Posted on 05/07/2018 8:14:04 PM PDT by BenLurkin
In recent years, sightings of large predators in places where conventional wisdom says they "shouldn't be" have increased, in large part because local populations, once hunted to near-extinction, are rebounding—thanks to conservation.
Many observers have hypothesized that as these populations recover the predators are expanding their ranges and colonizing new habitats in search of food.
A Duke University-led paper published today in the journal Current Biology suggests otherwise.
It finds that, rather than venturing into new and alien habitats for the first time, alligators, sea otters and many other large predators—marine and terrestrial species alike—are re-colonizing ecosystems that used to be prime hunting grounds for them before humans decimated their populations and well before scientists started studying them.
"We can no longer chock up a large alligator on a beach or coral reef as an aberrant sighting," said Brian Silliman, Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "It's not an outlier or short-term blip. It's the old norm, the way it used to be before we pushed these species onto their last legs in hard-to-reach refuges. Now, they are returning."
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Not really, Central park is too small. in the wild, tigers keep a territory of 100 to 450 sq km. While Central park is only about 4 sq km
We’ve got wolves here in Idaho and you have them in Washington. The grizzly won’t need introduced. You’ll have them as well. The Idaho and Montana populations are expanding. The grizzly ranged clear into Mexico at one time. When in grizzly country never hike alone and always take a fellow hiker and a 22 pistol. You can’t out run a bear up hill or down. So shoot your fellow hiker in the foot. Now you just have to out run the other hiker. Oh and take pepper spray to put on you hiking mate. Bears love spicy food.
I grew up in grizzly and cougar country and I’d rather run into a bear in the woods than a cougar.
If you see the bear there’s a 50/50 chance it hasn’t seen you at all.
If you see the cat there’s a 99% chance it’s been hunting you for the last 20 minutes.
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Really? I've encountered a mountain lion a couple times in AZ and they both seemed determined to ignore me. One walked past me at twilight about 6 feet away, never turned it's gaze to me. Never been stalked on a hike, AFAIK.
Even if one of them got some kind of idea, I'd still be fighting off an animal that's roughly my size. Not so with a grizzly!
The lions are dangerous to petite females and children, and of course most pets. I cringe when I see small children riding bikes and tricycles in my desert neighborhood. The neighborhood is secluded and is considered a "safe" area in terms of crime, but in most places the dense desert underbrush comes right up to the road. A lion could pop out a drag a small child away in less time than it takes to read this sentence.
Hunting is a fading pursuit, especially for small game. Encroachment on “wild” places is largely to blame but there are other reasons.
That leaves a lot of “free meat” roaming around and something is going to take advantage. I’ve got cottontails in my front yard as we speak, and yesterday there was a young black bear tranked and removed from downtown Manchester, N.H.
Get used to it. You can’t set out a free buffet and expect nobody to take advantage. Ready for wolves in the suburbs?
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Tigers don’t eat clowns, they taste funny.
I am amazed at the idiocy of the article.
The idea is to have people to believe all habitat belongs to animals, and that man is an interloper.
The reality is humans are the top predator on the planet, but we had to fight for it.
Now the deep green fascists want us to give up our top position to other predators, in the name of the Earth Goddess.
I hear some of those gray wolves are like 200 lbs !
Had that here in Savannah too, but, this gator just walked up on the beach.
We also have a large number of otters and mink around. I’ve seen Foxes running around too.
And they occasionally find bear on Ft. Stewart and in the Okefenokee.
No way!
I think of them as cold climate animals.
Wild pigs by the herd, Coyotes, Boa’s, black bears, Bob cats, Gators, Pumas, they are all over in FLA., and you aren’t permitted to use a fire arm in our HOA community??? Cane frogs, Cuban tree frogs, 100’s of foreign fish species living in our canals, FLA what a state.
Yes, there is that area in Orlando (ok closer to Sanford) where folks keep getting eaten by bears...can’t remember the name of the area.
We don’t have any pew-mas in the cravassas though.
Not really, Central park is too small. in the wild, tigers keep a territory of 100 to 450 sq km. While Central park is only about 4 sq km
Well we could give them Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore or New Jersey.
Thanks Robert A Cook PE.
Why not? We've already got coyotes, mountain lions and MS-13.
But they would never run out of liberals.
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