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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

#191

Post by gerdesj »

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."

Me too, however I think that making an ecosystem functional, rather than dysfunctional is the goal, rather than actual restoration to a nominal "correct".

The thing is that diversity, fecundity and like measures are really important when it comes to ecology, not historical accuracy - that's for aircraft museums.

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

#192

Post by mousethatroared »

sarchertech wrote: post #20
mousethatroared wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's perfectly valid to question results that don't make sense, and the role of the supposed expert is to explain why it does. After all, off in a democracy an expert expects to be paid by taxpayers to make decisions that affect the taxpayer the expert should be, at the very least, be able to explain himself in an intelligible manner. Thats the bare minimum of expectations. I also expect the taxpayer funded exper…

>they expect me to explain themselves But the experts did explain themselves. They’ve published numerous studies on how small wolf populations impact the larger ecosystem. It’s not even that hard to understand. Yes Yellowstone is large, but there are a finite number of elk herds and the wolves move to follow and prey upon the elk herds. Wolf packs can kill 20 elk per year per wolf, there are 120 wolves inside the par…

Well there you are! Good for you for writing that, and not the self-righteous snark I was replying to.

The beauty of HN is that when someone doesnt know, or is wrong, we don't assume bad intent, but explain with good intentions at heart.

It's literally in the rules

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

#193

Post by antonvs »

floatrock wrote: post #99
rr808 wrote: post #57

I talked to a local who was friends with ranchers who now lose stock to wolves. They hate it. Its an interesting use case of local control, is the greater good more important than the people who live there?

Or it's a reflection on is individualism really a thing when everything is actually interconnected? "The greater good" is a bit abstract, and your framing suggests it's somehow separate from "the people who live there". A different framing of this question is should individuals be able to degrade ecosystem wealth in order to maximize their personal wealth? This is the climate story in microcosm. We all know burning c…

> A different framing of this question is should individuals be able to degrade ecosystem wealth in order to maximize their personal wealth?

It's the United States, that's virtually a constitutional right. If your skin color and cultural conformance checks out.

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

#194

Post by bsder »

subscribed wrote: post #77
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 often hear this argument, "oh, but how far can we possibly go??! But deer are pretty?!", especially from farmers and grouse shooting estates here in the UK. It's wild, because it's so easy to measure and asses: an ecological desert, dying ecosystem, rich in single overgrazing specie is unequivocally bad. Rich, lush ecosystems sustaining great biodiversity and ecologically unique features (eg chalk streams or temper…

> But deer are pretty?!

Deer are simply tall, disease-carrying vermin--basically rats with long legs.

They eat everything. They multiply like bloody rabbits. They host a ton of diseases--especially when overpopulated (effectively everywhere that doesn't have lots of wolves or big cats).

I really don't understand why we don't hunt them aggressively when there is no apex carnivore to keep them under control.

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

#195

Post by antonvs »

tomrod wrote: post #132
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great question! Once lab grown meat becomes economically viable, there will be few good places for ranches that make sense.

Plant-based "meat" seems to have been a commercial failure recently. It's hardly a sure thing that lab-grown meat will take over the market (without government intervention), especially considering that there's currently essentially zero market presence.

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

#196

Post by antonvs »

mykowebhn wrote: post #60
rr808 wrote: post #57

I talked to a local who was friends with ranchers who now lose stock to wolves. They hate it. Its an interesting use case of local control, is the greater good more important than the people who live there?

Your question rephrased from an Indigenous People's perspective: "is the greater good more important than the original people who lived there ?"

Most colonists say no

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

#197

Post by antonvs »

yieldcrv wrote: post #173

> 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

A response worthy of 4chan.

Worthy of HN? Not so much.

It's not about "automating" the killing of elk. It's about sustainable ecosystems. Human hunting is not the same thing.

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

#198

Post by antonvs »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #164

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, t…

> Let the wulves fight for their own survival in this mess and remove protection status.

So, let wolves fight for survival against humans?

That's tantamount to saying "let's make wolves extinct."

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

#199

Post by pishpash »

gdubs wrote: post #161
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…

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…

What is "balance"?

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

#200

Post by quesera »

incomingpain wrote: post #2

They only moved few dozen wolves, over 1000km from their homes, which is not going to have any significant consequences. Even today there's only about 100 wolves in the park? 2,200,000 acres, with 100 wolves. Then they've made the claim that those 100 wolves in 2.2million acres has resulted in plants and fish returning? As opposed to their efforts doing nothing at all?

> 100 wolves in 2.2million acres

Without engaging with the rest of your comment, and even assuming that wolves are distributed evenly (of course they are not, and some parts of the park are not suitable for wolves):

This equates to 1 wolf per chunk of land measuring about 6 miles square, so about 15% smaller than the city of San Francisco (which is a small city).

Wolves are territorial and they move through forest quite well. A ~35 square mile territory wouldn't be out of the question.

Edit: Notes from elsewhere:

> Wolf packs in Minnesota, for example, can have territories that range from 7.5 mi2 to >214 mi2 — a 28 fold difference in territory size

> Average territory size in northwestern Montana was 220 square kilometers (185 square miles) but was highly variable (USFWS et al. 2002). Average territory size for Yellowstone Gray Wolves was larger, averaging 891 square kilometers (344 square miles) (USFWS et al. 2002).

> Pack size is highly variable due to the birth of pups, but is typically between 4 to 8 wolves. Territory sizes range from 25 to 150 square miles; neighboring packs can share common borders, but territories rarely overlap by more than a mile.

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