Wolves in Yellowstone producing ecological change

[Preacherman]

I found this article from the NY Times interesting. It's not about hunting as such, but shows the impact on other game of the reintroduction of wolves to an area. As such, I think it's definitely of interest to hunters, as it shows the changes we can expect to see in other animals' habits, etc.

I don't have a URL for this article (it was sent to me via e-mail), but it's attributed to the NY Times, so I guess if someone is a subscriber, they can look up the direct link for us.

Wolves Change Ecological Balance in Yellowstone

Author: JIM ROBBINS

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Hiking along the small, purling
Blacktail Deer Creek, Douglas W. Smith, a wolf biologist, makes his
way through a lush curtain of willows.

Nearly absent for decades, willows have roared back to life in
Yellowstone, and the reason, Mr. Smith believes, is that 10 years
after wolves were introduced to Yellowstone, the park is full of
them, dispersed across 13 packs.

He says the wolves have changed the park's ecology in many ways; for
one, they have scared the elk to high ground and away from browsing
on every willow shoot by rivers and streams.

"Wolves have caused a trophic cascade," he said.

"Wolves are at the top of it all here. They change the conditions for
everyone else, including willows."

The last 10 years in Yellowstone have re-written the book on wolf
biology. Wildlife biologists and ecologists are stunned by the
changes they have seen.

It is a rare chance to understand in detail how the effects of an
"apex predator" ripple through an ecosystem. Much of what has taken
place is recounted in the recently released book "Decade of the Wolf:
Returning the Wild to Yellowstone," by Mr. Smith and Gary Ferguson.
(Mr. Smith will discuss the effects at 7 tonight in the Linder
Theater at the American Museum of Natural History. Admission is $15.)

In 1995, 14 wolves from Canada were brought into the park by truck
and sleigh in the dead of winter, held in a cage for 10 weeks and
released. Seventeen were added in 1996. Now, about 130 wolves in 13
packs roam the park.

Yellowstone, says Mr. Smith, is full.

Over the next 10 years, elk numbers dropped considerably. One of the
world's largest elk herds, which feeds on rich grasses on the
northern range of the park, dropped from 19,000 in 1994 to about
11,000. Wolf reintroduction has been cited as the culprit by hunters,
but Mr. Smith says the cause is more complex.

Data recently released after three years of study by the Park
Service, the United States Geological Survey and the University of
Minnesota found that 53 percent of elk deaths were caused by grizzly
bears that eat calves. Just 13 percent were linked to wolves and 11
percent to coyotes. Drought also playing a role. The study is
continuing.

Scientists do say that wolf predation has been significant enough to
redistribute the elk. That has in turn affected vegetation and a
variety of wildlife.

The elk had not seen wolves since the 1920's when they disappeared
from the park. Over the last 10 years, as they have been hunted by
wolf packs, they have grown more vigilant.

They move more than they used to, and spend most of their time in
places that afford a 360-degree view, said Mr. Smith. They do not
spend time in places where they do not feel secure - near a rise or a
bluff, places that could conceal wolves.

In those places willow thickets, and cottonwoods have bounced back.
Aspen stands are also being rejuvenated. Until recently the only
cottonwood trees in the park were 70 to 100 years old. Now large
numbers of saplings are sprouting.

William Ripple, a professor of botany at Oregon State University,
calls the process the "ecology of fear," which has allowed the
vegetation to thrive as a result of behavioral changes in the newly
skittish and peripatetic elk.

Though the changes now are on a fairly small scale, the effects of
the wolves will spread, and in 30 years, according to Mr. Smith,
Yellowstone will look very different.

Not everyone is convinced. "Wolves have a role to play," said Robert
Crabtree, a canid biologist who has researched wolves and coyotes in
the park since the late 1980's. "But the research has ignored climate
change and flooding, which have also had an effect on vegetation.
Their work isn't wrong, but it's incomplete."

Where willows and cottonwoods have returned, they stabilize the banks
of streams and provide shade, which lowers the water temperature and
makes the habitat better for trout, resulting in more and bigger
fish. Songbirds like the yellow warbler and Lincoln sparrow have
increased where new vegetation stands are thriving.

Willow and aspen, food for beaver, have brought them back to the
streams and rivers on the northern range. In 1996, there was one
beaver dam on the northern range; now there are 10.

The number of wolves has also greatly increased the amount of meat on
the ground to the benefit of other species.

