Wolfes as AUTOMATIC KILLING MACHINES?!!!

Dan

Dan

Well-Known Member
How about that for an eye-catching headline, eh? :p

Sorry... now for the serious part of my post:

A post I made in another thread, where I saluted the fact that wolves are now making a serious comeback in my country, made me think about an argument/theory that I have seen been used both by people like me who defend the species as well as by the anti-wolf mafia.

When wolves live nearby people, wolves will eventually now and then kill livestock. An argument has been raised that when wolves for instance attack a pack of sheep, enclosed in a fenced area, the wolves will "go crazy" and kill all sheep in a sort of "killing frenzy" and won´t stop until all sheep are dead. The theory would be that the very fact that the sheep are FENCED IN, and cannot escape, would trigger this "killing frenzy" and, sort of, "cut off" the natural instinct to just settle down when a satisfying meal is already secured.

Any thoughts on this?
 
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The solution for this problem it´s easy, biggest dogs (with necklaces of thorns ) for to protect the sheeps against the wolf pack, in Spain are the same problem, but with this measure the sheeps killed are decreasing a lot.
 
The cheetah project in Namibia is using Romanian and/or Turkish guard dogs. These dogs are used in their home country to keep bears and wolves away from livestock.

I guess in Western Europe most farmers have outlearned this tactic. Incidentally, livestock killings are in large parts of their range a most welcome excuse to indiscriminately kill predators. Good that Spain may be an exception here (look at France ...)! ;)
 
on a documentery I watched once it inculded wolf attacks. The problem with a town is that they had an open tip that caused wolves to come into the area due to the smell. The had tried to solve the problem by moving the tip far away from the town and guarding the area with massive dogs.

Though a staff member eventually was killed in the nearby woods the evidence is uncertain to prove who is the killer a wolf or a bear. Being that a crew went out to look for him after he had been missing once they found his body they went back for officials but his body was gone when they came back. And pack of wolves or a wolf or a bear could of been the culprit of killing or dragging his carcass.

Simliar to the case of Clinton Carnegi. The thing to due with some predators is to drive them away from what they are scared of e.g. in India tiger urine is used to prevent elephants raiding crops.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
The cheetah project in Namibia is using Romanian and/or Turkish guard dogs. These dogs are used in their home country to keep bears and wolves away from livestock.

I guess in Western Europe most farmers have outlearned this tactic. Incidentally, livestock killings are in large parts of their range a most welcome excuse to indiscriminately kill predators. Good that Spain may be an exception here (look at France ...)! ;)
Click to expand...

unfortunately in Spain they kill wolves too, but under "local administration" control, the money for this "trophy hunt" go (in part) to the shepherd for to mitigate the losses.
 
"Killing frenzy" has been observed in various examples of the same scenario: "Predator breaks into enclosure with many potential prey animals"-may it be mustelids, felidae, canidae, quolls etc. In former times, this was attributed to the "blood-thirsty inner nature" of the predator and became even a common phrase to describe uncontrolled aggression and destruction in some languages.

I don't think a dubious "blood thirst" can be blamed for this behaviour. Rather, I suspect a sensory overload - all those fearful movements and smells concentrated in a confined area might be a bit much for a hungry predator to handle. This doesn't seem to be limited on wild predators, too; there are several cases of domestic dogs causing mayhem and animal losses in livestock herds (especially sheep) and zoos. The dachshund of one of my grandfather managed to injure and kill almost the whole flamingo flock of the local zoo...

Livestock guardian dogs are an interesting option, but as big dogs, also have a big appetite not all farmers/shepherds are willing to pay for...And even with LGDs around, some farmers will neverless lose some livestock - and thus also shoot and poison predators if given the chance.
 
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Thanks for interesting answers. The phenomenon seems to be well known, accepted as a fact and Sun Wukong describes it very well: "... sensory overload - all those fearful movements and smells concentrated in a confined area...".
 
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