How wolves change rivers
- Thread starter devon deer
- Start date
Zach
Well-known member
No worries, guess I should have put it in the fireside to get more responses. Silly me, I put it in the wolf forum...
RobG
Well-known member
Haven't heard TMDLs in a while
Adding a bit... if you want to ruin a small stream (headwaters), removing willows is an effective way to do so. In addition to the above, you lose the shaded undercut banks and depth and the willows act to dissipate energy of waters when flooding. There is a spring creek in Idaho, can't remember exactly where, that has 22" cutthroat and nice deep undercut banks in the willow section and diddly squat in the section where the rancher 2-4-D'd the willows. They make a big difference.
Even after big floods the willows remain.
sbhooper
Well-known member
I agree. He makes some interesting points, but he lost me when he called them deer. It is just more propaganda, but never-the-less, he does raise some interesting points-even for a one-way, anti-wolf-hugger, like me!!
one ate E grain
Active member
Op Ed in today's NYT pretty much calls most of the wolf myths, myths, which is a welcome change. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/o...c=edit_tnt_20140309&nlid=24002923&tntemail0=y The trophic cascades/willows/butterfly/beaver stuff never was much good except for telling to children. I mean good grief. The video narrator from England is George Monboit, a regular piece of work. Good reading on the links on the link.
jryoung
Well-known member
I hear willows and riparian areas grow exponentially better when saturated with the blood of 20,000 elk.
bigbuckhughes
New member
Why would you hunt a prey animal and not a predator?
I am glad to printed Middleton's piece. He can de-bunk the "Wolves saved the universe" myths and the "Wolves ate my grandparents" myth, with more credibility than the fringes on either side. I am glad he did his studies and I hope he does more of them.
The last thing we need are more hired guns who are paid to opine about wolves from the comfy confines of their offices. I'll take my doses of reality from Mech and Middleton, rather than fantasies from Weurthner and Bridges.
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
Finally, a more balanced perspective from a researcher who has actually been there. Mr. Middleton appreciates the complexities of the Yellowstone ecosystem, and is not so ready to propagandize one favorite or another.
His insight regarding scientific professionalism applies to so many conditions which spin out of scientific study into social issues and eventually become propagandized money raising platforms.
His insight regarding scientific professionalism applies to so many conditions which spin out of scientific study into social issues and eventually become propagandized money raising platforms.
shoots-straight
Well-known member
Sabot
Active member
- Joined
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Once they started out the video bemoaning the "destructive deer" it was downhill. Beautiful video on mute though!
theat
Well-known member
Thanks for sharing that article. It was nice to finally read something about wolves based on facts. I know a few in the "wolves are our saviour" crowd that are going to get a copy of that article.
theat
Well-known member
Randy,
Any chance you know where I can get any info on the beaver translocation into the park? I had heard that they had brought beavers in, but haven't been able to find any solid info about it.
jryoung
Well-known member
I looked into this a couple of years ago, IIRC I couldn't find anything where they brought beavers into the park, but they did relocate some beavers into drainages near the park and this could be a factor as to why the numbers increase.
That NYT article is great and it's something that both the pro and anti wolf crowd should pay attention to. Because whether or not you want more elk or more wolves looking at a single factor as a linchpin is only going to get you in trouble.
I think the lake-trout, cutthroat, grizzly bear relationship shows us that the ecosystem is far more complex and aquatic changes can have significant impact on terrestrial ones.
one ate E grain
Active member
theat I just sent you a link to a full copy of Mech's article, it's in there, point numbered 4 Smith and Tyers 2008 page 11 . It's not supposed to be free etc, so I figure best not to post it on the web. It was 129 beaver by Forest Service and there is a reference to the name of the study and drainage. I'm not big into the wolf thing but I read.
ardrhi
Member
I watched this video several months ago, and was reminded of it again when this thread started. I have been hoping I would have an epiphany so that the words would flow to provide a reply. Then, today I was received an email that says it better than I ever could. The link was shared yesterday, but it is worth making sure everyone reads it.
Yesterday's New York Times:
Is the Wolf a Real American Hero?
By ARTHUR MIDDLETON MARCH 9, 2014
FOR a field biologist stuck in the city, the wildlife dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History are among New York’s best offerings. One recent Saturday, I paused by the display for elk, an animal I study. Like all the dioramas, this one is a great tribute. I have observed elk behavior until my face froze and stared at the data results until my eyes stung, but this scene brought back to me the graceful beauty of a tawny elk cow, grazing the autumn grasses.