Grizzlies and coyotes rarely kill adult elk, but each pack of wolves
kills an elk every two or three days. After they eat their fill,
other carnivores take over the carcass. Opportunistic scavengers like
magpies and ravens make a living on the carcasses.

The number of coyotes, on the other hand, has fallen by half. Numbers
of their prey - voles, mice and other rodents - have grown. And that,
in turn bolsters the populations of red foxes and the raptors.

The wolves in Yellowstone are not hunted, but they do face hazards.
They kill one another in violent encounters between different packs.
Fourteen wolves have been killed by cars in the last 10 years, eight
of them at Mile Marker 30, on U.S. 191 on the west side of the park.

But the most worrisome threat is posed by the dogs that people bring
to the park. The dogs can carry parvovirus, which is the leading
cause of death in the wolves over the last year, and it has been
killing 60 to 70 percent of the pups.

The wolf population decreased to 130 from 170 in the last year from
all causes. Biologists plan to count wolves again this winter and do
more testing, and they expect to learn more about the effects of the
virus. "I'm a little concerned," Mr. Smith said.

Much is yet to be discovered in the natural laboratory of
Yellowstone. "Ten years is not that long a time to measure the
effects of wolves," Mr. Smith said. "Their effects are so far
reaching and changing that it takes a long time for them to emerge."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2005 New York Times. All right reserved. Arts

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I read something similar a while back. They have made MAJOR changes to the park and from what I understand of it it seems to be a positive change. Yes, the wolves haven't always "behaved" themselves but that's to be expected of wild animals.

 

[MrTuffPaws]

Reintroduce the top of the food chain and it is going to shake up a lot of things.

 

[sumpnz]

As much as hunters (and esp hunting guides) bitch about the wolves effect on elk herds, I do think that in the long run it is better for the elk to have such natural predators. Add to that the benifical effects on other parts of the eco-system and I think that overall it's a very positive thing to have the wolves return.

As to the ranchers, far as I'm concerned the loss of cattle and sheep and such to wolf attacks should a) be considered a cost of doing business and passed on to the consumer and b) prompt them to get some form of protection for their herds, the cost of which should be passed on to the consumer.

 

[Capt. Charlie]

As much as hunters (and esp hunting guides) bitch about the wolves effect on elk herds, I do think that in the long run it is better for the elk to have such natural predators.

Native Americans had a better grip on vertebrate autecology back when than some scientists do today. They also had a saying: "The wolf kills the elk, but it's the wolf that keeps the elk strong". Hunters can gripe about the wolves all they want to, but there's one thing they can't deny. Wolves generally take the old, weak, and sick elk, leaving the best of the best for the gene pool. Hunters, on the other hand, do the opposite. Given the choice between a skinny, smaller animal, and a giant with a huge rack, we all know what choice will be made. I wonder what elk, white tail, and mule deer would look like today if hunters over the last 200 yrs. had taken middle-of-the-road game and left the big guys to breed, along with letting the wolves do their thing. Might just be that a .300 WinMag really would be necessary for whitetail .

 

[longarm]

How very refreshing to read these views in a hunting forum.
By the way I could not agree more re: both the health and vitality of elk gene pools, Yellowstone Park, and the need for ranchers to get a more realistic perspective on grazing their animals in places (often public lands) populated by the wolf (and bears.. and mountain lions... and however other many predators - including raptors - have been villainized and subjected to the 3 S's throughout the decades). Not that I have anything against ranching. Except for when it blatantly degrades public lands.
In any case I went to Idaho this summer hiking in the Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness Area to hear wolves and was lucky enough to do so on 2 occassions. Reminded me that that was what being out in the sticks is SUPPOSED to sound like.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Yellowstone has been an ecological management nightmare almost from the beginning. It represents the first North American attempt at wilderness management and pretty much every change created by humans has produced unexpected results.

The first problem was that the early park managers believed that the local environment needed to remain stable to be healthy. They saw change as a bad thing. What they did not understand was that change was necessary for the park to remain healthy.

One of their first screwups regarded the elk. The got it in their minds that elk were on the road to extirpation in North America, so they worked at driving off or killing major carnivores, precluded elk hunting, and mad the park safe for elk. Without predation pressure, the elk population exploded. The result was that elk did considerable habitat damage in trying to feed themselves. The loss of trees that resulted meant a loss of beaver food and materials. So the beavers died out or moved on. Without beavers to maintain dams, the water was no longer pooled and simply flowed straight through. The produced water shortage problems since there were no reservoirs that stored water during drier periods.

