An encouraging attitude toward predators

So today I was with the WCC field crew doing site maintenance at a landowner's on Jim Creek (I'll call him C.P., for the sake of anonymity). This site was planted this past fall, and so I was involved with the prep work, the planting, and now maintenance. So I've known C.P. pretty much since I started my position here. He's a bit socially awkward and when he makes jokes sometimes people just...don't really get them. He can also be pretty opinionated. He takes some getting used to, but in general he's a very good guy. He put a lot of work into the restoration site, and is very cognizant of environmental issues and being a good steward. I'm not completely sure what his source of income is (it's suspected by many in the office that he's independently wealthy, though nobody really knows the details), but he farms a good portion of his land. I'm not the best judge of area, but I'd say he farms 2-3 acres (so it's a pretty small operation). Organic, as far as I know. He gives a lot of his food away (to us when we're there; today I got beets!), and I've been told that he donates a lot of it to food banks. His lifestyle is encouraging.

Today he told a story about how "his" bobcat was shot by one of his neighbors. This bobcat would frequent C.P.'s land, catching mice in the field. He spoke very highly of the cat, and also lamented that there weren't any cougars in the area (as there historically were). Apparently this neighbor used the excuse that the cat had to be killed because otherwise he would kill too many chickens. I guess he (or one of the other neighbors) had a chicken coop that didn't have fencing completely enclosing it, and one time the bobcat got into it and killed all of the chickens. C.P. remarked "of course he killed them all, he was in a small space and there were chickens flying everywhere! You should have had wire over the whole thing!" C.P. then explained that one time when he had his chickens running free around the yard, he saw the bobcat kill one of them. He didn't do anything about it, explaining that "he [the bobcat] has to eat too, and one chicken isn't such a big deal."

This mentality needs to become widespread. Large predators are an integral part of ecosystems, and their extirpation has had deleterious effects across North America. Anyone from the midwest knows that we have too many deer. Wolves are widely considered a keystone species, especially after the negative effects of elk browsing on aspens were observed after their extirpation, and then subsequently reversed when wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone. Who knows how much the eastern U.S. has changed. The attempted re-introduction of red wolves into the Smokies was a good start (albeit an utter failure), and conservation action to recover Florida panther numbers is encouraging. But currently, the majority of Americans simply don't understand how to coexist with large predators. Honestly, it's just common sense. Give them habitat (stop needlessly developing so much wilderness!) so that they have a healthy prey base. This way they won't be tempted to prey upon livestock. However, some livestock predation is inevitable. Especially if people are too clueless to take proper precautions. Throw a few llama into a herd of sheep. Get a few extra dogs to patrol your land (this is more of a predator deterrent than anything). Electric fence around pastures. There are several other precautions that have shown to be effective in deterring wolves. Don't let small dogs and children wander around unsupervised.

I'm not saying it will be a perfectly harmonious state of affairs; there will certainly be human - predator conflicts. These can be minimized, however, and overall the presence of predators and the effects that they have on the surrounding ecosystems are a boon that far outweighs the conflicts.

And on a semi-related tangent: let beavers do what they do! They're much better dam builders than humans anyways.