Field of Dreams

Mr. Hawkins, 8th Grade Science

I was searching the internet today for wolf research and came across this interesting image. I think it reveals the secret to man's attempt at modifying and managing things in the natural world. The key to wildlife management is habitat management. It is almost like the movie, "Field of Dreams", if you manage the habitat the wildlife will come. We must be very careful when we introduce wildlife species that are not native to an area. Trout were released in the upper Yellowstone that were not native and almost depleted the natural trout waters because of competition for resources. Many times in history we have learned the hard way about introducing new species into an area where they were never intended to be. The Yellowstone wolf project was a success at re-introducing the top carnivore to an area where it did exist naturally in the past.

In Oklahoma we have the success story of the Whitetail deer. In the early 50's you could scarcely find a deer in Caddo county where I learned to hunt with my grandfather. He recalls the first Oklahoma deer season which was bucks only. I was able to experience the first doe bonus tags in Oklahoma as a teenager. Today I can hunt does almost all season long due to the abundance of wildlife brought on by much hard work by biologists over the years who used wise practices to enhance habitat and also selectively control wildlife numbers to avoid going over carrying capacity of the land.

One of the keys to a sustainable wolf population or any prey population is large breeding numbers of animals which diversify the bloodlines and also allow for predation and other natural processes in nature. We are connected to the world. Everything we do affects another part of our world ecosystem. Just today I was contacted by a graduate student from OSU asking me to take part in a climate change survey and how great the need was for climatological education at lower levels.

Signing off for today and hoping this blog entry stirs some concern and respect for our role as man in safely and responsibly acting as part of our ecosystem and its relationships.