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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: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:08PM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:08PM (#736730)

    You city dwellers keep thinking wolves are cute, but we killed them for a damn good reason. They cause harm, both directly to humans and indirectly by killing our livestock.

    We even burned all the forest off of Mount Monadnock just to wipe out a wolf pack. The mountain is still bald 2 centuries later.

    At this point, reintroducing the wolf is like introducing an invasive species. One might as well release lions and tigers and hippos and tse-tse flies and bot flies and the guinea worm. Heck, go for smallpox too!

    People who support wolves are a special kind of traitor. It's not really against a country. It's against humanity itself. We tamed the wilderness so we could live safely, and some people want to undo that.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:42PM (2 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:42PM (#736751)

    If you don't want wolves preying on your herds, keep a closer watch on them. No reason society should pay for the safety of your herds with long-term ecological degradation.

    Also, don't wander around in wolf country without adequate defenses.

    We probably hate wolves because they're the only other hunters even half as dangerous and effective as ourselves. But we've got 10,000year of historical evidence proving that we're utterly incompetent at maintaining important ecological balances - From the early days of slaughtering whole herds wholesale because it's more convenient than hunting them individually, to trophy hunting of the best and strongest, to sports hunting species to extinction because every hunter wants to bag a deer (or five), and refuses to accept that the herds aren't bi enough to support that level of predation. And of course we can't let the herds grow large enough to support the desired hunting rates, because they'd eat all the grass on the publicly-owned pastures you want to graze your cows on for free.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:35PM (1 child)

      by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:35PM (#737073) Homepage

      Not "more convenient" -- rather, less suicidal. Go hunt bison on foot with pointed sticks. I dare you. You will not survive it, even if you hunt in a big group. Bison can outrun a horse, jump a six-foot fence, are naturally aggressive toward predators, and are quite capable of killing a man on horseback, never mind a bunch of men on foot. The far-safer way for the Natives to hunt them was to set a grassfire to panic-run the whole herd over the nearest cliff. And given an average IQ around 90, the Natives were not big on considering long-term consequences.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:24PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:24PM (#737090)

        Certainly. Buffalo were hardly the only animal to be hunted though - it was just a lot easier to kill a herd of buffalo to harvest a handful than hunt down a bunch of the alternatives. Convenience.

        Most of the problems with humans are that we have the intelligence to radically increase our capabilities, without any corresponding increase in our ability (or interest) to consider the consequences of our actions. The entire history of our species if practically an object lesson in "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:43PM (3 children)

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:43PM (#736752)

    We tamed the wilderness so we could live safely, and some people want to undo that.

    If you want a safe "wilderness" stick to theme parks. I'll take my chances with the untamed wilderness.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:15AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:15AM (#736910)

      First of all, many people like to live outside of the urban megacities. It's not just a tourism thing.

      Second of all, unimproved land goes unused or worse. Take roads for example. If land is more than 5 or 10 miles from a road, most hikers won't use it. It isn't reasonable to reserve the land for the exclusive use of the sort of people who hike the Appalachian Trail. Making land more accessible spreads out the users, reducing impact to the land. Dangerous predators are a factor in this.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:27PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @04:27PM (#737092)

        The solution is simple - if you're not willing to accept your rightful place in nature (prey, as well as predator) then stay away from it. Nature is vital to our long-term survival - your safety and comfort in an illusory tamed version of it is not.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:05AM (#738010)

        Second of all, unimproved land goes unused or worse.

        Any time I have visited "unimproved" lands, I have noticed that it is being used to its full capacity. Maybe not by humans, but they are not the only living things on the planet.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:55PM (4 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:55PM (#736762) Journal

    I call bullshit. And, remember, I'm no city boy.

    First - citation needed for wolves harming humans directly. I read my Fish and Game publication avidly when I was younger. There was a story in it, stating definitely, that American wolves DO NOT hunt humans. Wolves have always cleared out of the area when they spot humans. That behaviour has changed in the past ~35 years, thanks to people trying to make pets of wolves, then reintroducing those wolves into the wild. In effect, we TAUGHT wolves that humans are a source of food.

    Wolves harming humans indirectly - yeah. That's the risk you take, if you're not a city boy. There is wild life out here, and wildlife does what wildlife does. They have a term for that . . . lemme think . . . oh yeah . . . NATURE!!

    Let me turn your traitor accusation around on you:

    People who want to destroy nature are traitors against humanity. You are little different from the oil drillers, the strip miners, the clear-cut foresters, or anyone else who destroys our habitat for the sake of profit. I am a proponent of getting into space, and getting humanity spread out around the solar system, and eventually to other stars. But, we depend on this planet, and we will for a long, long time. Stop trying to destroy our home, Bubba. We don't have another. Leave the wolves alone, and they will (mostly) leave you alone.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:38AM (3 children)

      by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:38AM (#736936) Homepage

      The story you read was wrong, and in fact based on Soviet propaganda (yes, really). Read this for a rather more accurate analysis:

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

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 19 2018, @09:42AM (2 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 19 2018, @09:42AM (#736957) Journal

        Reading the PDF. The ideas seem to be arranged oddly - first up we have a short dissertation on "political correctness". Mmmm - one wonders whether the PDF is filled with science, or with a political agenda.