Park management was of the impression that fire was a bad thing in the forest. That isn't exactly true. Fire is needed to clear out the dead wood, put nutrients back into the soil, and is necessary for some tree seeds to germinate.

Capt Charlie, I don't think Native Americans necessarily had a better grip on ecology or autecology than modern scientists. The concept you are referring to is part of the "Noble Savage" belief. This concept gained tremendous belief after the crying Native American on horseback who was crying because of the pollution on the landscape. Even if Native Americans did have a better understanding, they were not necessarily better land or resource managers. In fact, they are just like other humans around the world. When sedentary or stationary, they overexploit the local environment. Hunters and gatherers don't continually migrate because they are such great stewards of the land. They do it because they half to do so in order to keep themselves fed. Unlike the claim for wolves, Native Americans hunt from all portions the life cycles of various animals. In large part because their motivation was to get food to eat. So they took what they could get. If you take a look at historical documentation and prehistoric data, you will find that Native Americans often engaged in wholesale killing of animals that were in groups. From Texas and up through Canada, the plains groups conducted bison drives, driving bison over cliffs, sometimes many hundreds at a time. They could not even begin to butcher all the animals killed. It was a very wasteful practice. There are other game drive sites like large corals used in the northern plains and Great Basin to drive pronghorn into enclosed areas where they would be shot or clubbed like fish in a barrel, by the scores.

The notion that Native Americans understood autecology and/or ecology better than humans is not reflected in your quote about wolves keeping elk herds healthy. As supporting information, you noted that wolves tend to take the old, sick, and weak members of elk herds and deer and you suggested that since modern hunters tend to wrongly only take the big trophy animals that somehow the elk and deer populations today would be so much bigger and stronger (as implied by needing more powerful ammo to bring them down). This premise is flawed.

First, wolves do not tend to just take the old, sick, and weak. While they do take those animals, what wolves and other predators prefer to take are animals that they can bring down most easily or with the least risk. Obviously, the big healthy bulls are going to be the least easy to take and pose the greatest injury risk to the wolves. So they take the old, sick, weak, and also the young. As their need for food increases, such as during times of shortage, wolves will then prey more on the riskier bulls than they would if there were plentiful old, sick, weak, and young to eat.

Furthermore, in the concept that wolves make the elk and deer populations stronger by preying on the old, sick and weak, you are suggesting strongly that wolves are the selectors in natural selection of elk. This means that only the genetic material of the strong animals is passed on, thereby keeping the heard strong. The problem here is that if they were the case, wolves would not prey on the old or the young. While the old may be an easier target, their genetic material isn't inferior. In fact, it may be quite superior in that the old have managed to be of such a genetic makeup to help them to survive into old age. If anything, predation on the old males would actually be harmed to the genetic composition, precluding the old males from making any additional attempts at fathering young.

Now, it may be beneficial to take older females since even if they can reproduce successfully, their advanced age may not make it possible for them to adequately raise and protect their young. As such, the young of older females have a reduced chance for survival.

 

[Polishrifleman]

I drove through the park from Teton to North enterance last November (last day the road was open) and took this photo. I can tell you it was pretty cool having the opportunity to see a wolf in the wild. Upon further research and some help from the park service this wolf could be part of a new pack. I also believe there is a tv story relating to the same type of information that I saw. They were trying to find out why there were no middle aged trees, just young and old and the growth rings come very close to the wolf reintroduction.

 

[BryanP]

The link to the original story is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/science/earth/18wolf.html

 

[Capt. Charlie]

DNS

The first problem was that the early park managers believed that the local environment needed to remain stable to be healthy. They saw change as a bad thing. What they did not understand was that change was necessary for the park to remain healthy.

