Wolf Murder

[Mike B]

I heard on the radio today that a number of wolves in a Scottish park have been destroyed for displaying natural behaviour.The wolves (all males) have been destroyed for fighting amongst themselves for the position of Alpha male after the death of the previous Alpha male through old age.I find this move outragous after establishing the pack and then allowing them to follow patterns of natural behaviour up until now. To destroy them because they are following instinct and actually behaving like a wolf pack should is absolutely diabolical.Mike B...

 

[tomtom]

i would like to hear more information on this, by whome where they 'murdered'.

 

[scanker]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/5004766.stm

But experts said the six animals had to be euthanised because they were "not portraying their natural behaviour".

 

[torjusg]

Let's hope they treat those scandinavian wolves a little better. Or they will get me on their necks! :aargh4: :AR15firin

Torjus Gaaren

 

[Pappa]

This explains the decision a bit more clearly:

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=761572006

"When things start to go wrong and they lose their pack structure they start very aggressive behaviour and start attacking each other when there is no natural leader," she said."That for us is where the welfare issue comes in. If they were in the wild it would be resolved quickly as they could move away from each other, but they are not and they would have continued to attack each other."

(My emphasis)

Bah-humbug! The simple answer would be to give them more room.

Pappa

 

[BorderReiver]

Natural behaviour for a wolf is to roam and hunt over very large areas of land.

Not easy to do in an enclosure.

What did they expect.

 

[British Red]

Don't you just love that word "euthanised". Whatever the rights and wrongs, that form of politically sensitive phraseology sets my teeth on edge. Those creature were not "euthanised", "culled" or even "destroyed". They were killed. You can argue the pros and cons but facts are facts. If I hunt, I set out to kill - quickly and painlessly but I'm not afraid of the word.

Red

 

[Abbe Osram]

Let's hope they treat those scandinavian wolves a little better. Or they will get me on their necks! :aargh4: :AR15firin

Torjus Gaaren

I am afraid that you have a hard time ahead as there is a lot of illigael hunting going on up here. Mostly done from snow-maschines done by Sami people.
The police usually dont get them. The swedish goverment are now starting up a special unit to get the poachers.

cheers
Abbe

 

[Mike B]

The radio program I listened to today painted it quite differently leaving out the bit about moving away from each other. The reports in the links seem to suggest that the pack was being kept in close confinement, while the radio show suggested that they had rather a large area over which to roam and could have moved away from each other if they so wished. The fact that the Alpha female rejected the Beta male can and occasionally does happen in nature. The other pack members then fight to determine the right to move into the vacant Alpha male position and re establish the heirachy. To me this IS natural behaviour and if pack members have to be euthanised,killed, culled whatever,as a result of irrecoverable injuries then so be it.The fact that these animals were killed because they may or may not kill each other doesn't hold water with me.
Mike B...

 

[Lurch]

I don't know the actual geography of the area but I'm confident in saying that in wolf terms it would be a tiny area. Not possible therefore for the rejected members to go far away enough for the pack's liking.
A shame the wolves were killed but nothing I'd get too het up about. It's not like the actions endangered the species or anything.

 

[Tony]

I listened to this while I was in the car yesterday. It would seem that the area they were in is about the size of 3 football pitches. Usually a pack of say 5 wolves roam an area of 85 square km, so there’s quite a difference there. The point was made that usually the wolves would run away and therefore the dominance of the Alpha would be established, not just by killing the other competitors as is the case in their small area where they can’t escape.

Putting aside the rights and wrongs of having the wolves there…

The keepers were in the position of having the wolves tear chunks out of each other and it would seem gradually destroying each other over time as they fought. IT doesn’t seem that they would have a fight and one would die, it was prolonged. The decision, right or wrong was to stop the suffering of the wolves because they were getting so damaged.

There’s lots of issues with this but I can see that the keepers were between a rock and hard place. The Wolves were acting naturally, but it was getting extreme because of the unnatural environment. I’d not like to be in the position they found themselves, it’s a loose loose one.