Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

The imagination’s land of the Red Cross, cheese, cuckoo clocks and chocolates plans the massacre of 70% of its wolf packs.¹

In reality of course Switzerland is a very regulated country, with a rich financial/ industrial economy and is a major arms producer.

However in 2020 Swiss voters made their desire to protect endangered species clear, when 52% of voters rejected a hunting law that would have made it easier to kill endangered species such as wolves.²

Despite the vote, the Swiss parliament passed a new law in December 2022 that allows the wolf population to be ‘regulated’. Then, just days ago, the government proposed a regulation that will wipe out 19 of the 31 wolf packs remaining in Switzerland!

*Eurasian Grey Wolf in snow* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

WOLF MYTH & REALITY

Childhood and adult fiction is replete with horror stories about wolves (to say nothing of werewolves) attacking humans but, when set against reality, these seem like propaganda. The reality is that it’s not to humans that wolves are generally a danger but to their livestock.

Wolves (Canis lupus) are highly intelligent pack canines and, apart from having donated the dog (Canis lupus famialaris) as a worker and companion for humans, is well aware of its survival boundaries with Earth’s very apex predator – humans (Homo sapiens).

*Wolf fondling another; pack members are very affectionate to one another while the alphas maintain boundaries.* (Photo source: *Internet*)

Wolves prey substantially on rodents but must also, for pack survival, prey on larger mammals such as deer, mountain goats and boar. When these are in poor supply or other prey is temptingly easy, such as cattle and sheep, they will take those too.

The traditional human fear of wolves is therefore not one based on self-preservation but on economic priorities. And in the moralistic story of “The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’” it is not the human villagers that are attacked by the wolf pack but the community’s sheep.

However, if humans are to continue consuming a diet that will include meat, they will of course need to protect their livestock from wolves and have being doing so even before history was written.

Traditionally the main agent in that protection has been, ironically perhaps, the wolves’ own descendant, the dog – or more specifically, several livestock guardian breeds of dog.

Known livestock guardian dog (LDG) breeds include the Aidi (Atlas Mountain Dog), Carpathian Shepherd, Estrela, Greek Shepherd, Komondor, several breeds of Mastiff and Sardinian Shepherd; a known extinct breed is the Alpine Mastiff (before 5th century BC to 19th century AD).³

*Mastín (Mastiff) amidst sheep it guards near Lagunas de Somoza (León, Spain*). (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Livestock guardian dogs are socialised to the livestock and to their immediate human ‘family’ and will not tolerate the close approach of any potential predator (which often includes even other humans). The primary role is to protect the herd, warn of danger and if necessary, attack.

Where employed in the past, LGDs have been highly effective in protecting their charges, in most cases not even having to fight predators but rather intimidating them. If they have to fight, they are bred for fearlessness and tenacity and their throats also protected by a “wolf-collar”.

*Anatolian or Kangol Livestock Guard Dog, with sheep herd it is protecting, Eastern Turkey.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Predators, however courageous, also have strong survival instincts which warn against danger to life or limb (the latter, for a predator in the wild, often in time equalling the first). Unless absolutely desperate they will move on to safer although more difficult-to-catch prey.

For a good LGD however, there is no backing down possible, it is in defence of its own (as a wolf pack might defend its pups). The herder, when present with a firearm, is mainly an additional protection, as well as an alpha member of the dog’s ‘pack’ to obey and protect.

In contemporary times, LGDs have proved effective throughout the world, even in the experimental reintroduction of wolves to the USA.⁴ So why are they not being more widely employed and, instead, the remaining large predators being exterminated?

*Central Asian breed of Livestock Guardian Dog beside its owner* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

It is no doubt more profitable for big livestock famers to have huge herds roaming freely and when they run out of edible pasture, to move the herd by herding dogs, mechanised herding vehicles or even helicopters. But is it all-around better? And are huge herds environmentally viable?

Apart from other considerations, wolves have been shown to have an environmentally positive effect in a balance between predator, prey and the environment, including vegetation and even water courses, for example in the famous case of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone.⁵

Deer are pretty to look at but eat young trees and cause damage to reachable branches, while wild goats will eat almost anything, right down to the roots. Wild boar can also be very destructive and, being omnivorous like humans, even prey on ground-nesting birds.

