Wolves. Changing Rivers

That’s quite amazing – thanks for sharing!

That was so beautiful, I say we trap all the wolves in Wisconsin and release them in Yellowstone.

Love the theory but I’m so anal on numbers I’d like to see what scientific facts support this. Seems like it could be a bunch of hippie wolf agenda crap.

Not judging it poorly, just would be nice if these videos actually gave evidence. Instead they get a narrorator with a fancy accent to make us think we can trust his expertise.

DNR oughta bring this guy in to fix Mille Lacs.

Nice video. I remember a study I read 5,6 years ago about trout streams being rejuvenated because the wolves chased the deer out of the area thus helping under brush and trees to replenish the shoreline cooling the streem and filtering run off.

Nature is fickle, take a cog out the system something replaces it ad a cog like phosphorus or even a nonnative you potentially help over populate an undesirable at the expense of a native.

Cool video, and the thought process it provokes…..

Seriously BK??!!!!

I just watched the first 30 seconds of this video and I can already tell that this is nothing more than propaganda… The opening line stating that this is “One of the most exciting scientific findings of the past half century…” completely gives away that this is not created by an actual scientist.

I will now spend 30 seconds googling this and debunk this crap…. Thanks for spreading anti-hunting BS

https://strangebehaviors.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/maybe-wolves-dont-change-rivers-after-all/

partial text…

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.

Full text below…

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.

When we tell the wolf story, we get the Yellowstone story wrong.

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.

And another link that actually has references to real source data relating to wolf studies (something that the video is completely lacking)…

The real story behind wolves changing rivers

http://jenntalksnature.tumblr.com/post/80028689118/the-real-story-behind-wolves-changing-rivers

Partial text below….

It’s a truly spectacular, heart-wrenching look at what can result from reintroducing a capstone predator into an ecosystem, and trophic cascades. However, as is the case with ecosystems and ecology, the story is not nearly that simple. In fact, the story is infinitely more complex and is still being studied today, and unfortunately, the inspirational, elegant video is not an accurate portrayal of the story of Yellowstone.

Arthur Middleton has written an excellent piece in response to the viral video: “Is the Wolf a Real American Hero?” The op-ed discusses the complexity behind the real story, and the dangers of not acknowledging the real story in favor of a simple, elegant explanation that wolves saved the day.

I am passionate about predator conservation and coexistence, as well as being passionate about investigating the true story of natural processes (it’s kind of what we scientists do!). So it may seem upsetting to fellow canine enthusiasts that I bring up a counter-point to the wonderful video that makes wolves ultimate heroes, but it’s more important, in the long run, to get the story accurate and not continue to uphold fantasy. Middleton said it better than me: “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.”

Even L. David Mech, who literally wrote the book on wolf ecology and conservation, warned against propagating mythology surrounding wolves in his 2012 paper in Biological Conservation.

And a final, personal note, the video never mentioned that before the reintroduction of wolves, coyotes were starting to form larger packs and take down larger prey, including bison. No one gives those badass little song-dogs enough credit. If you want to learn more about coyotes in Yellowstone, before the reintroduction of wolves, please check out “Track of the Coyote” by Todd Wilkinson.

Will Roseberg wrote:

Seriously BK??!!!!

Thanks for spreading anti-hunting BS

Thanks for doing your part. I was counting on someone doing it.

I think Dutchy has a point though… We need to hire these guys to create an anti-gill-netting campaign

Chuck Melcher wrote:

Cool video, and the thought process it provokes…..

And that’s how people get sucked in, no disrespect Chuck.

Will Roseberg wrote:

nothing more than propaganda…

It is a bunch of BS, I’m surprised they didn’t use the phrase “they kill the sick and the weak”, they are opportunistic killing machines and will take what ever they can get. Don’t get me wrong I think wolves are an awesome creature but they do need to be kept in check.

The articles that refute the video’s claim seem to disagree with the degree of reversal the reintroduction of wolves caused, not the basic idea of trophic cascade — they seem to agree that removing the wolves caused problems in the first place.

Perhaps a good analogy to fishing is the concept that top line predators are important for a balanced, self-sustaining ecosystem. And reasonable/sustainable human harvest levels, too, since we’re an external top line predator.

Also, for what it’s worth, I don’t think that that the fact that anti-hunters are on board with the pro-wolf story doesn’t mean it’s an anti-hunting story. It seems to me that the story could be turned into a pro-hunting one … responsible harvest is an important part of maintaining balance in the system, just like the wolves themselves!

Just my $0.02. The knee jerk/propoganda search thought processes on both sides bother me sometimes.

In principle I agree with you John… Perhaps the sleep deprivation of having a newborn has left me a bit more irritable than usual, but to me this video was made with a specific purpose/agenda and that was to advance the cause of the anti-(wolf)hunting crowd.

What a bunch of BS in that video.

The whole video is selling a premise that is 100% wrong. That being the “chain view of nature”, ie if one link in nature’s chain is disturbed, than the whole chain falls apart.

The fact is that nature is TREMENDOUSLY efficient at replacing broken links.

Take the video’s assertion that wolves have somehow “helped” the park by preventing overgrazing by an elk population that had grown too large.

The fact of the matter is that unlike cattle, elk do not overgraze because they can’t. Elk rely on grazing for food, so when the grass runs out, they cannot survive. Nature controls populations through a wide variety of means, starvation, disease, stress resulting in low birth rates, etc.

The idea that because wolves were missing, somehow nature was unable to balance itself is pure cuddly-wuddly pro-wolf propaganda. Nature is tremendously efficient and effective at using all the tools in her toolbox to correct imbalances. Mother Nature does NOT rely on one and only one species.

I also notice that the video avoids ANY discussion of weather the artificial re-introduction of wolves and the resulting growth of their population at a rate vastly faster than nature itself would ever allow has done more harm than good? The elk herds have been decimated because they were unable to naturally adapt to the man-made ramp up in wolf numbers that would never occur naturally. The elk, mule deer, bears, bison, etc are every bit as important to the ecosystem as the wolves are.

Grouse

I have actual done some pretty extensive research on wolves, so my viewpoint might be a bit more ‘informed’ than the pro wolf propoganda AND more importantly more informed than those insatiable, bloodthirsty hunters.

I have a dog and she’s like really cute and pretty, and she kind of reminds me of a wolf. Wolves are definitely dog-like, and I really like dogs, they are like mans best friend ya know?

So, stay away from the wolves you terrible hunters. What did they ever do to you? What if that wolf you are about to shoot was actually a dog, would you shoot it then? Really makes you think.

Sometimes I just wish hunters would think about the dogs more. After all, wolves are scientifically identical to dogs in every way, it’s just they don’t have families to take care of them.

The fact is that nature is TREMENDOUSLY efficient at replacing broken links.

Perfect anti ais law remark. Thanks!

You guys talk and type too much. Please put this info in a video with beautiful scenery, soothing music,,,and maybe some babes in bikinis. Till then I’m on the side of the sexy voiced English guy.