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Bringing back Britain's large carnivores
- Thread starter Elen Sentier
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Hi Toddy I don,t know of ??any human?? good mimic or not who is capable of being heard at a distance of 12 miles. Not even with Nigle Tufnel's speakers that "go all the way up to eleven"
Yodelling.
Not modern 'country' singing, but the real kind; practiced from Tibet to Switzerland.
It's position and harmonics.
Even the British woodland calls echo for a heck of a distance.
Toddy
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RICKY RASPER
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Until I hear a Wolf utter the syllable "yo" I'll stick with my own personal experience of them.
I think you may be confusing the the Iberian peninsula with the Pyrenees.
Here is a map showing the relatively recent distribution of European wolves Needs a little updating..... wolf signs have been recently been recorded in the S.W. & N.E. of France for example,
I don't deny that an odd Spanish wolf or two has left it's usual territory, headed east & taken a hike on the Spanish side of the pyrenees, particually in the western ranges but there haven't been stable populations. Officially at least...... The little green splodge on the eastern pyrenees on the map are the occasional sightings of the Italian wolves I mentioned in an earlier post.
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Lung capacity
and the howl actually does modulate across it's length......
Star's howl didn't. At least none discernable to the ear. And even as a hybrid she didn't have a true bark. But then neither do full malamutes.
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Yeah, that's the perception, but mind our hearing is different from that of a wolf.
The link I posted gives a bit more of the technical detail of the wolf's howl. It's actually an interesting topic, and worth a read.
There are old European (think Celtic, horrible definition though that might be for a pan European Culture) wind instruments that got a fair bit of research not so long ago.
I have heard a carnyx, the boar headed long horn, howl...........and it does howl
it almost feels like the wind's alive 
and there's the Dacian Draco, a similar instrument but with a wolf's head.
Sorry Elen; we have rather taken your thread on a tangent
cheers,
M
The link I posted gives a bit more of the technical detail of the wolf's howl. It's actually an interesting topic, and worth a read.
There are old European (think Celtic, horrible definition though that might be for a pan European Culture) wind instruments that got a fair bit of research not so long ago.
I have heard a carnyx, the boar headed long horn, howl...........and it does howl
it almost feels like the wind's alive and there's the Dacian Draco, a similar instrument but with a wolf's head.Sorry Elen; we have rather taken your thread on a tangent
cheers,
M
R
RICKY RASPER
Guest
Here is a map showing the relatively recent distribution of European wolves Needs a little updating..... wolf signs have been recently been recorded in the S.W. & N.E. of France for example,
I don't deny that an odd Spanish wolf or two has left it's usual territory, headed east & taken a hike on the Spanish side of the pyrenees, particually in the western ranges but there haven't been stable populations. Officially at least...... The little green splodge on the eastern pyrenees on the map are the occasional sightings of the Italian wolves I mentioned in an earlier post.
A question to you. When do the Pyrenees stop being the Pyrenees and become the Cantabrian Range? This range effectively starts on the Mediterranean at Andorra then runs continuously to the Atlantic (with a brief but not complete intrusion of the Castile and León Plateau) on the west before swinging in a massive convulsive fracture southwards to become what is known as the Sierra De Gatta. And wolves can be found along it's entire length! Although granted numbers vary with climatic variations which are extreme along this vast chain , one side of a mountain in the west may be lush and fertile and the other like an arid dessert. As for a wolf crossing from the southern side of the Pyrenees to the northern side? I find it difficult to conceive or or even imagine!
Fair enough. But the topic of our discussion was whether a human could imitate the wolf's howl well enough to be indicernable to the human ear. The wolf (at least my wolf) can maintain a howl (on a single note at a level of modulation undetectable to the human ear) for a period near or longer than a full minute. I've never yet heard any human capable of doing that. Yodeling by it very nature is a varying modulation.
We have about 150 wolfs living in Lithuania, cannot say a bad word about them, unlike Bison which has proved to be very difficult to keep back in wood and away from farm fields. Farmers do not work with the animals, do not fence their properties, but moan about the loss of harvest and ask for $$$$ therefore government now regrets putting back the animal to the nature (they were hunted out about 200 years back).
Really not surprising. Bison aren't woods animals; they're prairie (or grassland) creatures.
european wood bison is
we've got bears and wolves, eurasian lynx (though they're very elusive, and often cross border between croatia and neighboring slovenia) and golden jackal concerning big predators.
in wild, I've seen jackal and a fox (which ate half of my supplies)
encountered a number of bear droppings and tracks (some quite fresh) while hiking on samarske stijene, it makes one feel wary
jackals have spread through the whole territory (before they were indigenous to the south parts of croatia).
wolves do some damage to farmers (cattle, sheep), but even attacks on humans have occurred - pretty recently, too.
Mile
we've got bears and wolves, eurasian lynx (though they're very elusive, and often cross border between croatia and neighboring slovenia) and golden jackal concerning big predators.
in wild, I've seen jackal and a fox (which ate half of my supplies)
encountered a number of bear droppings and tracks (some quite fresh) while hiking on samarske stijene, it makes one feel wary
jackals have spread through the whole territory (before they were indigenous to the south parts of croatia).
wolves do some damage to farmers (cattle, sheep), but even attacks on humans have occurred - pretty recently, too.
Mile
I think you may be confusing the the Iberian peninsula with the Pyrenees.
Here is a map showing the relatively recent distribution of European wolves Needs a little updating..... wolf signs have been recently been recorded in the S.W. & N.E. of France for example,
I don't deny that an odd Spanish wolf or two has left it's usual territory, headed east & taken a hike on the Spanish side of the pyrenees, particually in the western ranges but there haven't been stable populations. Officially at least...... The little green splodge on the eastern pyrenees on the map are the occasional sightings of the Italian wolves I mentioned in an earlier post.