True, up to a point. A dynamic ecosystem is also one that is well buffered against change. The degree of change must be directly proportional to the length of time necessary to introduce that change. If not, the system will crash. As a theoretical example, lets say that you slowly remove wolves from the picture. Deer populations will increase, but not explode, because other predators will have time to adapt and occupy the niche of the wolves. Remove them suddenly, as in the case of cougar on Arizona's Kiabab plateau, and you have a population explosion. In the case of the Kiabab, it had the highest population of cougars on the planet. Mule deer also abounded, but in controlled populations. There was a well maintained balance. Enter Teddy Roosevelt. Ted and western author Zane Grey often hunted the Kiabab together (the remnants of their cabin and corral were still there in the 70's, and we used the corral while on back country mounted patrol.), and Teddy, disturbed by the then common scenes of cougar taking Bambi, brought in a government hunter by the name of Jimmy Owens. Mr. Owens was a hunter with a reputation, and it was well deserved. In the course of around a decade, he killed an estimated 500 cougar. The result was sheer disaster. The mule deer population exploded. Winter brought "high lining", resulting in every tiny piece of vegetation the deer could reach while standing on their hind feet being stripped, up to as much as 15 feet high. This was a real mystery for some time until it was realized that they were standing on snow drifts to accomplish it. Thousands upon thousands of trees were girdled and killed, and this remains as one theory today on how the N. Rim "balds" came to be. The effects of the "change" cascaded and persist to this day.

Park management was of the impression that fire was a bad thing in the forest. That isn't exactly true. Fire is needed to clear out the dead wood, put nutrients back into the soil, and is necessary for some tree seeds to germinate.

No arguments there! Modern thinking has fire as being perhaps the most important single factor in maintaining some ecosystems, and new discoveries are being made constantly. Along with the obvious return of nutrients to the soil, the seeds of the Lodgepole Pine must have fire to germinate. It was also discovered that pine beetle populations were kept in check by fire, which killed the larvae in the soil. The smoke has also been found to kill a rust fungus that has devastated southern pine populations. There is also a theory that Great Plains droughts are in part due to forest fire suppression. The theory basically says that smoke particles born East by winds form a nucleus for raindrops to form. Without it, moisture is carried further east, leaving the plains dry.

Then there are the direct effects of fire suppression. In a truly virgin, forest ecosystem, wildfires occur in roughly five year cycles. The cycle is based on the time it takes for enough flammable material to build up on the forest floor. A truly natural forest fire is a small, creeping thing that does little real damage. Now let leaves, limbs, and needles build up for a hundred years and you have a disaster waiting to happen; you have the proverbial lion by the tail. Today's wildfires are NOT natural, and the damage they can do is known to all. I fought the Dawn Fire near Grand Canyon's Point Imperial in 1976 (+ or - one year). It was a fearsome thing to behold, especially when it crowned. A crown fire can travel at speeds of up to 90 mph up slope and nothing, not deer, not birds, can outrun it. But what to do? All of our national forests and parks have a century or more of fuel built up, waiting to explode. I have also assisted in several controlled burn projects at GC, and to this day, controlled burns are risky and a guessing game at best. And the longer the solution eludes us, the more the problem builds.

I don't think Native Americans necessarily had a better grip on ecology or autecology than modern scientists. The concept you are referring to is part of the "Noble Savage" belief.

Not really. They may not have understood it from a technical point of view, but they were "in tune" with their surroundings. Some Native American medicinal remedies are still being found to have true, medicinal properties. They knew and used animal and plant relationships to their advantage. It is true that all this was out of necessity, and yes, they did drive herds of buffalo off of cliffs, which would appear to be a huge waste by our standards. But given that they had families to feed, and no other means available to them to do that, it was a necessity. In truth, some Native American nations today still practice an elaborate ritual of thanking an animal's (or plant's, as in peyote ) spirit for its sacrifice after a kill, so the taking of game is not a trivial matter with them.

While the old may be an easier target, their genetic material isn't inferior. In fact, it may be quite superior in that the old have managed to be of such a genetic makeup to help them to survive into old age. If anything, predation on the old males would actually be harmed to the genetic composition, precluding the old males from making any additional attempts at fathering young.

This follows the supposition that said alpha male never had the opportunity to breed. By the time a superior male (or female) has become infirm from age or disease, they have most likely sired several generations of animals with those genes. Wolves are opportunists. They won't bother with something they either can't catch or have to fight when easy pickings of young and not-so-alert or older, infirm animals are there. This is natural selection in the purest form, and does, in truth, keep the elk, the wolves, the whole ecosystem, healthy.

 

[Ankeny]

Isn't it funny how the hunting community that is effected the most by wolf and bear populations hold the critters in contempt, but those who haven't lost hunting and recreational opportunities on such a large scale could care less?

With the introduction of large predators (wolves and bears) there is no longer a need for hunting. In fact, in many areas off of the park (where wolves and bears have expanded) the hunting now sucks, where only a few years ago the hunting was some of the best to be found. It's not rocket science.

 

[Harve Curry]

Rural Living is Endangered....why?...here's some reasons...

