Wolf culling disrupts the cohesion of the pack, say scientists
ENVIRONMENT EDITOR
Thursday 04 December 2014
Culling wolves doesn’t save the lives of the sheep and cattle they feed on, according to new research which found that the more wolves that are killed the greater the risk to local livestock of being eaten.
Washington State University researchers discovered that it is counterproductive to shoot and trap wolves because losses in their numbers change the animals’ social behaviour, and encourages them to eat more sheep and cattle.
Writing in the journal Plos One, the wildlife biologist Rob Wielgus and the data analyst Kaylie Peebles say killing one wolf increases the odds of depredations by 4 per cent for sheep and 5 to 6 per cent for cattle, the following year.
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