The map misses a lot of wolves in Germany and the sighting in the Netherlands too.
Yeah I know...........I did say it needed updating but it was the most recent distribution map I could find
.......won't be long before I have wolves at my door at the rate they're spreading..
european wood bison is
And so were Eastern wood bison here once. Trouble is that those were eradicated completely. Were the re-introduced animals European Wood bison? Or were they also eradicated (hence the need for re-introduction) and the replacement/re-intros from a more available prairie bison?
I would like to see the reintroduction of the wolf, but I know it will not happen in my life time.
I don't think we should regard it as non-native because it's been absent for 300 years. That is a very short time, when you think they have been present for 10 000 years before that. They are genetically the same as they were.
Like all things in ecology, you cannot consider the wolf in isolation. It disappeared because of habitat loss and human attitudes towards them. So the first step has to be reintroduction of habitat. There is an ongoing program to restore the Caledonian pine forest. Obviously a very large area would be required, with corridors connecting different areas. This is a very, very long term idea.
Then there is attitudes. Europeans and Scandinavians who have wolves seem much less anxious about them than the British, who don't. I think it likely that an eventual lynx reintroduction might pave the way for a rather more emotive animal.
I do think it odd that if the wolf had been almost, but not completely wiped out, it would be protected by law, with massive efforts to save it. But because it disappeared, people think: 'well, it's gone, can't do anything about it now.'
It's true that there may be some livestock losses, though these do not seem to be a huge problem elsewhere in Europe. Of course, if you take the view that livestock losses are more important than biodiversity, you should be campaigning for the total eradication of the fox, and nobody argues for that.
I don't think we should regard it as non-native because it's been absent for 300 years. That is a very short time, when you think they have been present for 10 000 years before that. They are genetically the same as they were.
Like all things in ecology, you cannot consider the wolf in isolation. It disappeared because of habitat loss and human attitudes towards them. So the first step has to be reintroduction of habitat. There is an ongoing program to restore the Caledonian pine forest. Obviously a very large area would be required, with corridors connecting different areas. This is a very, very long term idea.
Then there is attitudes. Europeans and Scandinavians who have wolves seem much less anxious about them than the British, who don't. I think it likely that an eventual lynx reintroduction might pave the way for a rather more emotive animal.
I do think it odd that if the wolf had been almost, but not completely wiped out, it would be protected by law, with massive efforts to save it. But because it disappeared, people think: 'well, it's gone, can't do anything about it now.'
It's true that there may be some livestock losses, though these do not seem to be a huge problem elsewhere in Europe. Of course, if you take the view that livestock losses are more important than biodiversity, you should be campaigning for the total eradication of the fox, and nobody argues for that.
I very much agree with you. We seem to be particularly paranoid in this country about sharing out land and our lives with creatures we have been taught to be frightened of. As you say, other European countries where wolves are normal are much less so, out attitudes seem comparable to similar ones in the US - in both countries the wolf is a very "emotive animal". I've found Shaun Ellis' work with farmers in these European countries very interesting.
As you and others say, biodiversity is the underlying thing, going right down to molecular critters, even beyond insects. We are horrendously out of biological balance in this country, goodness knows if we have the collective nous to grow and change our attitudes to understnad this and so be able to do something about it. I'm not holding my breath!
Interestingly, there have been many sightings (including by me) of "big cats" of puma/leopard size in our area, around the Forest of Dean. Last time I saw one was with a sheep-farmer friend. The cat came over the hedge from one of her fields about 25 ft ahead of us. She told me she'd seen the cat several times over the previous 5 years and wasn't in the least worried as she had never lost any sheep to the beast, nor had her neighbours who had also seen the beast. The various protests about the devastation large predators might wreak in this country rings somewhat political when I talk with my farmer friends. As you say the reintroduction of the lynx may well help.
If the farmers have their way we won't have any badgers , never mind wolves or lynx.
Presumably the fish farmers want herons eradicated too?Birds of prey are already commonly killed by the hundreds.
A tiny bit less self-interest would do so much for the bio-diversity of Britain.I find it depressing when the scramble to landgrab for more and more housing is at the cost of irreplaceable habitat for some of our most beautiful species.I feel that snakes , and reptiles in general have had such bad press that it is only a matter of time before there are none left.
One common denominator between the species which are regularly oppressed is the fear of them felt by so many people.Before we introduce any of our once-native carnivores back to the UK there must be a determined effort beginning in schools , to rationalise the perceived fear of certain creatures and to recognise their contribution to the ecology of the country.
I'd love to see wolves on the Lake District fells but I'm sure that if they saw me first I would be unaware of their existence.
Cheers , Simon
Presumably the fish farmers want herons eradicated too?Birds of prey are already commonly killed by the hundreds.
A tiny bit less self-interest would do so much for the bio-diversity of Britain.I find it depressing when the scramble to landgrab for more and more housing is at the cost of irreplaceable habitat for some of our most beautiful species.I feel that snakes , and reptiles in general have had such bad press that it is only a matter of time before there are none left.
One common denominator between the species which are regularly oppressed is the fear of them felt by so many people.Before we introduce any of our once-native carnivores back to the UK there must be a determined effort beginning in schools , to rationalise the perceived fear of certain creatures and to recognise their contribution to the ecology of the country.
I'd love to see wolves on the Lake District fells but I'm sure that if they saw me first I would be unaware of their existence.
Cheers , Simon
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