*Eurasian Grey Wolf in woodland* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

All of those invade agricultural crop lands to eat, in the course of which they also trample other crops; wild boar⁶ are now invading villages and suburbs in a number of towns and cities, overturning large refuse containers for their edible contents.

*Female wild boar with litter of piglets in German urban area* (Photo cred: *Florian Mollers*)

Wolves and other predators keep those species down to numbers in better balance with the environment but also of less bother to human settlements. Wolf packs on the other hand do not grow in size beyond the food supply that is fairly safely available.

The human race has made a huge impact on the environment which is sustainable up to a point beyond which, however, we are rapidly passing. We live in a sustainable balance with the environment — or we perish. Perhaps “let the wolf live” can be part of the lesson we need.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://theswisstimes.ch/rssfeed/criticism-of-planned-wolf-culling-by-environmental-groups-in-graubunden/

2Including the European Brown Bear, European Lynx and Eagles.

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock_guardian_dog

4“After the reintroduction of wolves, that were eliminated in the United States in the 1930s, American farmers were losing about a million sheep annually to wolf attacks. 76 farmers took part in the Coppingers program, which introduced European livestock guardian dogs into the US sheep breeding (in their project they used Anatolian Shepherd Dogs). In all farms, where, in the absence of dogs, up to two hundred attacks of wolves per year happened, not a single sheep was lost under the protection of LGDs. At the same time, none of the predators protected by law got killed: the dogs simply did not allow them to approach the herd.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock_guardian_dog

5 https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/

6A wild boar is much more likely to attack a human than is a wolf in Ireland, where the Wolfehound breed was famous, it was a boar that mortally gored Diarmuid of the legendary Fianna after his return from exile. Wild boar also carry diseases that can infect domestic pigs and humans.

SOURCES

Planned Swiss wolf massacre: https://theswisstimes.ch/rssfeed/criticism-of-planned-wolf-culling-by-environmental-groups-in-graubunden/
https://euro.dayfr.com/local/792716.html

Switzerland as arms exporter: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/switzerland-contributes-to-global-arms-trade-boom/46565762
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/arms-trade–swiss-neutrality-as-business-strategy/48457830
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/swiss-arms-exports-jump-29-as-industry-laments-neutrality#xj4y7vzkg

Livestock guardian dogs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock_guardian_dog

Boars as a problem in urban areas: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/wild-boars-are-wreaking-havoc-in-europe-spurring-creative-solutions
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/hong-kong-urban-dwelling-wild-boars

The Yellowstone Park wolf introduction experiment: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/

APRIL 29, 2022

Reducing Tensions, Building Trust, De-escalating

From Counterpunch

BY JOHN LAFORGE

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The United States could immediately take direct actions that would de-escalate the over-arching nuclear threat that haunts Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. A few such actions would demonstrate good will and indicate a real intention to reduce tensions in the crisis which seems every day to grow more dangerous.

1. U.S. hydrogen bombs stationed in Europe could be withdrawn and their planned replacement cancelled.

The United States and Germany are formal states parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Articles I and II of the NPT flatly prohibit the transfer of nuclear weapons from one states party to another. Any fourth grader can understand that the NATO practice of “nuclear sharing” with Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Turkey — which together have over 100 U.S. nuclear weapons — is an open violation of the clear, unambiguous, unequivocal and binding prohibitions of the NPT.

The United States stations an estimated 20 of its B61-3 and B61-4 thermonuclear gravity bombs at the German Air Force Base Büchel, 80 miles southeast of Cologne. These B61 H-bombs at Büchel are identified as “intermediate-yield strategic and tactical thermonuclear” bombs, and “the primary thermonuclear gravity bomb in the U.S.” according to the NuclearWeaponArchive.org.

Calling these weapons “intermediate” or “tactical” is shocking disinformation. The maximum yield of the B61-3 is 170 kilotons, and the maximum B61-4 yield is 50 kilotons, as reported by the Bulletin of the atomic Scientists. These H-bombs respectively produce over 11 times and 3 times the explosive blast, mass fire, and radiation of the 15-kiloton Hiroshima bomb that killed 140,000 people. (For background, see Lynn Eden’s “Whole World on Fire,” or Howard Zinn’s “The Bomb.”

