Are we mining our wildlife?

[Rank Amateur]

Ok, first off take it easy, I'm not pointing fingers, because if I was, it would be point right at me!

With the recent threads on shed hunting, I have been pondering, are we mining our wildlife? Here's my thoughts and this includes removing game animals from the field just as much as antlers. We have been removing biomass from the field for many decades now, we take it home and then disposit it in our local facilities after we consume it. In nature, this biomass is recirculated, over and over, but have we short circuited that? Are we doing any harm? I don't have a clue, has anybody seen any research on this? I just thought this would be an interesting thought.

[Bait O' Eggs]

There area few people mining the resource, but by looking at the success rates in a lot of areas, it looks like a lot of people are just buying tags and enjoying themselves

[Quack Attack]

From a scientific perspective the amount of "mining" that hunters do is very negligible. The only exception I can think of is the decimation of salmon runs that would otherwise adds large amounts of biomass. That was destroyed mostly by dams and pollution from logging/mining. We as recreaters in the woods have a much larger impact by creating a road to get there than we ever will by extracting wildlife. Remember, via photosynthesis plant biomass is created almost exclusively from the air, not recycled material from decaying animals. Not to mention that the animals that ate the plants deposited most if it back into the soil to provide nutrients (poop) to help plants with their nitrogen needs. The imacts of such things as the roads, houses, pavement, etc not only prevent plants/animals from occupying that space, but the do all of the bad things in terms of pollution, siltation, etc that have much larger impact than removing animal biomass. The real effects are much more complex, ie remove coyotes=more deer=less brush=more grass,trees=hot fires=long term vegetation loss.
OK, so that was a longer answer than what I wanted to say, sorry...

[TroutGirl]

Just when I was leaving college, I found a subject that I wish I'd known from the beginning. Its an area of biology called "trophic interactions". Its the study of the circulation of resouces and calories in a system. It was amazing how something like a trace mineral, in short supply, can be critical inside a system. That something like spawned out salmon, can bring missing minerals upstream into a trace mineral poor region. And that tiny amount of mineral is an important factor in strong bones or immune systems. Each system can be evaluated to see what are its particular weak points, aka, limiting resource. And the vehicle (animal or man or storm) that brings in that limited supply resource is very critical.

So, yes, in some situations we could be stripping away something very critical. In other situations, we might be inadvertantly transporting it in and changing the balance that way too. For instance nitrogen into a lake can cause the algae bloom. Nitrogen is normally the limiting factor. Bring in more and watch the chaos. Salmon tranport phosphates from the ocean back upstream into the river system-plants-bugs-predators. loose the Salmon, what will happen over the long run to the chain? Its not all gloom and doom, I just think its something we don't understand very well.

[Opportunist]

This is a very interesting post. I will swear an oath to fill the woods with as many gut piles as legally possible.

Troutgirl, This must be why WDFW is dumping their spent hatchery spawners along the banks of that rivers tributaries. I've seen this on the Kalama river up on Gobar creek. They must have dumped them by helicopter.

[Rank Amateur]

See, by taking a nature break in the woods you are contributing back to nature.

The salmon issue is a big one, what a lot of people don't know is that the Pacific Lamprey is said to have contributed way more biomass than the salmon. That's a lot of nutrients that we don't have now.

I just hope we are not doing something that will sneak up on us. I doubt it, trace minerals are being eroded and exposed all the time. As was pointed out, nutrients are more directly tied to vegetation versus animals. Animals just convert the vegetation to a usable form of nutrients.

If we are depleting minerals, we could just pack an appropriate type of mineral block over East with us and make up for our several decades of depletion.