I didn’t write this as an expert on land management and wildlife issues, or as a representative of any organization. I did write it as someone with strong concerns about where society as it relates to those issues is headed, and as an area resident who would like to meet others for informal discussions about the issues presented.
Maintaining Balance
Many years ago I was a pre-law student at the University of Nevada. One of the requirements was a course in economics. During the first few days of the class, the professor and text tried to pound into our brains that the goal was ever-increasing the bottom line: infinite growth in Gross National Product.
I dropped the course and changed my major to Wildlife Biology. Biological and ecological concepts fit naturally into my head where my brain instinctively understood the limitations of finite resources. One of those concepts, carrying capacity of an animal’s habitat, particularly resonated.
To put it simply, carrying capacity is the total number of a population that its habitat or environment can maintain indefinitely, without degradation of that environment.
Wildlife managers utilize complex mathematical formulas and computer models to determine a certain habitat’s carrying capacity for a particular species. For wildlife such as elk, habitat assessment includes not only the condition and availability of forage, but also elk cover needs and stress from predation and human encroachment.
I remember years ago observing an area that had been over-grazed by elk, in some vast stretches even down to mineral soil. This was on a portion of the Hanford Reach National Monument in south-central Washington that was closed to all public access year round and therefore at that time did not allow hunting. Plus the only large carnivores on those lands were coyotes that are ill equipped to effectively control elk populations.
Sociological Carrying Capacity
The Hanford Reach National Monument (HRNM) elk situation included another dimension of carrying capacity, tolerance for those elk on adjacent private lands. With compromised habitat on HRNM, elk would jump boundary fences at night to graze private alfalfa fields and then jump back over the fence to HRNM where hunting was not allowed. Added to the social complexity was lack of inter-government cooperation between HRNM and the state of Washington. State wildlife officials were forced to pay crop damage claims on an elk population that could not be hunted on HRNM.
Here in the Seeley-Swan and upper Blackfoot River areas, many of the wildlife conflict issues stem from lack of tolerance.
To quote from my previous Pathfinder “A Place For All” essay: “Economically, it’s a double-edged sword. Hunters, who add to revenue generation, flock to this area. But ranchers have to deal with elk damaged fences and elk foraging on crops. And grizzlies. Increasingly they are pushing further south of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex to forage in fields where they hadn’t been seen in many decades, and can be a serious factor during bovine calving. And wolves. There are several established packs in the area. Wolves may be a serious cost factor considering not only depredation claims on livestock, but preventative measures that mean additional time invested by ranch owners and the possible hiring of range-riders.”
Contrasting the lack of inter-governmental and citizen cooperation that occurred at HRNM over the elk issue, in our area we have collaborative efforts like the Blackfoot Challenge “Living With Carnivores” program. That program initiated a carcass pick-up effort where dead livestock are hauled from pastures to a state highway department maintained livestock/wildlife composting facility. Removing those carcasses and transferring them to the secure site, eliminates an attractant for bears and wolves.
The Blackfoot Challenge also has a range rider program that monitors livestock and predator activity. And the Blackfoot Challenge and MT Fish, Wildlife and Parks specialists work diligently to educate residents about living in areas occupied by predators.
Link to the Blackfoot Challenge “Living with Carnivores” video: http://biz170.inmotionhosting.com/~blackf22/Clone//new-documentary-film-features-blackfoots-innovative-wildlife-programs-take-a-look/
Human Carrying Capacity
As a species affecting our own environment, I believe we humans are exceeding our habitat’s carrying capacity, especially in certain areas of the world. In heavily populated areas, with our ever-growing dependence on finite resources, we are increasingly making it difficult and maybe even impossible, for our habitat’s recovery. But in the long ago past with far fewer people, consumption of our habitat’s resources, emissions from burning fuels and elimination of our waste did not overload our planet’s ability to compensate.
A major element of the human environment’s carrying capacity is sustainable resource extraction which allows for replenishment. But unchecked resource extraction does not. Over-population causes dramatic over-consumption of resources.
With our now global economy, we must consider developed nations’ dependence on third world resources and its effects. We need to look at habitat degradation on the global scale. One example of degradation is the practice of slash-and-burn, resulting in deforestation of huge swaths of land.
To quote from a US Forest Service website: “Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is necessary for plants and trees to grow. Forests play a specific and important role in the global carbon cycle by absorbing carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, storing carbon above and below ground and producing oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis. In the presence of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, forests become even more vital by removing CO2 from the atmosphere to mitigate the effects of climate change on the environment.” https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/niacs/carbon/forests/
Coupled with the loss of forests and their ability to absorb CO2, is the amount of CO2 emissions world-wide, with China producing the most at 30 percent and the US second, at 15 percent. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
I recently read an excellent paper, Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out, by William E. Reese, published in “Environment and Urbanization,” Vol. 4, No. 2, October 1992. From the Introduction: “While we are used to thinking of cities as geographically discreet places, most of the land ‘occupied’ by their residents lies far beyond their borders. The total area of land required to sustain an urban region (its ‘ecological footprint’) is typically at least an order of magnitude greater than that contained within municipal boundaries or the associated built-up area.”
And Climate Change
In the international discussions on climate change, I never hear specific mention of “carrying capacity.” By understanding the dynamics of wildlife populations and applying the concept of carrying capacity to the issue of climate change, it may help in formulating complex solutions to climate change.
International Panel on Climate Change Assessment: https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_first_assessment_1990_wg1.shtml
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