"equal of any PHD"
does not understand the definition of the word professional
Another guy who went to a mid tier university and studied enough biology to be dangerous chiming in here:
Seriously though I love shooting stuff as much as anyone but the point about clear cutting and caribou populations is I think a decent one. Doesn't mean wolves don't have an impact on caribou populations. An overburdened predator population can only sustain itself for so long it's true; but in the course of this species on the verge of extirpation may just end up there.
Any attempt to blame hunters wolves etc is pretty funny if it doesn't also acknowledge the effect on species at risk from development.
Who said he even studied Biology? He didn't even say what type of degree, just "undergrad and then some" which could be a certificate (1year) Diploma or Associates (2 years) or a Bachelors degree (4 years), although the "and then some" would seem to imply he started graduate studies, but never finished (Or he got a lesser degree and never finished his Bachelors, although that wouldn't be undergrad and then some) I am going to go ahead and assume hes got something like an ECON, Philosophy, or History degree which has basically zero bearing on the topic being discussed.
Obviously he doesn't have a geology or chemistry degree, because otherwise he would know that minerals dont create acid rain, stuff like SO2 (sulphur dioxide) and NO2 (Nitrogen dioxide) as well as CO2 (the all mighty carbon dioxide) create acid rain when they mix with water in the atmosphere.
Forestry is an issue, absolutely. But it is far from the ONLY issue. Predator populations are also a big issue. So is other industry, like Mining and Gas, which both cause great amounts of habitat fragmentation and pollution of the surrounding environment. Road construction/maintenance doesn't help either, roads are built wherever it is easiest to construct them, which often is the same places that game animals use to get around because its easier to traverse.
Furthermore, you have climate change. Increasing temperatures (this February was the warmest February ever recorded) have a few major impacts. Animal populations are moving northward to cope, and plant species are doing the same. This also effects the alpine, as the tree line is getting higher up the hillslopes, limiting the space available for the vegetation that typically grows above the tree line.
Then you have changes in precipitation. For every 1 degree in temp change, the air can hold ~7% more water, which means more precip in general, but less snow. This means rivers are changing too. Less snow to melt effects when the maximum peak flows occur. Rain instead of snow in the fall creates higher flows in the fall. River systems that were previously dominated by snow melt, or glacier melt, are changing to rainfall-runoff dominated systems.
Finally, its not solely up to the "game managers" to protect hunting opportunities. They do what they can with the resources they have. This is much too big of a problem to blame one small group of individuals, when the blame really lies with many people, including but not limited to government, heads of industry, and those damn hippies.
BLASPHEMY! While her cull may be a good idea, shes a horrible horrible person that is completely screwing over our province. Wheres all that LNG money she promised? She said we'd have 100 000 jobs, pay off our debt with the revenue, and have a $100-billion slush fund too. There is exactly 0 projects underway so far.
How about the Site C dam? BC Hydro projects our current levels of power production will be sufficient until at least 2028. In the process, she will flood 13 000 hectares of some of BC's most productive farmland. Wanna know whats more important that power we dont need? FOOD. [Of course, this whole project is ACTUALLY all about providing cheap power to the LNG industry, all while the public foots the bill to the tune of $8.8 billion, not including transmission lines (add close to another billion for those)]
Also, do you have any idea how much money she wasted taking the teachers to court over their last contract? Which she lost. Twice. Now she is implementing a new high school curriculum, which includes scrapping Social Studies 11 in favor of a bunch of single-topic courses (history 11, geography 11, ect) which will more than likely end up being online-only courses because there will not be enough students in most schools to fill all of these new classes. Shes also talking about including programming into the curriculum, even though there is nobody to teach it and not enough computer access for all students to learn it.