Southern New Mexico and s.e. Arizona has been getting the wolves reintroduced in and around the Gila NF and they roam everywhere.
They will have a negative effect on the economy and predation.
Also there is evidence of hybrid wolves turned loose by wolf fan wackos, thinking their doing their part for a noble cause.

We don't need wolves to be the top predator, just people that hunt.


Basically there was 4 ways to make a living around here (New Mexico & Arizona) Mining, ranching, lumber, guiding hunters. We're down to two now.

First off I'm not a cattle rancher, but I have alot of respect for the industry of cattle growers. It can be a good way to make a living, raise a family, and an American heritage lives on. Ranchers must own base property to be able to lease grazing from BLM, State, or National Forests. They develope and maintain water where there never was any, put out supplements and salt.
All wildlife benefit from this.

I do supplement my income guiding hunters. Most people around here do in one way or another. Fuel, motels, food, resturants, hunting and camping equipments, horses, aviation, food processors, taxidermy, insurance companies, and all the employees, the list goes on. Oh don't forget supporting your states Fish & Game Dept., they have good pay and benefits, drive new trucks, new 4wheelers, horses and trailers, city real estate and fancy new office buildings full of taxidermied critters.

Mining has been pretty much put out of business in the SW.

Lumbering is out of business.
Now the trees go up in smoke. Huge areas are so thick an Elk can't walk though it. If you can get a permit to cut timber or salvage from an old burn you have to do it without causing a tire track.

Ranching is holding out, hanging on, and they also supplement their income guiding hunters or leasing to companies like Leopuld, Mossy Oak, Cabella's and so on. This income can offset the restrictions put on them by the different goverment enitites regulating grazing. A grazing allotment that was purchased with a mortgage to pay based on the allowed alotment of say 1000 head can be reduced by a district ranger's decision to 300 head,then try to pay the mortgage.

The 3 land owning goverment enities are BLM, state, and National forests. They are run by enviromentalists. The old timers are gone, now it's PHD's from the slick willie administration. These are not friends of hunters, or the right to keep and bear arms. The same people that work to reintroduce the wolf (and then the grizzly) are the same ones that work to restrict our other rights. They want people out of rural areas. They don't care about the cost to locals or taxpayers. We are in the way, hunters are in the way, they just have to deal with us and are getting better at making it harder and harder for us to get by.
You see at the end of the day they don't have to account for making a living, they get paid by our tax & fee dollar$ no matter what.

The wolf will hurt the hunting business and that will have a dominoe effect on the other people's businesses I've listed above.

It cost the American tax payer an average of $1,000,000 per wolf reintroduced.
Wolves have no place where they had previously been eradicated by our grandfathers for a reason.
Wolves do kill people, just give them enough time for an opportunity.
Wolves do kill more then they eat.
Why wouldn't they it's fun for them.


Ranchers are more our friends than any tree/bunnie hugging wolf reintroducer. They are all of the same ilk of anti gunners, socialist-democracy so called.

Think. Do your own research and consider the source of what you read.

Lincoln had it right when he said ...."A house divided against itself cannot stand."...... We need to keep the different folks ways of making a living as our allies or they will win on every issue that are we fighting today.

 

[Seventhsword]

Polishrifleman,


That is a great pic....

 

[Polishrifleman]

Thanks seventh, I got lucky even to see it let alone take a picture and now have it blown up and framed. I need to take my camera out more often. I was up Elk hunting in a spike only area and came across a 6x5 at about 25yds that would have made a great wall hanging too (in more ways that legal).

 

[Olys45]

There was already wolves in the Yellowstone/Jackson Hole area BEFORE they were "reintroduced".

I worked with a lady whose husband was almost thrown in the slammer for downing what he thought was a large dog running some deer. They used to sell T-Shirts that had the three lies of Jackson Hole: 1) The Gov't won't raise your taxes 2) Elvis lives in Jackson Hole and 3) There are no wolves in Wyoming.

Too bad the ranchers just couldn't practice the "Three S's of Wolf Management"

Shoot, Shovel and Shut up.

Rant off.

 

[Art Eatman]

It's not yet up on the website, but the winter issue of Range Magazine has an excellent article on the effects upon ranching in Arizona and New Mexico from the reintroduction of wolves. A lot of the negative has to do with how the actual laws in place are not obeyed by the USF&WS due to pressure from the bunny-huggers--and that's separate from environmentalism.

http://www.rangemagazine.com still has the fall issue up. It, too is worth a read.

Art