i was just reading about the wolves here in america. and i have come up with something that may be new to some, i know it is something i have never thought of before, and that is. When Humans see something that may inhibit there way of life we try and get rid of it. In the early days of the country when we started making farms and driving some of the animals to different parts of the land the wolves were eating sheep and livestock to servive. what did we do. we hunted them all down and killed them. I think alot of people have forgoten that we are on that food chain. for the wolves it was just a meal to servive like it would have been for the farmer and his family. i think i am just rambleing now but i will continue. now i would say that for us if we want to live in harmony with our surroundings then maybe we should be a little more civil about it. if you were to catch a predator about to kill some of your livestock kill it. if it gets away with it let it live. that probably made now sence what so ever but i don't care. those are my thought just wondering what you thought.

I get what your saying, the wolf is only your competitor while it is hunting your food, and while it isn't hunting, you should live in harmony with it.

If that is what you're saying, I would disagree. The wolf would not show the same to you. If a wolf comes across one of it's competitors for food (another species) they will show hostility towards that animal. Let's jump to the African Savanna. If a cheetah comes across an unguarded lion cub, it will kill that cub to improve the chances of it's offspring to live later.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

You just need to make sure your farm is wolf proof, but that doesn't mean they should be killed. Heck global warming will prob kill us all of now. :P

yes you are right it will. but it is not going to go to all of the other chettas and say hey lets go kill all of the lions so that they wont be a problem. they live in a balance. we don't.

i raised chikens and pigs and sheep when i was little. we had to deal with bears and mountin lions and the usual skunks and raccoons. when they were able to get some of our animals we would do something to make sure that it didn't happen again. i am telling you our chiken coop was bomb proof and by the time we had pluged all of the holes there was nothing that could get in there but us. it doesn't mean that we went out and got rid of all of the racoons and skunks we could. we lived with it and got through it. so the whole wolf proof thing isn't really that far off. to bad we didn't do it like they used to in the old days and i am talking like realy old days where you would have an actuall sheperd that stayed with the sheep or the cows to make sure they were ok. if you have driven off all of the wolfs normal food and then leave your sheep out there what the hell do you think they are going to do. really. ok that was a little longer then i thought it would be but oh well.

That's because of 2 reasons, cheetahs don't live in communities to talk with other cheetahs. And cheetahs don't think much beyond their direct survival, unless the opportunity presents itself.

Like in birds with building a nest, they have no concept of what they are building and how it helps their babies. They just have instict to guide them.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

you are right again. unfortunatly we are not trying to save ourselves we are annoyed because they took two of our sheep in the night. it isn't really related to our direct servival that we killed them off. it was out of annoyance. hope that makes sence

yeah it makes sense, but it is the farmer's livelyhood. Maybe they won't die because they lost one or two sheep, but it does hurt them. If someone tried to rob me of $100, I wouldn't die, my lights wouldn't get shut off, and I wouldn't get thrown out of my home. But I'm not going to allow someone to steal $100 from me.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

True, but if you destroy one animal from the eco chain others can over populate and do other kinds of damage.

That is a very rare and extreme case, but I come from the school of thought that there is never an instance of where you have to get hurt. You must accept this pain because if you try to change it you'll only get more pain.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides