[HN Gopher] Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge i...
___________________________________________________________________
Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees
Paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037811272...
Author : geox
Score : 340 points
Date : 2025-07-23 12:13 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.livescience.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.livescience.com)
| incomingpain wrote:
| 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?
| rustyconover wrote:
| I'm not a biologist, but I grew up in West Yellowstone around
| the time wolves were reintroduced. Their return--and its impact
| --has been extensively studied by experts far more qualified
| than me.
|
| That said, I believe wolves had a profound effect on the
| Yellowstone ecosystem, particularly on elk and deer
| populations. Before their reintroduction, those species had few
| natural predators beyond hunters, vehicles, bears, and the
| occasional mountain lion. The imbalance led to overgrazing and
| the spread of diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in
| elk.
| asacrowflies wrote:
| The science is pretty clear on this Im not sure what you
| exactly are criticizing other than you don't like the vibes or
| vaguely incredulous? It doesn't take many wolves to change the
| behavior of nearly every herbivore they prey upon. Which then
| changes the river bank erosion. Which causes hundreds of more
| species to change behavior.... Trophic Cascades are not really
| up for debate .
| ForOldHack wrote:
| No one here used apex predictor, but many described it. The
| science is clear that we need to study this more, much more.
| We only know a brief glimpse on terms of geologic time.
|
| The effect on quaking aspens in Pardo is also something we
| need to study long term. Are the two related?
| asacrowflies wrote:
| Yes we need to study the longer term changes but the short
| term changes are undeniable. And focusing on geologic
| timescale for these improvements is inane when you look at
| the scale of destruction of the industrial revolution in
| less than a blink of an eye on the geological timescale...
|
| This is like triage, and concern trolling the 40 or 50 year
| side effects of triage treatment when someone is bleeding
| out is negligent bordering on criminal and treasonous imo
| laughingcurve wrote:
| "I do not like the results!" Or "The result does not make sense
| to me!" are not valid criticisms of science. They are arguments
| made from emotion. And in your case, based on your account
| history, it's clearly something political for you. I would
| encourage you to write that kind of commentary in a more
| appropriate venue. Like the bathroom stall of your local truck
| stop. Just not here.
| mousethatroared wrote:
| 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 expert to provided full access to his data,
| notes and analysis software.
|
| Im considered an expert in thermodynamics, materials science
| and E&M. The people that pay me routinely don't understand
| what I'm working on, but they expect me to explain myself.
| sarchertech wrote:
| >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 park and 500 immediately around the park
| wandering inside it and killing elk that wander outside.
|
| At the peak there were 18k elk in the park and now the
| numbers are down to 2000. There's plenty of evidence that
| the decline is a direct result of the wolves.
|
| Controlling elk population has tons of 2nd and 3rd order
| effects which have also been well documented.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Here on HN we are looking at the effects and beliefs of
| the people reading the studies? What effect does this
| have on us?
|
| Many downvoted comments etc. ( and much thanks for
| explaining the population numbers!)
| scott_w wrote:
| While I didn't like the tone of OP I do understand where
| they're coming from. Assuming what they're saying is correct,
| it's a valid question where explaining the mechanism is a
| solid response.
|
| I'll say that I've not read the article so if it's in the
| article then I would rather you just point to that, rather
| than make this response.
| williamdclt wrote:
| > 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?
|
| They've studied it and came to these conclusions, yes. Have you
| studied it and come to different conclusions?
| littlestymaar wrote:
| You're responding to someone who believe that omnivorous
| animals don't exist[1], so you can assume that they will
| disregard whatever biologists say and trust their feelings
| rather than reality.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44674445
| isatty wrote:
| Insane how they spout out nonsense as fact. Cats are
| obligate carnivores. They eat protein. End of story. Please
| do not feed your cat vegetables.
| plemer wrote:
| While I find your counter argument vague, it did prompt me to
| dig in and find that human hunting is arguably still the bigger
| suppressor of elk population. However, that's been going on
| since the '40s.
|
| The reintroduction of wolves is associated with an immediate,
| steady, and durable decline in elk - i.e. pushed the ecosystem
| past an inflection point into a new equilibrium.
| bhaak wrote:
| It's also possible that wolves hunt in a different way than
| humans, or different types (regarding age, gender, or health
| maybe) of elks.
|
| It's an interesting question and this could be empirically
| tested if human hunting would be slowly reduced.
| rustyconover wrote:
| Yellowstone is a national park, you can't hunt anything
| inside the park's boundaries. Wolves can.
| bhaak wrote:
| Yellowstone park has a policy of natural regulation
| (since the 70s IIRC). The surrounding areas not
| necessarily.
| scott_w wrote:
| That's a good point: hunters probably prefer strong elk but
| wolves prefer weak elk. I recall going to a walking with
| wolves experience in the Lake District where she explained
| that predators strengthen their prey by removing sick and
| those with genetic issues from the gene pool.
| specialist wrote:
| IIRC:
|
| Without risk of harm, elk and deer linger near water. This
| tramples the shoreline. And they love eating noshing on
| (aspen) saplings. Over time, the shorelines become barren.
|
| With the reintroduction of wolves, shorelines are no longer
| safe havens. Aspens have returned. With aspens, song birds
| have returned. Trees shade the water (eg streams), so fish
| are happier. Trees stabilize the top soil, reducing
| erosion, allows other plants to become reestablished.
|
| I dimly recall beavers returned too.
|
| --
|
| Aha. I was mostly right (or hallucinating). Here's
| perplexity link for "impact of return of wolves to
| yellowstone".
|
| https://www.perplexity.ai/search/impact-of-return-of-
| wolves-...
|
| I learned about the birds returning because of the wolves
| while volunteering at Audubon. That linked summary doesn't
| go into those details.
|
| --
|
| Update: I should've read the OC first. My bad. TIL: (too
| many) bison also negatively impact riverbanks. I had
| thought (misremembered) that overall impact of bison was
| positive. Does Yellowstone need more cougars?
| Retric wrote:
| The simple answer for how is the elk population in that
| 2,200,000 acres dropped from ~18,000 to ~2,000 or 1 elk per 2
| square miles.
|
| 16,000 elk do quiet a lot, especially as they aren't spending
| nearly as much time along river banks. Which changes what
| plants are in and around steams and thus what's happening in
| and around those streams.
| owenthejumper wrote:
| It's incredible how much damage we have done to ourselves in the
| past 250 years, and how much effort do we now need to spend to
| undo that damage
| hagbard_c wrote:
| It's incredible how much good we have done to ourselves in the
| past 250 years, and how much good we can do in the now and the
| future.
| ysavir wrote:
| Downvoted as this comment feels like it's trying to be
| witty/upshowing the parent comment without actually engaging
| with it or offering anything of substance. If the comment was
| along the lines of "yes, but we've also done a lot of good,
| let's reflect on both", great. But that's not what it was.
| Instead it feels like a statement that's trying to argue with
| the parent comment despite the parent comment never saying we
| haven't done any good.
| bluGill wrote:
| > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith.
|
| regaurdless of what was intended your downvote and reply
| shows a lack of good faith.
| ysavir wrote:
| It wasn't a criticism of what they were saying (a point
| on which I agree with that poster), but whether the
| comment itself was contributing to the discussion or not.
| It was a very low-effort comment that offered no
| reflection on what the parent said, doesn't tie into the
| original post, and lacks depth towards its own point.
| bluGill wrote:
| Low effort but I disagree about the rest - the opposition
| helps makes it clear how silly the formula it was
| paroding is.
| mc32 wrote:
| It's is! Just in medicine alone. And then economically, as
| well as justice. From 98% of the people living in abject
| poverty, no pairs of shoes, two changes of clothes, selling
| off relatives for money, dying from simple infections... to
| where we are today. It's like the glory days of Rome but much
| better.
| rgreek42 wrote:
| Surely this is the best of all possible worlds, Dr. Pangloss.
| jebarker wrote:
| The question is how much of that power will we use to do good
| for the rest of the species on the planet? I've just finished
| reading "Not the end of the world" and found it to be an
| informative and balanced discussion on the topic that
| recognizes the vast benefits of human development (to
| humans), the cost to the rest of the planet and the progress
| we've made in the past 50 years in undoing some of the harm.
| This is a nuanced topic and deserves that kind of debate.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Which exact species do you want to help? Ticks, mosquitos
| and anthrax or more like birds, trees and elk? Where do you
| draw the line?
| jebarker wrote:
| What a strange question. As a starter I'd like to see us
| help trees, coral, other primates and megafauna as much
| as possible. The former because they support so much
| other biodiversity and the latter because they're nice to
| have in the world. Generally speaking though I favor
| sustainability where that means continuing to improve the
| quality of life for humans, especially those at the
| bottom of the socio-economic ladder, whilst trying to
| minimize the number of other species we drive to
| extinction. Again, nuance is key here - I don't think my
| inability to enumerate every species worthy of help means
| that we should just dismiss the effort to help other
| species.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| I don't ask you to "enumerate every species worthy of
| help" but rather to formulate a criteria you use to
| figure out who is worthy of help and who is not.
|
| The "nice to have in the world" sounds quite arbitrary to
| me. I don't think the question I ask is strange, I'm
| trying to figure out the idea you believe in. So far you
| assume we share some core belief on the topic and the
| rest is obvious, which I don't think is the case.
| jebarker wrote:
| OK, I apologize if I misunderstood. My core belief is
| that it's possible for humans to continue to prosper
| without causing a mass extinction of other species. I
| believe that largely happens through managing our impacts
| on the environment in which the species live and not just
| through direct intervention in the lives of those
| species, e.g. reducing deforestation and rewilding,
| reducing ocean acidification to save coral reefs. So I
| don't think we have to choose specific species we wish to
| save and those we are willing to let go extinct.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Are you really promoting the philosophy of Leibnizian
| Optimism in 2025?
|
| I suggest reading _Candide_ by Voltaire, first published 266
| years as a critique to the philosophy you are currently
| espousing.
| bmacho wrote:
| People: "If God, then why bad?"[0] Leibniz: "God
| and bad can coexist. E.g. we live in the best possible
| world."[1] Voltaire: "Here's a depiction of some
| fictional bad."
|
| I don't think Voltaire engaged meaningfully with Leibniz's
| argument. (I think that Leibniz is _simply right_ tho, in
| the mathematical sense, so there isn 't much room for
| Voltaire anyway.)
|
| [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil
|
| [1] :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds
| chuckadams wrote:
| I suspect that "being right in the mathematical sense" is
| the very thing that Voltaire was lampooning.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Doesn't Leibniz's argument assume a single all-powerful
| god, and an external notion of good and evil? I would
| call it a 'not-even-wrong' argument - perhaps it's
| perfectly correct given its assumptions, but the
| assumptions aren't (necessarily) anything to do with this
| world...
| thfuran wrote:
| I don't really see how you got there from what they
| actually said.
| narcraft wrote:
| We've come a long way in those 266 years: global population
| 10x'd, meanwhile the share of the population living in
| extreme poverty went from over 80% to nearly 8%, so not all
| optimism was misguided. Also there's a lot of room between
| despair and a Panglossian caricature, and I don't think
| acknowledging that a lot of good has happened in the past
| (and not necessarily suggesting it was all inevitable or
| automatic) rises to that caricature.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| These replies that simply restate a previous comment by
| inverting its meaning are really starting to annoy me.
| They're neither witty nor intelligent. Just lazy and
| annoying.
|
| _Waiting for someone to reply to this doing exactly this_
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| People assuming that last 250 years were predominantly harm
| are annoying. The human race is thriving by every objective
| metric of nature: population, lifespan, dispensable energy
| per capita.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| Humans on their phone 24/7 due to addiction and/or who
| hold multiple jobs and still can't afford rent and/or who
| suffer from racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. are not
| thriving.
|
| Oh, but they live to be 75, can buy a 75 inch television,
| and there are 8 billion of them. I'd still say they're
| not thriving.
|
| Would you consider the folks in Brave New World thriving?
|
| And don't get me started on environmental destruction.
| This post was about wolves and trees thriving, by the
| way.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| In response to a one-sided and overdone statement a
| reversed and equally overdone statement is a good way to
| point out the problems with such statements. I am annoyed
| and dismayed by the simpleminded self-flagellation implied
| by statements like the one I reacted to and think that
| people who make such statements should be time-warped back
| the mentioned 250 years and made to live in that era for,
| say, a year or so. When they are returned to the current
| era they will sound a different tune - that is if they
| manage to survive that year without succumbing to disease,
| some violent attack by man or beast or by starvation.
| throw83944i888 wrote:
| > how much effort do we now need to spend to undo that
|
| Moving a few wolfs, I would hardly call that effort! Stopping
| regulations and allowing some hunters in Yellowstone would have
| similar effects!
|
| It is more like morons, who do not understand biology are in
| goverment! Overprotection allowed elk overpopulation!
| Incipient wrote:
| For clarification, I wouldn't say stopping regulation. It
| should be "updating regulation" - either increasing hunt
| quotas, or having an 'open season' time.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| Yellowstone seems like one of the most resilient ecosystems we do
| science on, seems it can reorganize to respond to changes in
| species.
|
| Can other ecosystems do this? Or is Yellowstone the only one?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| A recent biology teacher of mine claims that military bases
| often contain ecosystems that are:
|
| - intact enough to have quick bounce back behavior upon species
| reintroduction and
|
| - small enough for you to have a good idea about which species
| are present
|
| - come with a built-in control variable: the civilian space on
| the other side of the border represents what would have
| happened if we had let economics have its way with the land
|
| Maybe you don't need quite that level of protection to see such
| effects, but generally you do need some. Throwing some wolves
| at a once-forest that's now half way to being a desert will not
| always save that forest.
| kergonath wrote:
| It is one of the better studied ones. What makes you think this
| sort of things does not happen elsewhere? Yellowstone has the
| advantage of being in the US, where there are a lot of people
| studying these things.
| trgn wrote:
| Ardennes too, according to our guide at least, reintroduction
| of wolves changed ecosystem
| atentaten wrote:
| How does returning wolves to ecosystem effect the mountain lion
| population? Can we balance things out or are we shuffling
| problems around?
| jebarker wrote:
| Im speculating, but mountain lions were probably doing fine
| before the early 1800s too so they likely just balance each
| other out naturally if there's competition over the same prey.
| I doubt humans need to do anything.
| djoldman wrote:
| The subtitle explains:
|
| "Gray wolves were reintroduced ... to help control the numbers of
| elk that were eating young trees"
| flkenosad wrote:
| They should try it in nfld
| mkw5053 wrote:
| 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 wetlands.
|
| - With healthier riparian zones came deeper pools, colder water,
| and a surge in native trout and song-bird nests.
|
| [1] https://phys.org/news/2025-02-predators-ecosystems-
| yellowsto...
| sushibowl wrote:
| As far as I know, the science on this is far from settled.
| There is no consensus and the evidence in favor of a trophic
| cascade in Yellowstone came predominantly from two studies done
| by the same team/person. Later studies failed to replicate
| findings.
|
| Do wolves fix ecosystems? CSU study debunks claims about
| Yellowstone reintroduction
|
| https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-sta...
|
| A good story: Media bias in trophic cascade research in
| Yellowstone National Park
|
| https://academic.oup.com/book/26688/chapter-abstract/1954809...
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Both links are paywalled so I can't comment on what they say
| (positive or negative). That said, I did attend an
| interesting lecture about systems that looks a bit at the
| Yellowstone as a cautionary tale about extrapolating how a
| system works from observational data. Basically it came down
| to there are secondary and tertiary effects from systems
| variables that express visibly differently depending on both
| the _magnitude_ of the system elements influence and the
| _time_ where it it changes. Thus making "simple" conclusions
| like 'wolves did this' often insufficient to explain system
| behavior and sometimes outright incorrect.
|
| However, the introduction of wolves did, incontrovertibly,
| add a system element that had not been present before.
| Exactly _what_ that element was, and how it expressed is up
| for interpretation :-)
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Brilliant observation. Dynamic systems like this are rarely
| a cut-n-done. Like the study of ozone, with it's seven
| counter intuitive steps, it is all an evolving study.
|
| It also proves the worth of just simple studies over a long
| period of time. Science used to do a lot of that, and it
| was very interesting, as many appear on hacker news, but
| now it seems that cut-n-done grab more popular news.
|
| It also bears the question: what longitudinal studies are
| popular here besides this one, and retro computing?
| cwmoore wrote:
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/paidservices/long
| itu...
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > Both links are paywalled so I can't comment on what they
| say (positive or negative).
|
| Fixed!
|
| https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-
| sta... | https://archive.is/k0NqZ
|
| https://academic.oup.com/book/26688/chapter-
| abstract/1954809... | https://annas-
| archive[.]org/md5/3d5be21998575e23a28fdaa53ff5...
|
| (You will have to replace "[.]" with "." in the above link
| in case that wasn't obvious.)
