A collaboration of researchers from B.C., Alberta, and Israel studied hair samples from 103 tundra/taiga wolves from Nunavut and the Northwest Territories against 45 wolves from the boreal forests of Alberta and the Northwest Territories........Their findings reinforce previous studies that have suggested that hunting can disrupt a wolf pack’s complex social structure, alter normal reproductive behaviour and introduce chronic stress that may have evolutionary consequences........... Hunting can also decrease pack size, resulting in altered predation patterns, increased time spent defending kill sites from scavengers and may lead to increased conflict with humans and livestock...............Any sentient creature, whether they be the human animal or the wolf, bear and puma willl experience stress and altered behaviour and lifestyle if their life is constantly on the line...............A perfect example of this in the human animal can be found in the middle east with the Israel/Arab 70 year conflict............ To my way of thinking, the constant presence of war and destruction from enemies on every border has led to an Israeli paranoia that makes it hard for them to stop settlement building in the West Bank---a detriment to a two state Israeli/Palestine peace paradigm(one of many elements at play-----e.g the insane Palestinian obsession to destroy Israel---- in this volatile region causing aberrant thinking by every nation in the region)..............It is no wonder then that a pressured Wolf pack that gets splintered due to our obsession with reducing their population leads to all types of aberrant wolf behaviours and ultimately alters the optimum top down/bottom up trophic pressures that yield a healthy ecosystem

read Vancouver Sun cynopsis of the peer reviewed paper
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Heavily+hunted+wolf+populations+have+elevated+stress/10374289/story.html#__federated=1

read full peer reviewed paper by clicking on link below:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=db83cda7d2&view=att&th=149a581f5096b71c&attid=0.1&disp=inline&realattid=f_i2f2kwq30&safe=1&zw

Heavily-hunted wolf populations

 have elevated stress, reproductive

 hormones, study reveals

BY LARRY PYNN, VANCOUVER SUN NOVEMBER 12, 2014

STORY

• PHOTOS ( 4 )

Wolves from heavily hunted populations

 in northern Canada show elevated stress

 and reproductive hormones — physiological 

effects that could have evolutionary 

implications — according to a study

 published Wednesday in the scientific

 journal Functional Ecology. This undated

 file photo provided by Yellowstone National

 Park shows a wolf walking through the

 snow in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

Photograph by: Yellowstone National Park, 

File , AP Photo

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