Madness has to Stop!

Linear Thinking

What is linear thinking? It is a decision making process that involves one dimension only. Other descriptors for this style of thinking are, sequential, myopic and simplistic.

In a scientific application, linear thinking would involve an experiment where only one variable would be studied. Therefore, linear thinking would be totally useless in studying an ecosystem.

Paul Paquet, Canadian wolf biologist and a large carnivore expert told me that biologists do not fully understand the complexities of a multiple prey, multiple predator ecosystem. He also gave me this important advice, good ethics produces good science.

The Province of BC is using linear thinking in implementing their brutal aerial wolf cull. These wildlife officials think they can just eliminate the wolf and caribou populations will grow! They mention caribou habitat destruction through logging, which is the major contributing factor for caribou decline but they do nothing to stop this destruction. The logging destroys the food source (lichens) that caribou feed on but their strategy is to kill wolves that are not destroying these lichens. See how brilliant their linear thinking is! There is no understanding on these officials part of understanding the complexities of a multiple prey, multiple predator ecosystem.

Before an aerial wolf cull was initiated, it should have gone through an environmental assessment which would look at these factors, dismiss linear thinking and use an ecosystem-based approach to determine whether it is sound environmental policy. If the environmental assessment would approve of this aerial cull, it could only have been written by corrupt officials.

Rick Page, a former Ministry of Forests biologist stated, “In North America, every herd of caribou has declined once the forest has been logged, no exceptions over the last two centuries. This means caribou are doomed because of this logging. 

If we harken back to our childhood days when we played in large mud puddles, our boats went up and down as we created waves in these mud puddles. We could never isolate one boat from not being affected by the waves.

So how do these linear thinking biologists and wildlife officials figure that they can kill many wolves and save caribou, when there are many other variables at play in these multiple prey, multiple predator ecosystems?

We have mentioned the main variable of habitat destruction (logging); there is industrial road access for predators, climate change is making these forests more wildfire prone which destroys more habitat, other predators kill caribou such as bears, cougars, and wolverines. Caribou are not an adaptable species as they eat only lichen which is slow growing and because logging destroys the lichen, caribou starve. Caribou are also highly affected by industrial activity and they will abandon logging areas for up to 40 years, and they become stressed which causes them to reproduce less. Caribou only have 1 calf at a time  so their reproductive rate keeps their population low and when stressed, it further reduces their population growth. Caribou do not like to be near moose or deer because wolves and other predators live near these cervids, so their territory is further impacted. Killing wolves does not mitigate all these destructive variables.

So Stan Boutin (Univ. Of Alberta biologist) wants to kill wolves for 40 years to bring back caribou. Given that Boutin is from Alberta and Albertans are known to be avid wolf killers, you can see the origin of this ridiculous linear thinking. Boutin’s cult of white colonist biologists, Adam T. Ford, Rob Serrouya, Melanie Dickie, and Clayton Lamb have infected the thinking of both Alberta and BC government wildlife officials.

So let’s compare their linear thinking approach with Indigenous traditional knowledge of ecosystems. I will use the St’at’mic people but many other FN groups in BC have identical principles and traditional practices. 

“We have what’s called an ecosystem-based land management plan and in there it talks about everything; not just water but the land. Everything works together, the whole ecosystem.”

                  Herman Alec (Xaxlip)

St’at’mic have the responsibility to look after the animals, fish, birds, water and other living beings with compassion. Other beings and elements of the environment must not be killed indiscriminately or in anger.

“Everything is connected. All these stories are trying to connect the wolf, to the fish, to the bear, to the frog and they are all connected to the waters and the forest. Finally, in each story is an animal and a plant because you cannot live without the other.”

                    Rosalin Sam Edmonds (Lil’wat)

You can see there is no linear thinking in the St’at’mic beliefs and practices in managing the ecosystems. These people among other FN groups in BC state, “We don’t kill one species for the benefit of another.”

Exceptions are the West Moberly FN, Saulteaux FN, Takla FN and Blueberry River FN that are working in conjunction with BC wildlife officials in killing wolves to try to increase caribou populations so they can hunt the caribou. Yes, these FN groups want to eventually eat caribou, so they want to build up these herds for their traditional food but wolves can not eat caribou! These FN groups have abandoned their traditional knowledge and sided with the corrupt BC wildlife officials!

Wolves provide many ecological services which benefits other species. Examples are fertilizing the forests by taking salmon into the forest and because wolves eat only the head, the remainder of the salmon decomposes and fertilizes the trees. Wolves also prevent wildlife diseases from spreading because they kill the sick animals.

A major ecological service wolves provide is feeding many other animals. When the wolves kill a large animal such as moose, elk and bison, after they have finished eating it provides food for many other animals.

An observed example was in Banff National Park where on many occasions, biologists observed 37 other species feeding off of wolf kills. Many scavengers such as coyotes, foxes, wolverines, badgers, bald eagles, golden eagles and bears were fed from these wolf kills.

So when the BC government reduces wolf density to meagre population levels like 1 wolf/1,000 sq. Km, this also affects all these other animals that depend on wolf kills. So what are the  ecological services that foxes provide such as rodent control and helping to stop spread of diseases by rodents. Bears also help fertilize the forests like wolves do by eating the salmon in forests. Coyotes can keep ungulates in check so they don’t over browse the vegetation and trees. This helps riparian environments so there are trees to shade creeks and rivers for the fish. Eagles also assist with disease control by scavenging from dead animals. Beavers which are ecosystem engineers need trees for food and shelter and therefore dependent on wolves and coyotes to keep ungulates under control from over browsing the trees. Their dams and ponds help to alleviate droughts and flood control. Wolves helped bring back the beavers in Yellowstone National Park.

The architects of this disastrous aerial wolf cull are ignoring all the beneficial ecological services provided by wolves and damaging the important functioning of healthy ecosystems. We will eventually pay for this ill advised wolf cull when ecosystems collapse because of biodiversity loss. These white colonist biologists with their PhD’s in linear thinking have already established BC as having the greatest biodiversity loss of any jurisdiction in the Dominion of Canada.

They need to learn the St’at’imc way of ecosystem-based management and not linear thinking!

This Madness has to Stop!