As I lingered, I noticed a mother reading an interpretive panel to her daughter. It recounted how the reintroduction of wolves in the mid-1990s returned the Yellowstone ecosystem to health by limiting the grazing of elk, which are sometimes known as “wapiti” by Native Americans. “With wolves hunting and scaring wapiti from aspen groves, trees were able to grow tall enough to escape wapiti damage. And tree seedlings actually had a chance.” The songbirds came back, and so did the beavers. “Got it?” the mother asked. The enchanted little girl nodded, and they wandered on.
This story — that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone by killing and frightening elk — is one of ecology’s most famous. It’s the classic example of what’s called a “trophic cascade,” and has appeared in textbooks, on National Geographic centerfolds and in this newspaper. Americans may know this story better than any other from ecology, and its grip on our imagination is one of the field’s proudest contributions to wildlife conservation. But there is a problem with the story: It’s not true.
We now know that elk are tougher, and Yellowstone more complex, than we gave them credit for. By retelling the same old story about Yellowstone wolves, we distract attention from bigger problems, mislead ourselves about the true challenges of managing ecosystems, and add to the mythology surrounding wolves at the expense of scientific understanding.
The idea that wolves were saving Yellowstone’s plants seemed, at first, to make good sense. Many small-scale studies in the 1990s had shown that predators (like spiders) could benefit grasses and other plants by killing and scaring their prey (like grasshoppers). When, soon after the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, there were some hints of aspen and willow regrowth, ecologists were quick to see the developments through the lens of those earlier studies. Then the media caught on, and the story blew up.
However, like all big ideas in science, this one stimulated follow-up studies, and their results have been coming in. One study published in 2010 in the journal Ecology found that aspen trees hadn’t regrown despite a 60 percent decline in elk numbers. Even in areas where wolves killed the most elk, the elk weren’t scared enough to stop eating aspens. Other studies have agreed. In my own research at the University of Wyoming, my colleagues and I closely tracked wolves and elk east of Yellowstone from 2007 to 2010, and found that elk rarely changed their feeding behavior in response to wolves.
Why aren’t elk so afraid of the big, bad wolf? Compared with other well-studied prey animals — like those grasshoppers — adult elk can be hard for their predators to find and kill. This could be for a few reasons. On the immense Yellowstone landscape, wolf-elk encounters occur less frequently than we thought. Herd living helps elk detect and respond to incoming wolves. And elk are not only much bigger than wolves, but they also kick like hell.
The strongest explanation for why the wolves have made less of a difference than we expected comes from a long-term, experimental study by a research group at Colorado State University. This study, which focused on willows, showed that the decades without wolves changed Yellowstone too much to undo. After humans exterminated wolves nearly a century ago, elk grew so abundant that they all but eliminated willow shrubs. Without willows to eat, beavers declined. Without beaver dams, fast-flowing streams cut deeper into the terrain. The water table dropped below the reach of willow roots. Now it’s too late for even high levels of wolf predation to restore the willows.
A few small patches of Yellowstone’s trees do appear to have benefited from elk declines, but wolves are not the only cause of those declines. Human hunting, growing bear numbers and severe drought have also reduced elk populations. It even appears that the loss of cutthroat trout as a food source has driven grizzly bears to kill more elk calves. Amid this clutter of ecology, there is not a clear link from wolves to plants, songbirds and beavers.
Still, the story persists. Which brings up the question: Does it actually matter if it’s not true? After all, it has bolstered the case for conserving large carnivores in Yellowstone and elsewhere, which is important not just for ecological reasons, but for ethical ones, too. It has stimulated a flagging American interest in wildlife and ecosystem conservation. Next to these benefits, the story can seem only a fib. Besides, large carnivores clearly do cause trophic cascades in other places.
But by insisting that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone, we distract attention from the area’s many other important conservation challenges. The warmest temperatures in 6,000 years are changing forests and grasslands. Fungus and beetle infestations are causing the decline of whitebark pine. Natural gas drilling is affecting the winter ranges of migratory wildlife. To protect cattle from disease, our government agencies still kill many bison that migrate out of the park in search of food. And invasive lake trout may be wreaking more havoc on the ecosystem than was ever caused by the loss of wolves.
Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it. We need the confidence of the public if we are to provide trusted advice on policy issues. This is especially true in the rural West, where we have altered landscapes in ways we cannot expect large carnivores to fix, and where many people still resent the reintroduction of wolves near their ranchlands and communities.
