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Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

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Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#151

Post by tickettotranai »

BurningFrog wrote: post #89
sghiassy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

One point I rarely see made: When you "destroy" an ecosystem, a new one will take its place. The remaining animals and plants will converge on a new balanced state. The ecosystems we admire today are often that new balance after humans destroyed the natural one.

It's a question of timescales and degrees and magnitudes, not of binary "did or didn't destroy". If we hadn't stopped redwood logging in the 20th century, yeah, the ecosystem would be replaced... But probably by something smaller and faster growing. Victory! Redwoods got replaced by smaller trees, mission success.

Monocultures are a scary thing (I'm sure you've heard about how we had to completely switch banana varietals), and having resilient ecosystems is important. I think ATM the consensus is having an apex predator does actually help the stability of these sorts of ecosystems and leads to outcomes most would consider favorable (greater diversity, better density, closer to an equilibrium). Now, we could surely fix this problem by doing it ourselves (eg by subsidizing deer and rabbit hunting and venison), but wolves are probably cheaper.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#152

Post by johnnienaked »

thrawa8387336 wrote: post #148
johnnienaked wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a "correct" state of nature: one without modern humans.

Why do you hate yourself?

It's not hate, it's love.

"But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. We are challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves." ―Rachel Carson

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#153

Post by Ma8ee »

42772827 wrote: post #145
sghiassy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

>I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. ..we’re shaping nature to fit human values, You’re right to question it, because the philosophy itself is based on the emotionally satisfying but ultimately unscientific “Gaia” theory of “balance” and “self-sustaining” / “self-correcting” systems.

> because the philosophy itself is based on the emotionally satisfying but ultimately unscientific “Gaia” theory of “balance” and “self-sustaining” / “self-correcting” systems.

I’m certain some have used those ideas, but that is not what the philosophy itself is based on.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#154

Post by tdb7893 »

sghiassy wrote: post #67
mkw5053 wrote: post #23

It's amazing the impact that the reintroduction has had. On a recent winter trip there I also learned that the reintroduction literally moved rivers [1]: - Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels. - The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetla…

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

I think this is a misunderstanding of what the goals are, it's not just to go back to some arbitrary time in the past. Often reintroduction of keystone species like wolves lead to increased biodiversity and resilience of the ecosystem, which is useful especially since we are currently going through a mass extinction.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#155

Post by bbor »

sdenton4 wrote: post #78
sghiassy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

Instead of thinking of this as a benefit of wolves (specifically), you can view it as an advantage of having something in their ecological niche. In this case, the niche is 'apex predator.' It's a niche which is repeated across pretty much every ecosystem. They keep populations of their prey species down, preventing overpopulation and the many indirect problems that come with it. Perhaps without an apex predator the…

  (Perhaps if we had to contend with some homo-vampirus, we wouldn't have global climate change...)
Humans—like ants—seem to be their own primary predator ;(

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#156

Post by bongodongobob »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #130
tomrod wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. Bad place for a ranch. Natural ecology needs those apex predators. They should consider relocating if they are deep in the ranching world. If we've learned anything since the industrial revolution, we have learned that sustainability is highly desirable, even more so than marginal ranchland.

I guess the subsequent question is whether there are good places for ranches. If the benefits of predators reintroduction/protection become widely known, it will likely be practiced elsewhere in the future.

There are millions of acres to grow cows where there are no wolves.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#157

Post by lo_zamoyski »

sghiassy wrote: post #67
mkw5053 wrote: post #23

It's amazing the impact that the reintroduction has had. On a recent winter trip there I also learned that the reintroduction literally moved rivers [1]: - Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels. - The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetla…

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

I’ve also had this feeling when conservation of particular species comes up. Species come and go. Why conserve this particular species?

So, inevitably, the answer must be that people want to conserve them either because of sentimental reasons or because a given ecosystem suits human flourishing, or because it maximizes some metric like species diversity.

> we’re really measuring against a value-laden idea of what we think nature should look like, not some neutral truth.

I will remark, that “value-laden” is not opposed to “neutral truth”. All knowledge is value-laden. Value itself is part of reality. The fact-value dichotomy is a fiction.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#158

Post by titzer »

sghiassy wrote: post #67
mkw5053 wrote: post #23

It's amazing the impact that the reintroduction has had. On a recent winter trip there I also learned that the reintroduction literally moved rivers [1]: - Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels. - The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetla…

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

Biodiversity, biomass, and ecosystem robustness are all objective measures.

Human settlement has a tendency to reduce all of them. The story here isn't that reintroducing wolves established some kind of human-centric value system, it's the surprisingly complex and far-reaching effects of just one change in the ecosystem, particularly the re-introduction of a top predator.

Note also that absent extinction altogether, without humans actively killing wolves, their numbers most likely would have recovered eventually, probably with similar effects. In essence, we just accelerated a type of healing process that would naturally take place when our enormous ecological footprint is removed.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#159

Post by cactacea »

joshtbradley wrote: post #136
TimorousBestie wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re going to exterminate every species that kills humans, there’s gonna be a lot of very angry dog owners on your doorstep.

That’s not my argument. I’m saying wolves are dangerous, and as a human, I don’t want to have to worry about wolves when I’m hiking Yellowstone. Call me selfish but I’d rather be alive than feel good that the forest is back to its natural state.

Yup that is pretty selfish.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#160

Post by fooker »

BurningFrog wrote: post #89
sghiassy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky. When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological improvements, what’s our reference point? Are we comparing it to Yellowstone 100 years ago? 500? Pre-human settlement? Ecological baselines are inherently arbitrary—there’s no objectively “correct” state of nature to return to. The systems we call degraded are often just different…

One point I rarely see made: When you "destroy" an ecosystem, a new one will take its place. The remaining animals and plants will converge on a new balanced state. The ecosystems we admire today are often that new balance after humans destroyed the natural one.

> The remaining animals and plants will converge on a new balanced state.

There's no guarantee that this be a stable equilibrium.

If it doesn't stabilize, we get mass extinctions. We have had five large ones and are rapidly moving towards the sixth ones by all accounts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

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