In a national park located on an island

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact16% picked this

   The presence of wolves in an area tends to discourage other predators from moving

   We might try to take this answer and spin this story for why there are still more moose: the wolves came in but then they discouraged other predators from coming into the area. since those other predators would have been helping to kill moose, their absence means that there's more moose. The problem is that we're talking about an island. Land predators aren't going to just wander on to the island. We "introduced" the wolves there, meaning we brought them in cages and released them. So we can't tell some story about how wolves prevented other land predators from swimming across a body of water and moving into the island's habitat.

   16%
2. B

   What, not Why5% picked this

   Attempts to control moose populations in other national parks by introducing predators have

   This just reiterates our surprising fact. Now we have two reasons to be confused. Introducing predators didn't work at the island, just as it didn't work in national parks. But why ... ?

   5%
3. C

   Correct76% picked this

   Wolves often kill moose weakened by diseases that probably would have spread

   Why this is right

   Wow, what an angle. This answer reminds us why we don't try to predict an exact answer on Paradox. They're too creative. We just need to flexibly listen for a way to tell a story that, "even though we brought wolves to eat the moose, there's more moose". This is doing the "the wolves are eating the moose, but there's still more moose because Z" type of resolution. The wolves are eating these sickly moose that otherwise would have infected and possibly killed other moose in the herd. Suppose that Ed the Moose gets covid and will ultimately die from it. If he stays with the herd until his dying days, he will possibly get the rest of the herd sick, and maybe five other moose will die as a result. Meanwhile, if a wolf eats him when he first gets slower from the early stages of the disease, then he won't live long enough to infect the herd. In a sense, the wolf that ate Ed saved five other moose. If wolves tend to eat moose that would have, if left alive, killed five other moose, then it makes sense how introducing wolves led to an increase in the moose population.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   76%
4. D

   Unrelated to Goal1% picked this

   Healthy moose generally consume more vegetation than do those that are

   This answer has nothing to do with wolves, so it's not going to help us explain what's going on with the wolves we introduced to eat up the moose.

   1%
5. E

   Opposite Direction2% picked this

   Moose that are too old to breed are just as likely to die of natural causes as

   If we found out that wolves were primarily eating old moose that were too old to breed, then that would explain why their moose-eating hasn't affected moose population. If wolves are only sending the geriatric moose to their graves a little earlier, they aren't affecting the birth rate of the moose population. A mother moose might birth five moose kids over the same period that a wolf eats both of her aging parents (this is so dark, apologies). That would be a net gain of 3 moose. This answer isn't suggesting that wolves preferentially favor older prey. It's saying the opposite: older moose are just as likely to die of natural causes as of wolf attack.

   2%