The effects of detonating B61-3 or B61-4 bombs would inevitably be catastrophic mass destruction involving disproportionate, indiscriminate and long-lasting devastation. Plans to replace the current B61 with a new “model 12” could be cancelled now, and constitute a real ratcheting down of tensions in Europe.

2. The U.S. can discontinue its nuclear attack courses underway at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

The U.S. studies and plans nuclear weapon attacks at classrooms of its Defense Nuclear Weapons School (DNWS), and the one branch school outside the U.S. is at Ramstein in Germany, the largest U.S. military base outside the country, headquarters of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe, and NATO Allied Air Command. Outlines of nuclear attack coursework can be read on the DNWS website, which boldly declares the school: “is responsible for delivering, sustaining and supporting air-delivered nuclear weapon systems for our warfighters …every day.”

One class outlined on the DNWS website is for “Theater Nuclear Operations,” described as “a 4.5-day course that provides training for planners, support staff, targeteers, and staff nuclear planners for joint operations and targeting. The course provides an overview of nuclear weapon design, capabilities, and effects as well as U.S. nuclear policy, and joint nuclear doctrine…. Objectives: … Understand the U.S. nuclear planning and execution process…; Understand the targeting effects of nuclear weapon employment….”

Dispensing with this nuclear attack planning school would reduce tensions and help eliminate Russia’s dread of the U.S./NATO nuclear posture.

3. NATO can suspend its provocative military exercises.

Attacks with U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe are regularly simulated or “rehearsed,” as is often reported. Recent headlines noted: “German Air Force training for nuclear war as part of NATO” (Kazakh Telegraph Agency 2020), “Secret nuclear weapons exercise ‘Steadfast Noon” (German Armed Forces Journal 2019), “NATO nuclear weapons exercise unusually open” (2017), and “NATO nuclear weapons exercise Steadfast Noon in Büchel” (2015).

Giant NATO war games routinely zero in on Russia. In 2018, there was “Trident Juncture” with 50,000 troops in Norway, and “Atlantic Resolve” was conducted in Eastern Europe. In 2016, some 16,000 troops gathered in Norway for “Cold Response,” and in “Anaconda 2016” another 31,000 troops from 24 countries were again in motion across Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. In 2015, there was “Atlantic Resolve,” “Dragoon Ride,” and “Spring Storm,” all conducted across Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. In 2014, the routine “Cold Response” game in Norway involved 16,000 troops, and “Atlantic Resolve” took place in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.

Beyond the annual “Steadfast Noon” simulations, complex, multinational NATO exercises in Eastern European countries just recently ballooned in number. In 2019, there was a single big exercise called “Atlantic Resolve.” In 2020 there were five. In 2021 the number leaped to eleven, and NATO that year made plans for a total of 95 exercises. Individual NATO states had plans for another 220 of their own war games. Nothing justifies Putin’s naked aggression, but the marked increase in NATO war practices would even make the Dali Lama defensive.

4. The U.S. and NATO could end their nuclear weapon “first-use” policy.

The public policy of readiness to initiate attack with nuclear weapons — not as a deterrent against being attacked with nuclear weapons, but its exact opposite — is at the heart of both U.S. and NATO “nuclear posture.” This perpetual threat to start nuclear attacks during a conventional conflict, especially in the context of routine NATO nuclear war exercises, is unnecessarily destabilizing and reckless. In view of the enormously overwhelming power of U.S. and NATO conventional military forces, the nuclear option is grossly redundant and militarily useless.

After he retired, Paul Nitze, a former Navy Secretary and personal advisor to President Ron Reagan, wrote “A Threat Mostly to Ourselves” where he observed: “In view of the fact that we can achieve our objectives with conventional weapons, there is no purpose to be gained through the use of our nuclear arsenal.”

Now that the U.S. public as a whole has been transformed into one big anti-war group, it should recognize that it can influence our own government but not Russia’s. Our demands for negotiation, cease-fire, de-escalation and a peace agreement need to be directed in a way that has some chance of success. ###

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter.

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Tag: Europe

SWISS GOVERNMENT PLANS MASS SLAUGHTER OF WOLVES

WORLD WAR III?

Reducing Tensions, Building Trust, De-escalating