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Awesome thanks. Added to my libraary. Interesting that
| the Coloradan study was asking a slightly different
| question regarding wolves in Colorado vs the magnitude of
| the wolf impact in Yellowstone. I felt the experimental
| setup was also good but might quibble that Elk have more
| impact than just eating, they can squash saplings just by
| walking on them. The point that Colorado maintains its
| Elk population by hunting was relevant as well, any
| impact of wolf predation would be less than it would be
| on a previously un-predated population. All in all
| though, I quite agree that the stories of Yellowstone's
| wolves likely overstate the specific impact of wolves and
| understate the system dynamics that had other mechanisms
| also affecting them.
|
| I also recognize that 'popular' writing is more about
| persuasion than facts :-) and it was important to
| persuade people that wolves weren't "bad/evil" just
| predators that had lived there before. Telling that story
| as a rebalancing is certainly more palatable than saying
| "Yeah, if we had allowed hunting Elk (and perhaps Bison)
| in Yellowstone it would have similarly improved."
| Generally keeping the human role as apex predator out of
| the headlines :-). Thanks again, great links.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > Thanks again, great links.
|
| It was the least I could do to help the discussion, as
| I'm not really knowledgeable enough about Yellowstone
| ecology personally to have a nuanced discussion with you
| or others in this thread, so I have to find other ways to
| contribute positively to help us all catch where catch
| can by enabling debate through proper context.
|
| You're welcome, and thank you for your response on the
| points for the benefit of me and the thread, as it was
| beyond my ken.
| bitexploder wrote:
| https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecm..
| .. CSU study
| ricardobeat wrote:
| That looks like a quite biased interpretation of these
| studies. Direct quotes:
|
| > The average height of willows in fenced and dammed plots 20
| years after the initiation of the experiment exceeded 350 cm,
| while the height in controls averaged less than 180 cm
|
| > This suggests that well watered plants could tolerate
| relatively heavy browsing. It also shows that the absence of
| engineering by beavers suppressed willow growth to a similar
| extent as did browsing
|
| They posit that the growth in control groups not matching the
| fenced areas is evidence of wolves reintroduction _not_
| having the effects they are said to have. It is a pretty
| unconvincing argument since there are so many other variables
| involved. They also prove that IF the wolves have indirectly
| lead to either the return of beaver dams, or reduced elk
| browsing, there is undoubtedly an impact in tree growth,
| which is a positive result regardless.
|
| Their theory that things will never return to their original
| state, and instead will settle into a new alternate
| equilibrium is probably correct, but does not seem like the
| definitive blow to the wolf theory that it's made out to be.
| GlibMonkeyDeath wrote:
| And this one from the National Park Service web site, funded
| by NSF:
|
| https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/ys-24-1-the-challenge-of-
| unde...
|
| TL;DR - the observed reduction of the elk herd correlated
| with wolf introduction, but also with an increase in cougars,
| grizzly bears, and even bison, all of which either reduce or
| compete with elk. Human hunting also added pressure, but that
| has been limited as the herd size reduced. It is complicated.
| troupo wrote:
| I also read it as "biodiversity is a good thing"
| sghiassy wrote:
| 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, not necessarily
| worse. So when we talk about progress in this context, we're
| really measuring against a value-laden idea of what we think
| nature should look like, not some neutral truth.
|
| That doesn't mean rewilding is bad--but I do think we should
| acknowledge that we're shaping nature to fit human values, not
| restoring it to some pure, original state.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Another example: mosquitos. We can and should drive them to
| extinction. The species that feed on humans are nowhere food-
| web-critical. It's an arbitrary and wrong judgement that we
| should preserve mosquitos just because they happened to
| evolve with us. So what if eradicating them would be
| unnatural? So what if it would technically be a reduction in
| biodiversity? Not everything natural is good or optimal.
| profsummergig wrote:
| You seem very well-informed on the matter.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I remember when it was announced that smallpox was
| eradicated (Yeah, I'm old enough to have a smallpox
| vaccination scar).
|
| I remember someone moaning about how we had driven a
| species to extinction.
|
| We're a funny lot, really. I've learned not to take us too
| seriously; especially the folks that take _themselves_ very
| seriously.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It is questionable whether smallpox is alive and so
| whether it can go extinct. If in some sense it can go
| extinct it seems both the Americans and Russians are
| determined to keep it alive "just in case".