This bitterness has led a vocal minority of Westerners to popularize their own myths about the reintroduced wolves: They are a voracious, nonnative strain. The government lies about their true numbers. They devastate elk herds, spread elk diseases, and harass elk relentlessly — often just for fun.
All this is, of course, nonsense. But the answer is not reciprocal myth making — what the biologist L. David Mech has likened to “sanctifying the wolf.” The energies of scientists and environmental groups would be better spent on pragmatic efforts that help people learn how to live with large carnivores. In the long run, we will conserve ecosystems not only with simple fixes, like reintroducing species, but by seeking ways to mitigate the conflicts that originally caused their loss.
I recognize that it is hard to see the wolf through clear eyes. For me, it has happened only once. It was a frigid, windless February morning, and I was tracking a big gray male wolf just east of Yellowstone. The snow was so soft and deep that it muffled my footsteps. I could hear only the occasional snap of a branch.
Then suddenly, a loud “yip!” I looked up to see five dark shapes in a clearing, less than a hundred feet ahead. Incredibly, the wolves hadn’t noticed me. Four of them milled about, wagging and playing. The big male stood watching, and snarled when they stumbled close. Soon, they wandered on, vanishing one by one into the falling snow.
That may have been the only time I truly saw the wolf, during three long winters of field work. Yet in that moment, it was clear that this animal doesn’t need our stories. It just needs us to see it, someday, for what it really is.
Arthur Middleton is a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Yesterday's New York Times:
Is the Wolf a Real American Hero?
By ARTHUR MIDDLETON MARCH 9, 2014
FOR a field biologist stuck in the city, the wildlife dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History are among New York’s best offerings. One recent Saturday, I paused by the display for elk, an animal I study. Like all the dioramas, this one is a great tribute. I have observed elk behavior until my face froze and stared at the data results until my eyes stung, but this scene brought back to me the graceful beauty of a tawny elk cow, grazing the autumn grasses.
As I lingered, I noticed a mother reading an interpretive panel to her daughter. It recounted how the reintroduction of wolves in the mid-1990s returned the Yellowstone ecosystem to health by limiting the grazing of elk, which are sometimes known as “wapiti” by Native Americans. “With wolves hunting and scaring wapiti from aspen groves, trees were able to grow tall enough to escape wapiti damage. And tree seedlings actually had a chance.” The songbirds came back, and so did the beavers. “Got it?” the mother asked. The enchanted little girl nodded, and they wandered on.
This story — that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone by killing and frightening elk — is one of ecology’s most famous. It’s the classic example of what’s called a “trophic cascade,” and has appeared in textbooks, on National Geographic centerfolds and in this newspaper. Americans may know this story better than any other from ecology, and its grip on our imagination is one of the field’s proudest contributions to wildlife conservation. But there is a problem with the story: It’s not true.
We now know that elk are tougher, and Yellowstone more complex, than we gave them credit for. By retelling the same old story about Yellowstone wolves, we distract attention from bigger problems, mislead ourselves about the true challenges of managing ecosystems, and add to the mythology surrounding wolves at the expense of scientific understanding.
The idea that wolves were saving Yellowstone’s plants seemed, at first, to make good sense. Many small-scale studies in the 1990s had shown that predators (like spiders) could benefit grasses and other plants by killing and scaring their prey (like grasshoppers). When, soon after the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, there were some hints of aspen and willow regrowth, ecologists were quick to see the developments through the lens of those earlier studies. Then the media caught on, and the story blew up.
However, like all big ideas in science, this one stimulated follow-up studies, and their results have been coming in. One study published in 2010 in the journal Ecology found that aspen trees hadn’t regrown despite a 60 percent decline in elk numbers. Even in areas where wolves killed the most elk, the elk weren’t scared enough to stop eating aspens. Other studies have agreed. In my own research at the University of Wyoming, my colleagues and I closely tracked wolves and elk east of Yellowstone from 2007 to 2010, and found that elk rarely changed their feeding behavior in response to wolves.
Why aren’t elk so afraid of the big, bad wolf? Compared with other well-studied prey animals — like those grasshoppers — adult elk can be hard for their predators to find and kill. This could be for a few reasons. On the immense Yellowstone landscape, wolf-elk encounters occur less frequently than we thought. Herd living helps elk detect and respond to incoming wolves. And elk are not only much bigger than wolves, but they also kick like hell.
