That’s only true if there are enough carnivores like wolves and bears around. If not: goodbye forests. Hunting is pest control.
Its pretty proven at a 5th grade reading level of study, and even more proven with every grade up.
Its actually kind if hard to find a more proven aspect of biology.
You are confidentaly wrong here, my friend.
For one it realy is something that depends on the global and local region. There are multiple studies that point to a lack of evidence towards a clear answer. I’m not invested enoth to hunt down to many examples, so I’ll just quote this 2016 Australien study:
Public lands in Australia are increasingly being made available to recreational hunters to take introduced mammals such as wild pigs, goats, deer and canids. These species can cause substantial damage to environmental or agricultural assets, and it has often been argued that recreational hunting contributes to the amelioration of these impacts by reducing pest population densities. This position has been vigorously disputed by some parties. However, there is little locally-relevant evidence to support either side of the debate, and hence little evidence on which to base useful policy.
Even clearly pro hunting websites have liste of pros and cons to hunting as pest control, like this one
https://huntingandnature.com/index.php/2023/09/04/hunting-as-a-form-of-pest-control-pros-and-cons/
So no. It is not a clear cut matter, nor is it proven beyond any doubt.
It’s very much proven in some ecosystems where humans introduced new animals, which ate all the plants and caused tons of new erosion.
No it isn’t. This is the noble excuse hunters came up with to justify murder.
Nature has this funny way of balancing itself out. Humans are unique in that we somehow view ourselves as above that rule. But as you’ll see in the coming years we’re at the mercy of that equilibrium.
Right, all those noble ecologists who spent decades studying this just decided to fake their results cause they get so horny over killing.
Nature balances out over a couple thousand years. What you are asking for is to speed up the current extinction event.
I mean, if there has been a forest somewhere for the last 100 years, chances are there are enough carnivores anyways. Nature finds its balance, hunting only adds chaos to the equation.
Wolves had been extinct in western Europe for hundreds of years, only slowly spreading again after the fall of the Iron Curtain 30-something years ago. And, consequently, the hunting quotas for deer are being lowered.
The chaos caused by eliminating wolves is slowly getting back to balance.
By the way: a 100 year old forest is in its early childhood. Hasn’t even reached puberty yet.