|
| Nobody was much concerned when we eradicated another
| infectious virus. Unlike Smallpox there was no "military
| rationale" for keeping copies on ice, so Rinderpest is
| gone. It appears that its close human relation, Measles,
| will be around for a long time though because "I don't
| believe in facts" trumps "My child has died of a
| preventable disease". So that's certainly evidence for
| you're "We're a funny lot" theory.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| A fairly common horror movie trope, is some Eocene
| zombiemaker virus, being thawed out of the permafrost.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The interesting version of this is to exterminate the
| malaria carrying mosquito species. Only 40 of 3500 species
| can carry malaria. If we wipe them out, non malaria
| carrying species will likely take their place in the
| ecosystems.
|
| 250 million people have malaria, and 600k, mostly children
| die from it yearly.
|
| And yet, I see a lot more people defending the mosquitos
| than the humans.
| kurthr wrote:
| Mosquito introduction is an historical event (1820) in
| Hawaii (New Zealand, the Caribbean, etc). This devastated
| local bird populations driving many to extinction and
| halving the avian population in approximately a year due to
| virus propagation. The death of the birds led to less seed
| dispersal, loss of forest, and increased susceptibility to
| invasive plants.
|
| Some are ancient, but have adapted to thrive in some human
| environments, but have spread well past their original
| areas by colonialism, slave trade, shipping, and war. The
| idea that modern mosquitoes are some "natural" ecosystem
| element is pretty funny. Perhaps they have destroyed the
| habitat that once existed and driven out competing species
| which once fit into the niche, but they are in most places
| relatively modern in ways other biting flies are not. The
| growing effects of malaria are not only on humans, but
| other animals including both chimps and reptiles as well.
|
| Anopheles/Aedes/Culex mosquitos are the grey goo of
| insects, driving other flies, midges, and even mosquitos
| (which local fish and larval predators have evolved with)
| to exinction. Treat them like the infection they are.
| hst2 wrote:
| I've heard talk about getting rid of a few species of
| mosquitoes; eliminating all would be an ecological
| catastrophe. They are pollinators and an essential food
| source for many species, like birds, bats, and frogs.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| I think one approach would be; restoring it to a known stable
| equilibrium. Meaning, if without wolves things continue to
| deteriorate and clearly hasn't reached a stable equilibrium
| but you know that with them things were stable over some long
| term period then you should reintroduce them
| parineum wrote:
| It's never been stable, that's the arbitrariness op is
| talking about.
| 29ebJCyy wrote:
| There is absolutely stability if you zoom out to the time
| scale that permits evolutionary adaptation (and of
| course, if you zoom out much farther it all devolves to
| noise again). But it's specious to say that "the only
| constant is change" and then declare all comparisons
| moot.
| 42772827 wrote:
| That's a rather idiosyncratic definition of stability.
| Evolutionary adaptation is literally change over time.
| 29ebJCyy wrote:
| I think it's an elementary definition of stability. Just
| because the derivative of the function is never zero
| doesn't mean it contains no useful information.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I've got to agree. I like Aspen trees, but I like Elk better.
|
| It sure sounds like we're just choosing the species we like.
| It's like a big walled garden.
| zomiaen wrote:
| The Aspen trees provide ecosystem benefits to animals other
| than Elk-- birds, etc. Shorter grasses allow smaller
| animals to live and hide.
|
| It's not choosing species we like as much as that there was
| previously an equilibrium all ecosystems trend towards, and
| our influence (killing the wolves) lead to significant
| ecosystem imbalances that hurt more than just wolves.
| subscribed wrote:
| 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 temperate
| rainforests in the UK) are good. Killing everything for the
| sake of one specie: Bad.
|
| More on that if your position is honest:
| https://www.monbiot.com/2025/05/12/the-commoner-kings/
| tialaramex wrote:
| Indeed. For the UK in particular you clearly can't have
| "What it was without people" because that's far too long
| ago, there aren't records so we'd only be guessing. The New
| Forest - near me - was built about a thousand years ago,
| it's not "supposed" to be like that, it was built on
| purpose and it takes considerable maintenance to keep it
| that way, felling trees, managing trails, maintaining
| bridges and so on. Things like "The pigs eat acorns, that
| way the ponies don't eat the acorns and die+" could not
| possibly work without humans managing the forest. Left to
| their own devices the pigs would destroy that forest in a
| few years, and then the ponies die too, humans allow pigs
| out for a set period, to eat lots of acorns, then bring
| them all back by law.