The strongest explanation for why the wolves have made less of a difference than we expected comes from a long-term, experimental study by a research group at Colorado State University. This study, which focused on willows, showed that the decades without wolves changed Yellowstone too much to undo. After humans exterminated wolves nearly a century ago, elk grew so abundant that they all but eliminated willow shrubs. Without willows to eat, beavers declined. Without beaver dams, fast-flowing streams cut deeper into the terrain. The water table dropped below the reach of willow roots. Now it’s too late for even high levels of wolf predation to restore the willows.
A few small patches of Yellowstone’s trees do appear to have benefited from elk declines, but wolves are not the only cause of those declines. Human hunting, growing bear numbers and severe drought have also reduced elk populations. It even appears that the loss of cutthroat trout as a food source has driven grizzly bears to kill more elk calves. Amid this clutter of ecology, there is not a clear link from wolves to plants, songbirds and beavers.
Still, the story persists. Which brings up the question: Does it actually matter if it’s not true? After all, it has bolstered the case for conserving large carnivores in Yellowstone and elsewhere, which is important not just for ecological reasons, but for ethical ones, too. It has stimulated a flagging American interest in wildlife and ecosystem conservation. Next to these benefits, the story can seem only a fib. Besides, large carnivores clearly do cause trophic cascades in other places.
But by insisting that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone, we distract attention from the area’s many other important conservation challenges. The warmest temperatures in 6,000 years are changing forests and grasslands. Fungus and beetle infestations are causing the decline of whitebark pine. Natural gas drilling is affecting the winter ranges of migratory wildlife. To protect cattle from disease, our government agencies still kill many bison that migrate out of the park in search of food. And invasive lake trout may be wreaking more havoc on the ecosystem than was ever caused by the loss of wolves.
Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it. We need the confidence of the public if we are to provide trusted advice on policy issues. This is especially true in the rural West, where we have altered landscapes in ways we cannot expect large carnivores to fix, and where many people still resent the reintroduction of wolves near their ranchlands and communities.
This bitterness has led a vocal minority of Westerners to popularize their own myths about the reintroduced wolves: They are a voracious, nonnative strain. The government lies about their true numbers. They devastate elk herds, spread elk diseases, and harass elk relentlessly — often just for fun.
All this is, of course, nonsense. But the answer is not reciprocal myth making — what the biologist L. David Mech has likened to “sanctifying the wolf.” The energies of scientists and environmental groups would be better spent on pragmatic efforts that help people learn how to live with large carnivores. In the long run, we will conserve ecosystems not only with simple fixes, like reintroducing species, but by seeking ways to mitigate the conflicts that originally caused their loss.
I recognize that it is hard to see the wolf through clear eyes. For me, it has happened only once. It was a frigid, windless February morning, and I was tracking a big gray male wolf just east of Yellowstone. The snow was so soft and deep that it muffled my footsteps. I could hear only the occasional snap of a branch.
Then suddenly, a loud “yip!” I looked up to see five dark shapes in a clearing, less than a hundred feet ahead. Incredibly, the wolves hadn’t noticed me. Four of them milled about, wagging and playing. The big male stood watching, and snarled when they stumbled close. Soon, they wandered on, vanishing one by one into the falling snow.
That may have been the only time I truly saw the wolf, during three long winters of field work. Yet in that moment, it was clear that this animal doesn’t need our stories. It just needs us to see it, someday, for what it really is.
Arthur Middleton is a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Last edited:
katqanna
Well-known member
If you are referring to - Is science in danger of sanctifying the wolf? You can post the link here. David Mech submitted that article as a DOI USGS employee. That means he was paid by taxpayers dollars and the research produced by taxpayers dollars, it is public information. Now, since that copy was submitted to the publisher, you cannot sell or commercialize that particular copy, but you can link to it. You can also request a copy from the USGS and post it however you like - we paid for it.
CampRipleyLF
Active member
As a field biologist myself, I do believe that the re-introduction of wolves into yellowstone has had long lasting effects but nothing that would be measurable at the trophic levels they are talking about in the original video. This article pretty much sums it up, it's just a myth. I've seen scientific papers suggest an increase in bettles due to the re-introduction of wolves but that particular scientist is likely over attributing it to wolves because a measurable change at that trophic level is likely attributed to other environmental facts that may result from other biological changes and can not be solely attributed to one single thing (the wolf).
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