Quote:
Originally Posted by Trochu
I wish he'd carried on a bit more. I'm not a biologist, live in the mountains, or have much interaction with wolves. But, if he had carried on, wouldn't it be:
-Wolf pack can no longer sustain themselfs due to the growing pack and declining ungulates;
-Wolf pack starts dying off/moves to another valley as there is less food;
-Less wolves, ungulates population starts increasing?
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"Less" wolves does not ensure ungulate populations will increase.
The catch phrase is "Predator Pit".
Prey populations get so low that they can't rebound as long as there is ANY predation mortality. Such as we are experiencing with caribou in many places.
Lewis and Clarke experience such a phenomenon during their travels.
This is why the crew nearly starved to death and resorted to eating their best friends (mules and dogs) in order to survive. The expedition entered a landscape that was so large and completely devoid of life that they ran out of supplies before they could transverse the area. Predators had consumed Everything for hundreds of miles, then themselves died or left.... it took nearly a century for wildlife to repopulate the void. On Nature's terms, this was/is fine.