Meanwhile, birds, beavers, mice, and bears started returning to those once-barren areas. Plants started growing on the riverbanks and erosion decreased, causing rivers and streams to actually change course. Deer and elk started avoiding areas where they could be easily hunted, such as open valleys and gorges, which caused those areas to regenerate. Scientists think this happened, at least in part, because wolves started to change their prey’s behavior. In 1995, Yellowstone was home to about 18,000 elk, but by 2015, that number had dropped to 4,500, helping restore the ecosystem’s natural balance. The first thing that happened was the number of large prey dropped. So their numbers grew.īefore long, the wolves started changing Yellowstone’s ecosystem all over again, but this time for the better. And because they were inside the national park, the animals were protected from hunters. The newly formed packs spread out and established their territories, and the large populations of elk and deer provided them with ample prey. Then they were released into the wilderness of the park. Once there, each was radio-collared and temporarily penned so biologists could make sure they were healthy. They simply had fewer places to hide from predators.Įverything started to change after scientists reintroduced 41 wolves into Yellowstone National Park.įrom 1995 to 1997, wolves were captured in Canada and northwest Montana and transported to Yellowstone. The numbers of rabbits and mice species fell, too, because of all the overgrazing. Willow and aspen trees started dying off - and that hurt the species that relied on these trees for their survival, such as the birds that use them as nesting grounds and the beavers that use the wood to build dams and survive the winter. This hurt plants and other animal species. Their numbers grew so much that they ended up overgrazing large areas of land, leaving them vulnerable to erosion and defoliation. Why? Because without one of their major natural predators, fewer elk were dying. And biodiversity across the entire park declined as a result. Without wolves, there was a lot of one thing: elk. “Having a lot of different kinds of things at moderate numbers is better than having a lot of any one thing.” “Most ecosystems are best when they’re balanced,” Doug Smith, project leader for the Wolf Restoration Project in Yellowstone, said in a National Park Service Q&A. In other words, the whole ecosystem became unbalanced. When wolves were eliminated, it caused what scientists call a top-down trophic cascade. Wolves are apex predators, which means they are at the top of the food web. When Yellowstone lost its wolves, it caused some big problems for the whole ecosystem. In the end, not a single breeding pair of wolves remained in Yellowstone National Park. So, starting in the late 1800s up until the 1920s, wolves were hunted and poisoned by ranchers and predator control programs in order to protect people, livestock, and other “ more desirable ” wildlife species. The fact that wolves started killing livestock didn’t help either. That is because ever since settlers moved west, they feared the great gray wolf. In fact, it was hard to see a gray wolf anywhere in the lower 48 states. In fact, today, the chances of seeing a wolf in some parts of this park - such as Lamar Valley - are so good that some people come just to wolf-watch.īut for most of the 20th century, it was impossible to view these animals at all inside the park. They might even get to spot one of these beautiful animals darting across the landscape. On a quiet hike in Yellowstone National Park, some lucky visitors might get to hear an amazing sound: the howl of a gray wolf. By SIMONE SCULLY, originally published on
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