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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the circle-of-life dept.

https://yellowstoneinsider.com/2018/09/04/wolves-fewer-elk-yellowstone-aspen-comeback/

But with the reintroduction of wolves, the elk population has gone down significantly — from almost 20,000 in 1995 to around 7,500 in the latest estimates — and during that time scientists have documented a Yellowstone aspen comeback. That’s part of a larger picture of restoring balance to the ecosystem. The aspen already face a variety of challenges from insects and the like.

A 2010 study did not find any impact on aspen with the reintroduction of wolves, but a new study, published in the journal Ecosphere, did. Here’s a synopsis of the study from Oregon State:

This is the first large-scale study to show that aspen is recovering in areas around the park, as well as inside the park boundary, said Luke Painter, a wildlife ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author on the study. Wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995. The study shows their predation on elk is a major reason for new growth of aspen, a tree that plays an important ecological role in the American West.

Wolves are culling the elk herd, adding to the effects of bears, cougars, and hunters outside the park, which means less elk are browsing on aspen and other woody species. The presence of wolves has also resulted in most of the elk herd spending winter outside of the park, Painter said. Before wolf restoration, even when elk numbers were similarly low, most of the elk stayed in the park.

"What we're seeing in Yellowstone is the emergence of an ecosystem that is more normal for the region and one that will support greater biodiversity," Painter said. "Restoring aspen in northern Yellowstone has been a goal of the National Park Service for decades. Now they've begun to achieve that passively, by having the animals do it for them. It's a restoration success story."….

The study answers the question of whether the return of wolves to Yellowstone could have a cascading effect on ecosystems outside the park, Painter said, where there is much more human activity such as hunting, livestock grazing, and predator control. There has also been skepticism surrounding the extent and significance of aspen recovery, he said.

[Editor's Note: Related - there has been a lot of interest generated in this topic from this TED talk]


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:33PM (11 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:33PM (#736677)

    Well, the administration wants to remove the wolf from the protected species list.
    Once people start shooting too many wolves (including in National Parks, coming soon probably), then the only way to protect the Aspen from the Elk will be too shoot the Elk.
    Pushing that logic to its natural conclusion, Good People will be able to shoot the Wolves, and the Elk, and then clear-cut the Aspens before they overrun the place and cause fires. Having no forests, the Bears would be dangerous and need to be hunted too.
    /some-people-wet-dream

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:23PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:23PM (#736740)

    The trouble here is that people were kept from hunting the Elk in the park. Fix that. Heck, it wasn't too long ago that you couldn't even bring a gun into the park!

    So it is government interference that created this issue in the first place. We could have meat on our tables, but no, instead we become tasty meat for the wolves.

    Got trouble with Elk? Allow hunting. Still have trouble? Allow commercial hunting. Fill the supermarkets with Elk meat, if you can.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:30PM (8 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:30PM (#736746)

      These stupid national parks are a total waste of perfectly paveable, buildable, drillable and harvestable land.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:28AM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:28AM (#736839)

        You don't want the elk. That is pretty much the definition of "harvestable".

        How many do you want gone? Allow commercial hunting, and it will be done. Problem solved, without the danger of wolves.

        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:43AM (6 children)

          by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:43AM (#736850)
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:06AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:06AM (#736909)

            From the article: "This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it."

            Also... that list is really long, and only has the fatal attacks, and it covers years without wolves, and:

            There are two possible behaviors of humans: relax, or be paranoid about wolves. That list only covers one case. The list would be far longer if people actually relaxed outdoors with their families, letting the little ones run around and play. Taming the wilderness is a good thing.

            • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:52PM

              by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:52PM (#737102)

              On list shows under one fatality per decade for the wolf over the last century, while the other link talk about 75 deaths per year for hunting accidents.
              (the wolf list has injuries, if you bother to scroll down)

              The hunters are TWO orders of magnitude more dangerous to humans than the wolves.
              Your car is almost three orders of magnitude more dangerous than the hunters (fatalities, injuries are even worse).
              Why don't you tame civilization instead or the wilderness ?

          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:35AM (3 children)

            by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:35AM (#736934) Homepage

            Rather more to the point, an article by a wildlife biologist who has made a specific study of how animals adapt to and when/why they attack humans:

            http://www.vargfakta.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Geist-when-do-wolves-become-dangerous-to-humans-pt-1.pdf [vargfakta.se]

            We have wolves in my neighborhood, about a mile out of town (and 100 miles from Yellowstone; did no one teach those wolves to respect boundaries and read maps?) One was bold enough to leave tracks on my next-door neighbor's porch.

            And aspen, like everything else that's a plant in North America, evolved to be grazed, browsed, and trampled on a regular basis, without which you don't have a healthy ecosystem. Huge thick stands are actually not balanced growth, but they are a dandy firetrap.

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
            • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:16PM (2 children)

              by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:16PM (#737033) Journal

              We have wolves in my neighborhood, about a mile out of town (and 100 miles from Yellowstone; did no one teach those wolves to respect boundaries and read maps?) One was bold enough to leave tracks on my next-door neighbor's porch.

              Anywhere prey roams, predators will follow. Deer and antelope freely wander in broad daylight through my family's town 70 miles west of you; wolves can't be far behind.

              There have been reports of coyotes invading the boundaries of New York City in recent years, so it seems likely we could all have strange tracks on our doorsteps.

              --
              Washington DC delenda est.
              • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:31PM

                by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:31PM (#737070) Homepage

                There are probably as many coyotes living within the bounds of Los Angeles as in the surrounding desert. It's a rare day when you don't see one laying dead on the freeway. Interesting population genetics paper from a few years back concluded that coyotes are actually not native to most of North America, but rather, followed man's settlements. Another paper noted that per another DNA study (IIRC in Texas), about 26% of wild coyotes had domestic dog DNA -- from crossing about 2000 years ago. Seems to me the two go hand in hand.

                --
                And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
              • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:37PM

                by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:37PM (#737098)

                I've seen many coyotes in Chicago, in the Loop a few years back (the Loop looks like Manhattan, for the rest of you). [nbcnews.com]

                We've got Mountain Lion and Coyote territory starting a hundred yards from my house, and we can regularly hear the latter pretty close. Can't remember any attacks on humans, despite how often people go on the trails day and night. Many cats and dogs have vanished in the area, not just from car bumpers, owls, and dog-fighting rings.

                I'm still a lot more worried by the humans than by the natural predators, and the stats agree with me. I wouldn't want to meet a pack of wolves, but they'd have to be pretty desperate to consider me food.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:01PM (#737106)

    the problem is that we don't have a predator hunter hunting season.