        On page three, there is mention of European wolves, and Asian wolves. Whole different species. The mention of Little Red Riding Hood? Superfluous nonsense. But, for the record, European wolves are pretty well known to attack, and even to hunt humans. I addressed American wolves, specifically, without trying to distinguish between the various wolves found in the Americas.

        There is also mention of rabid animals, vs healthy animals. Any rabid animal is dangerous, we all take that for granted, don't we? Opossum, rat, housecat, bobcat, wolf, bats, rabies is bad news.

        On page 4, habituation is mentioned, which I did allude to in my post. Releasing animals into the wild after years of captivity is a pretty poor practice. Those animals have learned to associate humans with food sources.

        Haven't got beyond page 4 yet, but the multitude of spelling and grammar mistakes are beginning to take a toll on the document's credibility. No one proof read this thing before publication? Let me check, I thought the author was Canadian, who is a native English speaker?

        Valerius Geist, PhD., P. Biol.
        Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science
        Faculty of Environmental Design
        The University of Calgary.
        e-mail: kendulf@shaw.ca.

        Yes, I would expect this guy to more than fluent in English.

        On page 5, we seem to get to the kernal of this fellow's "study".

        It was a case of a wolf pack trying to
        establish a territory “in multi-use landscapes surrounding houses, farms, villages and
        cities”22, the “future habitat” of wolves globally as envisioned by the cited Norwegian
        multi-author report on wolves. In our case it was at the edge of a rural district among
        livestock barns, factory buildings and suburban houses. The wolves became visible. They
        acted totally different from the wolves I had known in the wilderness areas on the
        mainland.

        Apparently, mankind has encroached on the wolve's territory, and the wolves have nowhere to go. The wolves will, by necessity, grow "habituated" to humans.

        Trisha Wyman, who was killed on April 18th 1996 by a captive
        wolf pack in Ontario.

        "Captive" wolf pack? Huh? Animals in captivity, acclimated to humans, and view humans as a source of food. Again, I have to repeat that wolves aren't meant to be pets, and if they are pets, they should never be released again into the wild. FFS, we know firsthand that many other species of animal doesn't behave the same in captivity, as it does in the wild. Look at all the problems the zoos have with breeding animals!

        A captive pack of nine wolf hybrids, kept as pets, killed its owner, Sandra L. Piovesan, of
        Salem Township, Pennsylvania, on July 17th 2006.

        I'm reminded of the dates in this document. And, I should point out that the "common wisdoem" published in my Fish and Game commission magazine predates much of this by 25 or 30 years.

        While the 2002 report covered wolf/human
        interactions throughout the wolf’s range in Eurasia and North America,

        And, again - American and European wolves are different species. "the wolf's range" That phrase alone is enough to make this guy look dumb. Professor emeritus? Of BIOLOGY? I'm beginning to think someone without an education used the professor's name on a fake document.

        Actually, this has gotten boring - I'll just read the rest of the document without making fun of each item that pops out . . .

        NOTE: At some point, the quality of the document improved. I've read pages now, with no apparent spelling or grammar errors. And, incidentally, the data seems to have improved. Odd . . .

        CONCLUSION: The document has value. I actually learned a little from it. The document is flawed, but it still has value. I think that Dr. Geist maintained a detachment from his work, until he was faced with a "misbehaving" wolf pack. Geist's detachment was destroyed by that first hand experience with a predator. The PDF should be read with at least a small amount of skepticism.

        Geist DOES make one excellent point. American wolves are related to Eurasian wolves. Of that, there can be no doubt. The major difference between the species, is that American wolves have maintained "invisibility" better in the Americas, than in Europe. In Europe, wolf populations have increased and decreased in response to human warfare. When healthy adult human males are in short supply, wolves tend to become more bold. When healthy adult human males are abundant, wolves tend to be killed off, or withdraw from an area.

        And, THAT brings us back to "nature".

        My claim that wolves are part of nature stands. We shouldn't kill the wolves off. Killing a "misbehaving" wolf is all well and good. Determined efforts to eradicate wolves is an over reaction of a people who doesn't understand nature, much less themselves. We need the wolves. We also need to stop habituating the wolves to human contact.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:34AM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:34AM (#736968) Journal

          Given some time to think about that PDF, maybe I've been unfairly critical of it.

          This two-part report was written with the understanding that the readers would be
          members of a jury and the judiciary in a coroner’s inquiry into the death of 22 year old
          Kenton Carnegie.

          The professor apparently wrote his essay with time constraints. There was probably little editing, and no final proof reading. The document was meant to be "published" in a very limited edition - for a jury in a court case.

          Basic spelling? Ehhhh, we all do that right here, on Soylent. Grammar? I retract that comlaint - I may be the worst offender on Soylent. When time is important, grammar just falls by the wayside.

          I still feel that the professor maintained detachment throughout his career, then when predators came close enough to make things personal, he lost that detachment.

