Biologist John Laundre is here with us again to debunk the "fake news" that seems to continually come out of the outdoor publication, GRAND VIEW OUTDOORS.................Their recent article entitled EXPLAINING USFWS, HSUS WAR AGAINST PREDATOR HUNTING demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge regarding predator and prey dynamics and can only be described as "manic rants of ignorance" and bold-faced lies..............As John and so many of his esteemed scientists in the field have surmised after decades of peer reviewed research----"There is no reason for killing predators other than ignorance, greed, and an egocentric view that all of nature should be run just for the kill-lust of hunters!"............... "It is time we ALL have a say in how wildlife, especially predators are managed"

THE GRAND VIEW OUTDOORS MAGAZINE is the epitome of "FAKE NEWS" as it relates
to the roles of predator and prey in nature

by; Biologist John Laundre

Well that hunting ragazine, Grand View Outdoors has done it again! In an article titled "Explaining USFWS', HSUS' war against predator hunting (http://www.grandviewoutdoors.com/predator-hunting/explaining-usfws-war-predator-hunting/?), the author precedes to lambast these two entities for what he calls their "unscientific" and biased resistance to uncontrolled predator hunting. He then proceeds to fill his article with unscientific and biased reasons why we should eliminate, not manage, but eliminate predators, especially wolves! His inaccuracies are too many to cite them all but I do offer a rebuttal to a few of his more outlandish statements.

 The most glaring obviously is his insistence that 20,000 plus elk in Yellowstone Park were first of all a stable and second a desirable population level for the Park! All who knew Yellowstone before wolves agreed that the elk were far from stable and that these many elk were killing the Park ecosystems! The rejuvenation of the park after wolves is evidence to that! He also failed to mention that back when humans killed elk in the Park to control them, most hunters also gladly agreed there were too many elk, because they then got a chance to kill them! As for the tourist dollars supposedly lost, those have been clearly made up by increased dollars to come and see wolves…alive! 

His examples from Alaska are also bogus and obviously does not want to be bothered by "facts" and "reality". Does he not realize that before white people came with their logging, their sports hunting, their building homes everywhere, there were plenty of caribou and moose AND wolves! What changed? Did wolves get more efficient? I doubt it. The problems they are having in Alaska are not from the wolves, they are from the people that have moved there! This is in fact the situation worldwide before humans "managed" these systems! Now after millennia of prey AND predator abundance, there is a problem with predators? What reality does the author live in? It is the mismanagement of wildlife and the massive habitat alterations that are occurring, with the blessing of hunters, that are impacting wildlife in Alaska! 

Puma with a Deer meal

It is rightfully so that the National Wildlife Refuges of Alaska should NOT be controlled by a bunch of biased hunters, guides, trappers, and other political hacks that only constitute 12%, yes only 12% of Alaskans hunt!, and have a vested interest in running Alaska simply for their economic gain! These groups have time and time again demonstrated they know less of how nature works than "doctors, lawyers, and the like", or…the rest of us!

On to Idaho where he says the wolves have decimated the elk herds everywhere. I guess he failed to include the data that show just the opposite, with even growing herds because of mild winters! It's the weather stupid! Again, he complains about the revenue lost due to reduced human hunting. These small towns could have easily increased their revenue, year round, by promoting wolf watching! But did they? No, they continue to insist that large areas of land owned by all of us should be managed for less than the 5% of us that hunt elk and the less than 1% of us that live there! As with Alaska and all his views, the fact that he insists on putting everything in terms of what is best for human hunters and not the rest of us (95%) or the health of the natural systems, he clearly shows the selfish attitude that nature should be run by the hunters and for the hunters…period.

Why should we run the natural world for less than 5% of the population? Where are "Sisters" # 1 and 3 of the North American Model for Wildlife CONSERVATION (NAM)? Where is the public trust (#1)…what is democratic (#3), about just 5% of the population having the only say about wildlife that is supposed to belong to ALL of us? 

 Why does GRAND VIEW OUTDOORS feel justified in calling
for a repeat of our 19th centuryslaughter of both hoofed
 browsers and carnivores?

Regarding his brief mention of predators and livestock again shows his complete ignorance of the situation concerningpredation on livestock. Livestock losses from predators are minimal (less than 1% for cattle) and only rarely do coyotes do the "human" thing of killing more than what they need. Ranchers lose more head of livestock to poor husbandry and rustlers! Read the chapter on predation effects on livestock in the book "Animal Welfare in Extensive Production Systems"  (https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Welfare-Extensive-Production-Systems/dp/1910455547) to get a balanced unbiased view of just how serious predation is on livestock. It is not!

Lastly, he clearly demonstrates why hunters should NOT be put in control of wildlife management simply because of his final statement: "No Seasons, No License, No limits". This is not "Management" it is the view of an ignorant position that shows a lack of knowledge of how nature works.  It is a view from our dark past where people killed just to kill. It is a view that demonstrates that this kill lust still motivates hunting and hunters. The 5th "Sister" of the NAM clearly states that wildlife should not be killed for FRIVOLOUS reasons. The SCIENCE (Sister #7) clearly shows that killing predators to "control" them has no scientific basis and therefore killing them for that reason constitutes a frivolous reason. There is no reason for killing predators other than ignorance, greed, and an egocentric view that ALL of nature should be run just for the kill-lust of hunters! It is time we ALL have a say in how wildlife, especially predators are managed.
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John Laundre is co-author of the landmark LANDSCAPE OF FEAR PARADIGM

The Landscape of Fear: Ecological Implications of Being Afraid John W. Laundré*,1, Lucina Hernández1 and William J. Ripple2 1 Department of Biological Sciences, SUNY Oswego, Oswego, NY 13126, USA 2 Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA

Abstract: “Predation risk” and “fear” are concepts well established in animal behavior literature. We expand these concepts to develop the model of the “landscape of fear”. The landscape of fear represents relative levels of predation risk as peaks and valleys that reflect the level of fear of predation a prey experiences in different parts of its area of use. We provide observations in support of this model regarding changes in predation risk with respect to habitat types, and terrain characteristics. 

We postulate that animals have the ability to learn and can respond to differing levels of predation risk. We propose that the landscape of fear can be quantified with the use of well documented existing methods such as givingup densities, vigilance observations, and foraging surveys of plants. We conclude that the landscape of fear is a useful visual model and has the potential to become a unifying ecological concept