|
| We could try to build what was there before the forest, but
| it would be extremely disruptive to all the people who live
| there, and what for? The Forest isn't _very_ useful today,
| but it 's pretty and we know it's stable, and it has _some_
| uses, we grow some trees there, we farm some pigs and
| ponies, tourists come to see it - there are many worse
| options.
|
| + Acorns are poisonous. Don't eat acorns without proper
| preparation. Unless you're a pig or a squirrel or
| something. In which case how are you reading this note?
| tehjoker wrote:
| Something I learned recently, acrons (properly prepared,
| they are indeed poisonous otherwise) used to be a human
| staple food in the Americas. It was displaced because it
| is annoying to prepare and the taste is relatively bland.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Instead of thinking of this as a benefit of wolves
| (specifically), you can view it as an advantage of having
| something in their ecological niche. In this case, the niche
| is 'apex predator.' It's a niche which is repeated across
| pretty much every ecosystem. They keep populations of their
| prey species down, preventing overpopulation and the many
| indirect problems that come with it.
|
| Perhaps without an apex predator the prey species would
| evolve out of the overpopulation problem eventually. However,
| species that evolve with a predator tend to reproduce more
| quickly, which helps avoid being completely wiped out by the
| predator - when the population constraint impose by the
| predator is removed, the prey population explodes, leading to
| particularly pronounced problems.
|
| (Perhaps if we had to contend with some homo-vampirus, we
| wouldn't have global climate change...)
|
| Overall, humans already interfered in the shape of the
| ecosystem by removing wolves. You're correct that there's no
| objective 'correct' state for an ecosystem. But it is
| worthwhile to help balance ecosystems, especially when they
| have been unbalanced by our own interventions. Without
| restoration work, we're headed to a world with humans,
| livestock, and the few species that manage to live on our
| margins.
| sghiassy wrote:
| That's a strong point. Thanks for the thought
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| > species that evolve with a predator tend to reproduce
| more quickly
|
| As an example of this, a healthy female rabbit will produce
| anywhere from 20 to 50 additional rabbits in a single year.
| There have been many documented explosions of rabbit
| populations due to lack of natural predators which have
| caused significant ecological crisis.
|
| They've evolved to reproduce so quickly because they are
| the "food" in the food chain. Without the predators above
| them, they will _eventually_ stop reproducing so quickly
| because they are only killing themselves by doing so.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| It's worth puzzling about the mechanisms that would lead
| a fast reproducing species to slow down...
|
| My best guess is that internal competition for scarce
| resources leads to territoriality, which in turn might
| select for better resource utilization. Including reduced
| reproduction, which creates more resource competition.
| But this doesn't feel super obvious.
|
| Otherwise, we have plague and starvation acting as stand
| ins for apex predators, which isn't much fun... And
| apparently isn't generally enough to reduce environmental
| externalities from over population.
| ndr wrote:
| The term of art for everything that includes those
| factors is "carrying capacity" [0].
|
| It's not as much that the fertility necessarily drops,
| but that under some conditions the death rate equals or
| overtakes the birth rate.
|
| And the system is dynamic. So conditions changes, as in
| some of your examples, even just because the population
| grows. EG scarcer resources.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity
| bbor wrote:
| (Perhaps if we had to contend with some homo-vampirus, we
| wouldn't have global climate change...)
|
| Humans--like ants--seem to be their own primary predator ;(
| Ifkaluva wrote:
| "Homo homini lupus"
| rizzom5000 wrote:
| > we're headed to a world with humans, livestock, and the
| few species...
|
| It looks more and more like we're headed toward a world
| where we'll regenerate extinct species in labs; and grow
| our steaks in meat factories. If we no longer need cattle
| farms, it's possible we'll vote to preserve more lands.
| the_af wrote:
| Is there any evidence this has any traction, is actually
| feasible (the reintroduction part), and is not merely a
| publicity stunt for some biotech startups?
