What are the dangers of "population control" of animals for nature?

I recently received a letter like this, and I want to share an excerpt from it:

“Pavel, I have immense respect for your work when you protect the forest, but why are you getting involved in sport hunting? How does it personally affect you? I’ve been a trophy hunter for over 30 years, hunting animals for trophies. What’s the harm in that? Wolves hunt too, bears hunt, and you yourself write that they regulate animal populations. Can’t we do the same? For 30 years, I’ve been helping nature by regulating animal populations just like wolves and bears, but why do you think they are allowed to, but I am not?

Focus on the forest, and leave sport hunting alone.”

I receive many letters like this. Today, in this article, I want to explain to all our comrades my position on sport and so-called “trophy” hunting.

Let’s start with the definitions.

Sport hunting is the killing of wild animals “for sport.” The point of the killing itself is to track down a wild animal, chase it, and kill it using various methods to increase the “sport’s” difficulty. Today, any hunting where people don’t have a vital need to kill the animal is called sport hunting! The goal is simply to find and kill.

Trophy hunting is when hunters track down the most powerful or unusual animals. The goal is to obtain the most exclusive “trophy” possible to brag about to others! For example, to kill the largest wolf, the biggest moose, or to find a deer with mighty antlers. Today, as species’ numbers are rapidly declining worldwide, the primary targets of trophy hunters are rare animal species! The fewer of them left, the more people want to obtain such a “trophy.”

This is why hunting lobbyists in power are actively pushing bills to lower the protective status of wild animals, and as we have recently seen, they are even trying to legalize the shooting of animals listed in the Red Book. In other words, those that are on the brink of extinction!

Population control.

In the wild, in a natural ecological system, there must always be balance. If the ecosystem is healthy and untouched by humans, there will be just as much as there should be! In cases where certain species become too numerous or invasive species appear, the ecosystem regulates them on its own through apex predators.

Key sanitizers in the wild are, for example, wolves. In a natural environment, they primarily consume weak and sick animals, thus performing sanitary functions. Wolves also prevent the spread of diseases and help maintain a healthy genetic population of animals!

If weak individuals appear among deer, they become food for wolves. To survive in the wild, all deer must be strong and resilient; they must also constantly move from place to place (migrate). This is also designed by nature: if there are no wolves, deer stop migrating, disrupting the natural rhythms of nature! Instead, deer lie on the riverbanks, eating and trampling all vegetation in one place, leading to soil degradation and the extinction of plant life. Moreover, the riverbanks usually host all the berry plants that provide a food base for wildlife.

The soil degrades, erosion begins, and swamps form. The forest rots, and diseases appear! This is how ecosystems die.

These processes are confirmed by scientific studies! Including studies by scientists who investigated the state of biogeocenoses after the complete extermination of wolves and compared them with regions where wolves were reintroduced. I wrote about this in my book “The Right to Life.”

Moreover, scientific studies highlight the state of the wild without human intervention.

For example, in the Chernobyl zone, after the disaster, people were forced to leave. Wild animals remained and restored their populations over decades! Scientists recently studied the wildlife in the exclusion zone. They found that wolf packs have grown, but they haven’t devoured or exterminated anyone!

There is complete balance, a lot of wild animals, and the wolves are perfectly fulfilling their sanitary functions. There is no reduction in the number of deer or other animals due to the “terrible wolves.” None at all.

Another example is a study by Japanese scientists. They conducted observations for over 50 years on bears in the Shiretoko National Park. The scientists were interested in the reasons for bears approaching humans and whether there was a real increase in the bear population. In other words, if bears are not killed (there is a ban in Shiretoko Park), will there be an excessive population?

The conclusions are clear: there is no uncontrolled population growth, and all bear encounters with humans are due solely to hunger in the wild, caused by humans depriving animals of their food base! The bears have no other choice.

The population of bears, as apex predators, is entirely regulated by natural biological processes.

Now let’s talk about hunters.

Sport and so-called “trophy” hunting are DIRECTLY OPPOSITE ACTIONS in the wild. They are UNSANITARY actions, if you will, as well as harmful and extremely dangerous.

In sport hunting, people kill the strongest individuals of wild animals en masse. No one intentionally tracks down the weak or sick. People strive to kill the strongest wolf, the largest deer, moose, boar, and so on.

In addition, there are many other problems that only specialized experts know about, and even they don’t want to know, even when you tell them face to face!

For example, when shooting ducks that take off in a flock, many are wounded by the shot and become vulnerable to other species in the future. The hunter sees two ducks fall to the ground! The rest fly away. Another dozen are wounded. Recent scientific studies have shown that there is a decline in predatory birds and animals due to lead shot poisoning. They catch a wounded duck, eat it, get sick, and die.

NO ONE TAKES THESE CONSEQUENCES INTO ACCOUNT.

Hunters, calling the killing of wild animals “population control,” kill the leader of the wolf pack and the strongest mature wolves, such as beta males and hunters (warriors). The young and inexperienced remain, who are no longer able to feed themselves and go to humans in search of food! This provokes even more calls to kill wolves and creates other problems that remain unseen by people.

Inbreeding - due to a lack of breeding pairs, wolves begin to breed within close family relationships. The genome is disrupted, wolves become smaller, weaker, and slowly die out. This has already happened with many species of wolves around the world.

Hybridization - lonely wolves begin to live around cities, towns, and villages. Unable to find a partner to continue their species, they mix with stray dogs, creating hybrids that cannot live either with humans or in the natural wolf environment.

Thus, all “population control” boils down to killing the strongest individuals of wild animals, triggering a chain of other problems that people have never even heard of! Nor have many hunters.

They don’t read scientific studies either.

Once all the strong deer are killed, the population becomes genetically weak, and many diseases (of which there are already plenty) arise. Once wolves are killed, inbreeding, hybridization, and numerous genetic and physiological deviations begin.

All this doesn’t happen overnight! Nature is strong, and wildlife tries to adapt and survive. But human pressure only intensifies, and under the guise of “population control,” people are simply destroying all life. Gradually, in many cases, this takes decades, but many processes become irreversible. It will be impossible to bring anything back.

LET’S SUM UP

There is no such thing as “population control” of wild animals by humans. I understand that ecosystems have already been disrupted and many processes are out of control. Many species are invasive, introduced by humans, which only further impacts ecosystems.

But when killing becomes an industry under the justification of “sport,” with up to 50,000 rubles paid per wolf, and every hunter dreams of obtaining a “rare trophy,” supporting bills that lower the protection status of endangered animals, it will never, under any circumstances, benefit wildlife.

The real “old-timer hunters” of the Russian Taiga, who used to care for nature and only took what was absolutely necessary, have been replaced by millions of “sportsmen and trophy hunters.” Officially, there are over 5 million active hunters in Russia today!

So, what hunters call “population control” and “saving nature” from the perspective of the unified immune system of wildlife is the suppression of healthy immune bodies. These are ANTI-natural processes, aimed solely at destroying ecosystems that have been stable for thousands of years, until humans arrived.

© PAVEL PASHKOV