Also, re Sonagi #34:
“To be fair, Elgin, North Americans have been quite voracious in pillaging our natural resources for profit. If there were a general market for deer antlers, bear paws, and the like in North America, there’d be a lot more poaching.”
There has been in fact large-scale and systematic poaching of bears in the Great Smoky Mtns. National Park and surrounding national forest areas in the US… the bears are killed only for their gall bladders, which are sold by the white hunters to mostly Korean and Korean-American hanyak brokers.

As a sidenote: out in the country here, when I take trips, I notice that many people have left the countryside, leaving quite a few deserted houses. As a result, quite a few animals have really flourished, though some like wild pigs have become more of a menace to people walking around. They were the main source of food for tigers and leopards, once upon a time, for there are no tigers down south now.

Wolves, once thought to be pests, were hunted to extinction in Yellowstone. The present population is descended from a small pack brought in from Canada.

Bears and wolves need a lot of space to roam and hunt, but deer don’t. Outside of hunting season, deer are quite happy to share living space with humans, eating from gardens and garbage cans, leaving lyme disease-bearing ticks behind.

Despite Korea’s high population density, its national parks are large enough to support large wildlife with proper population management and a willingness from Koreans not to hunt unlawfully.

I’m not defending South Korea, but the peninsula is in a completely different situation. Yellowstone N.P. is nearly 1/10 the entire size of the ROK. Add up the other national parks (Yosemite, Rocky Mountain Glacier, etc) and you have a giant area with very little human settlement and virtually no hunting, farming or other encroachment.

“Koreans are rightfully proud of the natural beauty of their mountains, made accessible through user-friendly, affordable national parks, yet seem to have done little to protect native fauna.”

South Korea has forty times the population density of the United States, with few pockets that have escaped human encroachment (animal habitats need wider areas than Korea’s national parks). The war and starvation must have also dealt a major blow to wildlife, and they never bounced back.

Much better management is necessary, but how many deer, black bears, moose, wolves, and other animals would you see if the US had 4.8 billion people (same area but with ROK’s population density) in a not long ago war-ravaged land?

It’s a monumental task to protect any kind of wildlife in Korea. Making it anything like the U.S. would require everyone leaving.

I assume that you are directing this at me. I have done my homework on this and in-fact, have studied the subject extensively. For all of the arguments that have been stated in the Wikipedia sources, there are counter arguments that leave far too many unanswered/ unexplained phenomena. The fact of the matter is scientists with the green agenda are Imagineering results and answers that suit their purposes.

On a more practical note, that is what Korea needs to do: focus upon what is a part of its cultural heritage (I do not mean internet, game or cellphone content either!) and aggressively develop ways to preserve and safe keep them.

Elgin, I like how your post brings attention to preserving Korea’s natural heritage. Back in the states, I am struck by how we take for granted the presence of large wildlife. Who hasn’t seen deer while living in the US or Canada? Our national, state, and provincial parks and forests are teeming with black bears, moose, wolves, and other animals that you don’t need binoculars and a field guide to identify. Koreans are rightfully proud of the natural beauty of their mountains, made accessible through user-friendly, affordable national parks, yet seem to have done little to protect native fauna.