When wolves are exterminated from an environment, their wake is marked by abundance. For farmers, that abundance comes in unattacked livestock, but for drivers on rural roads, that abundance is a deadly one. Deer, freed from predation, multiply, devouring crops and gardens and crossing roads, sometimes killing drivers in the process.

Reintroducing wolves, often framed as a naive environmental act, changes that abundance. Wolves will on occasion eat the occasional cow or pig or other domesticated animal left near a forest. But more importantly, wolf predation will reduce the size of herds of deer, rebalancing the environment into an ecology that can support both prey and predators.

Last week, Critical State dove into the world of wolf attacks, and how the political salience of such visible animal action leads to electoral benefits for right-wing parties. Much of that political power comes from the visibility of the attacks. When a wolf kills a farmer’s cow, the farmer can point to the cow corpse and then blame animal reintroduction for his woes.

What is missing from this picture, what is essential to our understanding of animal populations, is the way wolves can reduce danger. The dead cow is visible; the deer culled in the woods that never causes a car accident is invisible. In “Wolves make roadways safer, generating large economic returns to predator conservation,” authors Jennifer Raynor, Corbett Grainger, and Dominic Parker demonstrate that, while it is harder to observe, thebenefits of predation on an environment is still quantifiable.

“About 1 million [Deer Vehicle Collisions] occur every year in the United States, causing 29,000 human injuries, 200 human fatalities, and nearly $10 billion in total economic losses.,” write the authors. “Europe experiences similar problems, with a lower frequency of collisions with ungulates (such as deer and moose) but a higher rate of fatalities and injuries.”

Deer populations have flourished in the wake of exterminated wolves. The reintroduction of wolves reduces the harm from deer in two ways: by reducing the number of deer, and by changing how deer interact with the environment, largely by scaring them out of the roads and trails that wolves like to use.

Looking at changes in deer-vehicle crashes in Wisconsin, the authors find that “Across the 29 counties with wolves present, these savings generate a $10.9 million aggregate reduction in  [Deer Vehicle Collisions] losses each year.”

Quantifying the value of predators is hard, because the harms of unchecked prey only flourish in their absence. Reintroduction of apex predators species like wolves allows for a deeper understanding of the benefits from living in a complete ecology, rather than a fractured one.

The benefits of such predation come strongest in rural areas, where the harms are also most visible. “This finding may help dampen political polarization around wolf reintroduction that generally pits rural and urban voters against one another,” write the authors. While research has shown the right can campaign on the visceral impact of wolf attacks, the tangible improvements to rural life from reduced deer populations and deer collisions could offer a counter. The wolves cannot campaign for their economic benefit, but armed with this data, politicians could.

Doreen Horschig studied the norms of nuclear weapons in Israel. While the United States remains the only nation to have killed with nuclear weapons in war, nine countries today possess nuclear arsenals. Much theorizing around nuclear strategy assumes leaders will act to avoid nuclear war, or at least be deterred from its use, but public opinion may not always support that. “In a recent experimental study that I conducted in Israel, I found that when faced with a threat to their security, respondents showed high support for nuclear use,” wrote Horscig. “I found that when respondents are reminded of their own mortality, they are more likely to support a nuclear strike.”  

Shirin Jaafari spoke with Syrians living outside the country about a Jackie Chan-produced movie being filmed in the ruins of Al-Haraj al-Aswad. The city was the site of much fighting during the civil war fighting, first as a Free Syrian Army base, then an ISIS stronghold, and then reclaimed by Assad’s government. Years of fighting have left it damaged, making it a workable stand-in for the Yemen-set plot of “Home Operation,” a story of China’s navy rescuing Chinese citizens trapped in the country. “As far as we know, there might still be bodies under the rubble,” Alia Malek, a Syrian American writer told Jaafari. 

Emily Haavik tracked polar bears across the vanishing ice of the Svalbard archipelago. The bears are versatile predators, but as the planet warms and the arctic warms fastest, polar bears have a harder time hunting the same prey they depend upon to survive. “The polar bears that live on Svalbard appear to be hunting more reindeer and taking more birds’ eggs. Mother bears are swimming farther to get to their denning areas,” wrote Haavik. “These are clever workarounds, but they’re not necessarily efficient.” Sea ice, essential for seal hunting, is shrinking, and may not return, leaving the archipelago-based bears stranded, though they may find refuge in the more northern arctic.

Watching luxury beach houses topple into the rising seas is a reminder that politics never stops at water’s edge.

Little Miss brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttt.

Electronic warfare at its most twee.

Several lonches, please.

Keep calm and remember the context of social mobilization against the horrors of the blitz.

Follow the powdery white lines.

Gimme a break.