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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

#171

Post by pcmaffey »

tuna74 wrote: post #169
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.

Totally. What spreads ticks - out of control deer populations that lack apex predators.

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

#172

Post by rizzom5000 »

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…

> we're headed to a world with humans, livestock, and the few species...

It looks more and more like we're headed toward a world where we'll regenerate extinct species in labs; and grow our steaks in meat factories. If we no longer need cattle farms, it's possible we'll vote to preserve more lands.

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

#173

Post by yieldcrv »

> Be Elk

> Browsing, grazing, loitering in an ideal environment

> Suddenly, mid life, an unidentified powerful beast appears that stalks and kills your kind

> Never know why, the source, or that a third species engineered this outcome because they were too lazy to kill you all themselves and just wanted an automated way of doing so

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

#174

Post by asacrowflies »

ForOldHack wrote: post #49
asacrowflies wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The science is pretty clear on this Im not sure what you exactly are criticizing other than you don't like the vibes or vaguely incredulous? It doesn't take many wolves to change the behavior of nearly every herbivore they prey upon. Which then changes the river bank erosion. Which causes hundreds of more species to change behavior.... Trophic Cascades are not really up for debate .

No one here used apex predictor, but many described it. The science is clear that we need to study this more, much more. We only know a brief glimpse on terms of geologic time. The effect on quaking aspens in Pardo is also something we need to study long term. Are the two related?

Yes we need to study the longer term changes but the short term changes are undeniable. And focusing on geologic timescale for these improvements is inane when you look at the scale of destruction of the industrial revolution in less than a blink of an eye on the geological timescale...

This is like triage, and concern trolling the 40 or 50 year side effects of triage treatment when someone is bleeding out is negligent bordering on criminal and treasonous imo

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

#175

Post by mandmandam »

fooker wrote: post #160
BurningFrog wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> are rapidly moving towards the sixth ones by all accounts

The scientific consensus isn't that we're "moving towards" a mass extinction. It's that we're deep into one, and accelerating.

"Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates [13][14][15][16][17] and are accelerating."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

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

#176

Post by aspenmayer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #125
aspenmayer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both links are paywalled so I can't comment on what they say (positive or negative). Fixed! https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-sta... | https://archive.is/k0NqZ https://academic.oup.com/book/26688/chapter-abstract/1954809... | https://annas-archive[.]org/md5/3d5be21998575e23a28fdaa53ff5... (You will have to replace "[.]" with "." in the above link in case that wasn't obvious.)

Awesome thanks. Added to my libraary. Interesting that the Coloradan study was asking a slightly different question regarding wolves in Colorado vs the magnitude of the wolf impact in Yellowstone. I felt the experimental setup was also good but might quibble that Elk have more impact than just eating, they can squash saplings just by walking on them. The point that Colorado maintains its Elk population by hunting was…

> Thanks again, great links.

It was the least I could do to help the discussion, as I’m not really knowledgeable enough about Yellowstone ecology personally to have a nuanced discussion with you or others in this thread, so I have to find other ways to contribute positively to help us all catch where catch can by enabling debate through proper context.

You’re welcome, and thank you for your response on the points for the benefit of me and the thread, as it was beyond my ken.

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

#177

Post by triceratops »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #124
joshtbradley wrote: post #109

Also collapsed the elk population from 18,000 to 2,000 and they’re worried the bison will eat the trees… I understand nature is incredibly complex and intelligent, and I’m curious what the end effect will be. But from an anthropocentric perspective, this is silly. When will the first human death occur?

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.

No steaks either. Cows kill nearly as many humans as dogs (~20/year vs ~40/year)

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

#178

Post by patall »

thom wrote: post #27

Not sure where opinion ended up on this, are there dissenting voices still? https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debun...

Because data it is inconclusive. I.e this publication that says that the impact of wolves is beyond their population pressure, reducing traffic accidents by making deer more wary:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023251118

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

#179

Post by bluGill »

ysavir wrote: post #34
bluGill wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. regaurdless of what was intended your downvote and reply shows a lack of good faith.

It wasn't a criticism of what they were saying (a point on which I agree with that poster), but whether the comment itself was contributing to the discussion or not. It was a very low-effort comment that offered no reflection on what the parent said, doesn't tie into the original post, and lacks depth towards its own point.

Low effort but I disagree about the rest - the opposition helps makes it clear how silly the formula it was paroding is.

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

#180

Post by potato3732842 »

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 always found the idea of “restoring” ecosystems a bit philosophically tricky.

It's not even "tricky". It's purely a subjective political football if you live anywhere that was formerly glaciated because humans were there from day 1 and so it's basically a subjective question of which time period you want to restore.

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