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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

#161

Post by gdubs »

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…

This is a great question. We've restored over 20 acres of native ecosystems at our farm in the PNW, and one thing that's clear is that some conservationists are attempting to essentially create a painting of a particular moment in time. Others are more pragmatic and flexible — not seeing all non-native elements as "bad".

I think where I come down is trying to remove elements that threaten to take over and destroy the balance. Or restore elements that will help re-establish balance. And it doesn't have to all be "native".

And there are some natives like poison oak that I'll get rid of because they're obnoxious and will ruin people's experience of nature. And people's experience with nature matters because that's a big part of how you win people over and get them to support nature restoration work.

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

#162

Post by lostlogin »

derdi wrote: post #92
Incipient wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For clarification, I wouldn't say stopping regulation. It should be "updating regulation" - either increasing hunt quotas, or having an 'open season' time.

[flagged]

This is an amazing take.

I wonder if other novel ‘gun based solutions’ can be found.

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

#163

Post by appointment »

derdi wrote: post #92
Incipient wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For clarification, I wouldn't say stopping regulation. It should be "updating regulation" - either increasing hunt quotas, or having an 'open season' time.

[flagged]

The problem across most of North America and Europe is that hunters do not kill enough, and the number of hunters is declining as rural communities shrink.

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

#164

Post by PicassoCTs »

From my perspective this is a doomed ideological project, to restore a ecological "balance" that is already historic- as the climate this "balance" adapted to will vanish and the luxury of ecological preservation projects will evaporate with the funds available for such luxuries.

In my eyes, ecological historicism is just another sin, wasting precious finite resources on keeping up a facade. It would be much wiser, to take specimen from the developing bulb-belt and transplant them up the lattitude to near similar developing bioms, trying to breed them to survive the winter that now befalls there "migrated" biom.

Let the wulves fight for their own survival in this mess and remove protection status. The ground is moving, no sense in building cabins and planting trees on it. Cosplaying nature while sacrificing saveable species seems absurd to me.

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

#165

Post by computerdork »

tdb7893 wrote: post #154
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 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.

I saw a PBS nature episode on keystone species (maybe you did too?), and how they keep ecosystems in balance. Was one of the most interesting documentaries I ever saw. Am glad to see that in wolf species actually did help rebalance the ecosystem, really amazing to see the theory in practice!

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

#166

Post by [deleted] »

42772827 wrote: post #146
29ebJCyy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely stability if you zoom out to the time scale that permits evolutionary adaptation (and of course, if you zoom out much farther it all devolves to noise again). But it’s specious to say that “the only constant is change” and then declare all comparisons moot.

That’s a rather idiosyncratic definition of stability. Evolutionary adaptation is literally change over time.

[deleted]

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

#167

Post by 29ebJCyy »

42772827 wrote: post #146
29ebJCyy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely stability if you zoom out to the time scale that permits evolutionary adaptation (and of course, if you zoom out much farther it all devolves to noise again). But it’s specious to say that “the only constant is change” and then declare all comparisons moot.

That’s a rather idiosyncratic definition of stability. Evolutionary adaptation is literally change over time.

I think it’s an elementary definition of stability. Just because the derivative of the function is never zero doesn’t mean it contains no useful information.

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

#168

Post by hst2 »

quotemstr wrote: post #68
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…

Another example: mosquitos. We can and should drive them to extinction. The species that feed on humans are nowhere food-web-critical. It's an arbitrary and wrong judgement that we should preserve mosquitos just because they happened to evolve with us. So what if eradicating them would be unnatural? So what if it would technically be a reduction in biodiversity? Not everything natural is good or optimal.

I've heard talk about getting rid of a few species of mosquitoes; eliminating all would be an ecological catastrophe. They are pollinators and an essential food source for many species, like birds, bats, and frogs.

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

#169

Post by tuna74 »

pcmaffey wrote: post #64

There’s a raging battle to decimate wolf populations in Montana. I’d encourage any and all to speak up. https://fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/public-comment-opportunities Click on the dropdown for “Fall 2025–Winter 2026 Furbearer and Wolf Trapping and Hunting Seasons and Quotas.” > Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP) is proposing new, despicable wolf hunting regulations that could allow up to 500 wolves to be killed. This…

Yes! It would be good if people could be more interested in reducing the number of ticks that causes much more human and cattle damage than wolves.

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

#170

Post by [deleted] »

throw83944i888 wrote: post #37
owenthejumper wrote: post #5

It's incredible how much damage we have done to ourselves in the past 250 years, and how much effort do we now need to spend to undo that damage

> how much effort do we now need to spend to undo that Moving a few wolfs, I would hardly call that effort! Stopping regulations and allowing some hunters in Yellowstone would have similar effects! It is more like morons, who do not understand biology are in goverment! Overprotection allowed elk overpopulation!

[deleted]
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