Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?

MIXED MESSAGES
Recent science suggests that, while important to restoring Yellowstone Park's
When you see a sign like this in Montana, it has many possible meanings.
ecological health, wolves are not the primary solution. Let the fighting
commence. Emma Marris
By Emily Gertz March 15, 2014
At Yellowstone, despite the re-introduction of wolves, the willows are not
actually recovering as well as was hoped. One reason, Marris found, may be
that wolves don't actually scare elk away from their preferred feeding areas, as
APEX PREDATOR earlier research suggested they might. When elk are really hungry, they're
A gray wolf watches biologists in Yellowstone National Park, shortly after they going to take their chances with the wolves, Marris says.
fitted it with a tracking collar. The photo dates to 2003, 9 years after wolves Another reason for poor willow recovery may be that the wolves came back to
were first re-introduced to the U.S. Northern Rockies. Yellowstone too late to affect the fate of another animal population: the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service beavers. Elk populations were really high while the wolves were gone, says
Marris. That was caused by the absence of wolves, but also presumably by
The story goes something like this: Once upon a time, we exterminated the human management decisions, climate, and other factors."
wolves from the Rocky Mountain West, including the part that would become Elks and beavers competed for the same food: willow. The elks won, beaver
Yellowstone National Park. We thought this was a good idea because wolves numbers dropped, and so did the extent of marshy habitat. "Without beaver
frightened us, and also because they ate the domestic livestock we liked a lot dams creating willow-friendly environments," Marris says, "the willows can't
more. recover."
But then interest in environmental conservation took hold. Scientists In reporting her article, Marris learned that beyond the pages of scientific
discovered that without wolves present in Yellowstone to hunt and kill prey, the journals, the gaps between researchers who do and don't support the apex
elk population grew so large it ate up all the young willow trees until there were predator theory are really fairly narrow. Generally it's accepted that there is a
none. This affected the habitat of many other animals and plants in harmful lot more involved in balancing an ecosystem. But some still believe carnivores
ways and the ecosystem became unbalanced. Or, as science puts it, we are somewhat special in their top-down effects on the ecosystem, she says.
caused a harmful top-down trophic cascade by removing an apex predator, Wolves generate a lot of emotion as well as attention because they've become
the wolf, from the food web. a bell-weather for the fate of wilderness. Everywhere wolves exist, says
It followed that returning the apex predator might right that balance; and field Marris, they tell stories about how people and wild things make peace, or don't
biologists began to find some evidence for this idea, even as popular support make peace, in the 21st century.
increased for bringing wolves back. So with conservation ethics and ecological What's most at risk as we debate the role of wolves in the ecosystem seems to
science in pretty good alignment, we re-introduced the wolves to Yellowstone, be our hope for a really straightforward story that explains what's going on
where today they scare away the hungry elk herds from the tasty young around us.
willows. Thanks to the wolf, balance has been restored. Tags:
Or not? Earlier in the week, field biologist Arthur Middleton got a big reaction
from readers when he asked, Is the wolf a real American hero? in the opinion Science
pages of The New York Times. This story that wolves fixed a broken
Yellowstone by killing and frightening elk is one of ecologys most famous,
he wrote. But there is a problem with the story: Its 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 future of the environment
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.
wolves
Animated discussion ensued in the comments (which The New York Times
actively curates for signal over noise), with some readers protesting that the
wolves have been crucial to Yellowstone's ecological revival. Inside
Yellowstonewhich is where the writer is talking about even though his
research was done outside Yellowstoneelk are what wolves eat, commented yellowstone national park
well-known conservationist Carl Safina. As a PhD ecologist myself, it's hard to
see how 60% fewer elk could affect vegetation as much as before.
Journalist Emma Marris, who recently wrote about wolf/ecosystem science for
the journal Nature, finds that Middleton's stance aligns with a growing body of
evidence. It's an evolving understanding that started out with a really beautiful ecology
and simple story, and is just getting more complex, says Marris, author of the conservation
book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. There's
legitimate scientific disagreement here. But I think it can't be denied that the
beauty of that story plays a role in how much attention it gets.
Some of the recent studies suggest that trophic cascades in land-based
ecosystems are more center-out than top-down, composed of many, many
radial lines of cause and effect, continuing to change over time. This shifts our
understanding of apex predators as keystone species whose presence
makes or breaks a healthy ecosystem.
Every population of wolves has a different, interesting story going on with
them, says Marris. 'In some places there are not enough of them, in some
places people are concerned there are too many. And in some it's a question of
how they're interacting with the rest of the ecosystem.