Guard Dogs that Best Protect Livestock: Study (2018)
and The Associated Press : Imported guard dogs deployed as part of US wolf-sheep study (2018)
and Agri-Pulse : Got wolves? USDA brings on the big dogs (2014).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday March 14 2018, @06:17AM (3 children)
Feedin the troll an all that:
All the animals and even many of the plants are quite interdependent on each other. Out in the wolves' traditional range that means they are interdependent on the wolf, especially since it is an apex predator. If you remove he wolves you ruin the whole show. Take the case of trout. If you like to catch trout out west then you need wolves. It even benefits the elk (aka wapiti, not moose) population, despite them being a food source of the wolves and the many other animals and birds that pick the leftover bones.
It's still to soon to say for sure how much benefit the large trees species have had but early indicators suggest that the result is also positive. Weak, fast-growing types like willow certainly have.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @07:11AM (2 children)
I did acknowledge that wolves bring some trivial benefits. My point is that this is not worthwhile. Lots of other things are the same way: nuking Puerto Rico will stop mosquitoes that carry zika, but is that worth the cost?
I really don't give a damn about some trivial benefits when the subject is a bloodthirsty maneater.
Take the elf for example. If you want elk, you can farm them. If wild elk get too annoying, we can hunt them.
The bit about the trout is highly suspicious. Look, you can concoct a chain of interactions that show kangaroos in Australia are helping bats in South America. Sure... but how much? It's nothing of significance. Even if trout do depend on wolves, why should we sacrifice children to get fish?
We don't have a natural ecosystem, we aren't going to get one, and being "natural" isn't ideal for us anyway. We lost the American chestnut, and we gained kudzu. There is no going back. Our nation is a giant garden now, largely artificial, to be laid out as benefits us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @10:15AM (1 child)
Still waiting on your elf example.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @11:51AM
Have you ever been to a forest with no wolves? And did you see elves there? No?
So we conclude: Where there is no wolf, there is no elf. ;-)