14399626:BingPow said:
Didn't know that, about the number of moose that a pack of wolves kill a winter. It's super interesting. How many wolves in a pack on average? Also how long does one moose last for, let's say a family of 3 or 4(humans)? Also how many wolves, individuals or packs, need to be killed for there to be a balanced ecosystem, with humans included in that?
It would be pretty interesting to me if someone would quantify the number of moose to wolf to human population in an area for it to be balanced.
EDIT: My b for the questions. Just pretty interested in this stuff.
**This post was edited on Feb 17th 2022 at 2:05:27pm
The largest pack I’ve ever seen was 13, usually its more like 6-7 on average from my experience though.
For me a single dude, one moose would last me most of the winter if I used it sparingly. So a family of 3-4 would need 2 moose per winter. Obviously moose meat isnt the only source of food for people here, but it is the favorite and the most sought after. Lots of people grow their own food and harvest other animals such as deer and goat too.
There’s 3 main packs of wolves on the river i live. Besides myself and a few other guys who trap them, those packs have no natural enemies on the river. Bears dont mess with them and wolves run the river. So by doing the math those 3 packs will kill almost/or more than 100 moose this winter.
I read a number a few years ago on how many moose a single wolf kills per year and it was an amazing number, but I can’t remember it so i wont give false info if i can’t back it up. i dont have an answer to your last question, and neither does DOW where i live. All i know is there are about 30-40 moose shot every season on the river i live during the 30 days hunting is permitted.
So run those numbers and wolves kill 2-3 times more moose than people do in my area. Moose population is holding somewhat steady right now, but there are starting to be signs of lower numbers which tells me more wolves need to be culled in the area. If a pack of 10 wolves kills almost 100 moose a winter, than killing 1 wolf saves 10 moose a year (dumbed down logic).
people aren’t allowed to shoot wolves where I’m from either. Wolves must be trapped only. I usually only end up with 4-5 wolves in my traps per season. So i like to think I’m saving 40-50 moose a year (once again dumbed down logic).