The slower their reproductive cycle, the higher the risk of extinction for large grazing animals such as deer and antelope that are hunted by humans.
Story in Science Daily.
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Reproductive Speed Protects Large Animals From Being Hunted To Extinction
Author
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
2 responses to “Reproductive Speed Protects Large Animals From Being Hunted To Extinction”
An interesting but not terribly surprising study. That would be one of the main reasons why coyotes have been more successfuly than wolves in the past 100-200 years (also b/c coyotes live at higher densities and have smaller home ranges making it harder to get rid of all of them and b.c they can survive on smaller prey).
That’s what I thought when I read it.
Pretty much everything done in terms of predator control has overall selected in favor of coyotes and even promoted their expansion.
That’s probably true for other small, generalist predatory species.