Tom,
Don't confuse your pro hunting mantra with good, statistacally supported, peer-reviewed science. You may want to believe what your group calls "science" is definitive but until you support your conclusions with transparent and defendable sampling methods, statements of assumptions, statistical analysis, and peer reviewed conclusions, you can't claim to be using science, opinion maybe, but not science.
Your argument about cranes being migratory big-birds is exactly the point - migration introduces a variability factor that cannot be quantified and thus projections about population increase, decrease, or stability are invalid. No one knows.
If you would like to learn about resilience in nature I suggest you read a short book by Brian Walker and David Salt titled "Resilience Thinking". You might learn something you didn't know.
What is the biological need to for hunting cranes? Granted we tell ourselves we need to kill wildlife in order to save them. I agree that some populations of deer and elk need to be hunted to control their numbers. But, morning doves, pheasants (introduced species), ducks, bears, cranes, mountain lions - I doubt it. I think hunters like to shoot them and thus bring political pressure to the CPW and the legislature to be able to do so.
Be careful about throwing around the "ignorant" term. It might come back and bite you. Thoughtful and critical thinking never hurt anyone.
Violation of Editorial Integrity
I am dismayed by the editorial in today’s Steamboat Pilot “Cranes in the crosshairs”. Among the many unsubstantiated assertions in the editorial there are two that are particularly troubling. At the bottom of paragraph 4 you state, “We agree with Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials who stress the decision should be based on science, not emotion”. The decision should be based on both defensible, well-reviewed science and community values. I am submitting to the Pilot and Today staff a letter I wrote to the Parks and Wildlife Commission for their next meeting. In that letter, I challenge the validity if the data and the “science” used to support the crane hunting plan.
In paragraph 5 you cite (cherry picked) data drawn from the CPW Issue Paper. You state crane numbers in Routt County were 375 in 2007, 700 in 2010, and 1200 in 2011. What you didn’t state were the numbers for 2002 – 778, 2003 – 711, 2004 – 223, 2005 – 528, 2006 – no data, and those you did cite for 2007 - 375. It doesn’t take a statistician to look at that short-term data set to question its validity and ask why the numbers vary so wildly. There is no way that the Routt County crane population quadrupled in four years. In my opinion, this type of distortion of “science” is a violation of editorial integrity.
Bob Woodmansee 1 year, 1 month ago on Our View: Cranes in the crosshairs
Our View: Cranes in the crosshairs
Tom, Don't confuse your pro hunting mantra with good, statistacally supported, peer-reviewed science. You may want to believe what your group calls "science" is definitive but until you support your conclusions with transparent and defendable sampling methods, statements of assumptions, statistical analysis, and peer reviewed conclusions, you can't claim to be using science, opinion maybe, but not science.
Your argument about cranes being migratory big-birds is exactly the point - migration introduces a variability factor that cannot be quantified and thus projections about population increase, decrease, or stability are invalid. No one knows.
If you would like to learn about resilience in nature I suggest you read a short book by Brian Walker and David Salt titled "Resilience Thinking". You might learn something you didn't know.
What is the biological need to for hunting cranes? Granted we tell ourselves we need to kill wildlife in order to save them. I agree that some populations of deer and elk need to be hunted to control their numbers. But, morning doves, pheasants (introduced species), ducks, bears, cranes, mountain lions - I doubt it. I think hunters like to shoot them and thus bring political pressure to the CPW and the legislature to be able to do so.
Be careful about throwing around the "ignorant" term. It might come back and bite you. Thoughtful and critical thinking never hurt anyone.
By the way, I'm proud to have my CHS.
Cheers,
Bob
Bob Woodmansee 1 year, 1 month ago on Our View: Cranes in the crosshairs
Our View: Cranes in the crosshairs
Violation of Editorial Integrity I am dismayed by the editorial in today’s Steamboat Pilot “Cranes in the crosshairs”. Among the many unsubstantiated assertions in the editorial there are two that are particularly troubling. At the bottom of paragraph 4 you state, “We agree with Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials who stress the decision should be based on science, not emotion”. The decision should be based on both defensible, well-reviewed science and community values. I am submitting to the Pilot and Today staff a letter I wrote to the Parks and Wildlife Commission for their next meeting. In that letter, I challenge the validity if the data and the “science” used to support the crane hunting plan.
In paragraph 5 you cite (cherry picked) data drawn from the CPW Issue Paper. You state crane numbers in Routt County were 375 in 2007, 700 in 2010, and 1200 in 2011. What you didn’t state were the numbers for 2002 – 778, 2003 – 711, 2004 – 223, 2005 – 528, 2006 – no data, and those you did cite for 2007 - 375. It doesn’t take a statistician to look at that short-term data set to question its validity and ask why the numbers vary so wildly. There is no way that the Routt County crane population quadrupled in four years. In my opinion, this type of distortion of “science” is a violation of editorial integrity.