          And, I still feel that wolves are an important part of our ecosystem.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:34PM

            by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:34PM (#737044) Homepage

            He probably didn't appreciate being stalked near his home, no..He's a wildlife biologist, not an author of fine literature. I don't really care. There's plenty of confirmation of what he contends, if one bothers to look beyond the mindset created by a generation who took Farley Mowat to be research rather than fiction. When I'm trying to get everything down without losing any concepts, I can get pretty disorganized too, and I used to edit college papers for money. (Right now I'm trying to beat the clock and get to this before I forget.)

            He has another paper, which I don't have bookmarked or time to dredge up this instant, specifically about why people get attacked by deer and wild sheep, and how badly their behavior is usually misinterpreted. I've seen this same behavior with domestic sheep -- just before a ram decides to deck someone. But you might want to sub to the RSS feed at http://wolfeducationinternational.com/ [wolfeducationinternational.com] -- it's enlightening. Here's today's entry:
            http://wolfeducationinternational.com/dr-v-geist-speech-big-game-forever-banquet-and-wolf-symposium/ [wolfeducationinternational.com]

            Unfortunately the "Crying Wolf" documentary is no longer available, but it dug into the Cui Bono aspect of the "wolf reintroduction" thing, and turns out it was partly a scam to suck money from the public coffers, and partly an animal-rights campaign designed to make ranching unprofitable. But the only time "ecosystem balance" came up was when they needed to convince an urban public who don't have to live with the consequences (other than the rising price of meat, which of course gets blamed on "greedy ranchers"). Further, it pointed out how in Canada, wolves are so far from endangered that they're hunted via aircraft full-time and are still thriving (numbers are estimated at about 38,000). But come across the 49th and suddenly they're "endangered". Wolves were not native to Yellowstone in the first place (wolves are not actually high-mountain critters; and since we still had timber wolves in MT, doncha think if the vast protected area of Yellowstone was actually wolf habitat, there'd still have been some in the park?), so naturally they soon spread far beyond it.

            And the regional varieties of wolves are not different species, they're more like closely-related breeds (eg. Malinois vs Belgian). However -- there's another problem with "wolf reintroduction". We still had timber wolves in Montana, occasionally caught by wildlife cams, but very shy and seldom seen by humans; they almost never took livestock or stalked humans the woods. Numbers were estimated at 60-90, a good amount for their range. They also averaged about 90 pounds. The imported wolves were MacKenzie grays, which run around 160 pounds and are a lot less shy, and their numbers are already into the several hundreds. And they killed off not only the native timber wolves, but also most of the coyotes (so now we have an overgrowth of rabbits), and are busy exterminating the elk, whose population has dropped to 10-20% of what it was. Most of the West is already undergrazed (that, not overgrazing, causes desertification; see Alan Savory's work) and "aspen recovery" is kinda like saying "weed recovery". If new shoots don't get browsed down, pretty soon ALL you have is a solid mat of aspen, because it spreads by cloning and tends to choke out everything in its path. And aspen are not a useful timber species, either.

            Undergrazed, you exclaim? Consider: best estimate for the U.S. was around 120 million bison prior to settlement (altho already in rapid decline). One bison eats about 2.5 times as much as one cow. There are now about 80 million cattle on the same range -- meaning it is now severely undergrazed. This has led to native grasses and forbes, which evolved to be grazed and don't do well when they're not, being replaced by sagebrush and tumbleweeds (both invasive species), and eventually by bare dirt. I have personally observed this when I lived in the desert. So long as the big commercial sheep flocks came through a couple times a year (a good simulation of wild-type grazing), we had native grass and wildflowers. When they stopped coming, within three years we had weeds and increasingly, exposed dirt.

            But, you exclaim, desert tortoises!! Er, no.
            The Desert Tortoise in Relation to Cattle Grazing -
            https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/viewFile/10776/10049 [arizona.edu]

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:21PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:21PM (#737037) Journal

    We tamed the wilderness so we could live safely, and some people want to undo that.

    I had an economics professor who argued something like that. He was a fossil. He panned those who are always crying about how humanity is destroying the environment. "We are improving the environment," he declared, "It's getting safer and safer for humans all the time."

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:16PM (#737114)

    cattle ranchers are spoiled fucks. you think you can breed as many cows as possible and just send them out into the wild unprotected and then you get to slaughter anything that tries to kill them? after the fact, of course, because you were far away when the killing happened, so you don't even know which individuals did it. you're too lazy, cheap or stupid to even train guard dogs to live with them. you poison dogs, coyotes, wolves and god knows what else(like cowards), as if you have the rights of some twisted god. now coyotes are all across the US because you put them under pressure and they breed more and get smarter when you do that. i don't really mind b/c i'm not scared of coyotes. i'd only shoot one if i really had to. if they encroach my dogs will tear their asses up/run them off, though they've never tried to come up to the yard when they know we're outside. they haven't even gotten a single one of my chickens because my dogs and the rooster guard them; and i grew up in the city. it's not that hard. you just teach the dog that the chickens (and even that asshole rooster) are part of the family. then they are on autopilot.