|
| I think a more realistic point of view is that once a
| species is gone, it's truly gone, and that we should
| worry about keeping alive those still existing, because
| there's no "undo" button.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I'm usually the last person to take this side of a
| discussion but I don't see how feasible since:
| - the existence species regeneration does not imply the
| incentivize to regenerate and manage the vast majority of
| extinct species - lack of gene samples for vast
| majority of species - we don't and are not very
| close to having a viable model for environment and
| species fitness so we can't accurately model what
| specifies to regenerate - new species populations
| have to be managed before and after initial release
| - land and labor capital investment
| lukas099 wrote:
| I hope so. In the meantime, we should try to preserve as
| much natural genetic information as possible, even
| assuming we can vet the species back.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| > homo-vampirus
|
| https://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm
|
| The book is great "what if?" in several directions at once
| including human vampires.
| zomiaen wrote:
| I wouldn't say pre-human settlement, since Natives were in
| these areas for many years, but they didn't have the desire
| to mass hunt wolves (and culturally, would not do so). So
| pre-US colonialism, perhaps.
|
| Philosophically though you're correct- humans very easily see
| themselves as "apart" from the environment, when really we're
| just another mammal doing our thing. We are nature as much as
| we are in it, even for all of our tools and manufacturing.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > we're shaping nature to fit human values
|
| Biodiversity is a good measure of ecosystem health, no? Is it
| really a human value?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| One point I rarely see made:
|
| When you "destroy" an ecosystem, a new one will take its
| place. The remaining animals and plants will converge on a
| new balanced state.
|
| The ecosystems we admire today are often that new balance
| after humans destroyed the natural one.
| chomp wrote:
| That's because it's a bad point. An ecosystem can collapse
| for multiple reasons, e.g. collapse due pollution will not
| create a thriving ecosystem.
|
| In almost all cases, when a collapsed ecosystem reaches
| homeostasis again, the result is a more fragile and less
| diverse balance than what was there previously.
| trainsarebetter wrote:
| This is pretty naive take. We have turned eras of lush
| forests into essentially deserts and killed water sheds.
| These things don't default back to a thriving ecosystem.
| Lots of the time they are just dead. Pre tree planting,
| after clear cutting, there's a lot of "forests" in bc that
| are just one canopy hemlock swaths. They need to be thinned
| and diversified because the are essentially "dead" forests.
| A lot of work needs to be put into these areas, as the
| water sheds are falling apart and dying as a result.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| Often ecosystem quality is measured by diversity, eg number
| of species. Diverse ecosystems are considered more
| resilient.
| tickettotranai wrote:
| It's a question of timescales and degrees and magnitudes,
| not of binary "did or didn't destroy". If we hadn't stopped
| redwood logging in the 20th century, yeah, the ecosystem
| would be replaced... But probably by something smaller and
| faster growing. Victory! Redwoods got replaced by smaller
| trees, mission success.
|
| Monocultures are a scary thing (I'm sure you've heard about
| how we had to completely switch banana varietals), and
| having resilient ecosystems is important. I think ATM the
| consensus is having an apex predator does actually help the
| stability of these sorts of ecosystems and leads to
| outcomes most would consider favorable (greater diversity,
| better density, closer to an equilibrium). Now, we could
| surely fix this problem by doing it ourselves (eg by
| subsidizing deer and rabbit hunting and venison), but
| wolves are probably cheaper.
| fooker wrote:
| > The remaining animals and plants will converge on a new
| balanced state.
|
| There's no guarantee that this be a stable equilibrium.
|
| If it doesn't stabilize, we get mass extinctions. We have
| had five large ones and are rapidly moving towards the
| sixth ones by all accounts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
| mandmandam wrote:
| > are rapidly moving towards the sixth ones by all
| accounts
|
| The scientific consensus isn't that we're "moving
| towards" a mass extinction. It's that we're deep into
| one, and accelerating.
|
| "Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000
| times higher than natural background extinction rates
| [13][14][15][16][17] and are accelerating."
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
| Misdicorl wrote:
| One way to measure this that isn't moral judgements is the
| ecological depth of an environment. If one part of the system
| is destroyed (e.g. a blight on plant A) how devastating to
| the rest of the system will that be?
|
| One of the hallmarks of human engineered environments is how
| shallow and fragile they are. Changes, like the
| reintroduction of wolves, are "good" because they give us
| deeper and more resilient environments
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| If only we had a whole group of experts who study this as
| their life work to make these choices instead of thinking our
| random speculations are the best we can do.
| dev_l1x_be wrote:
| Using restoring less of IT term (like restoring from a
| backup) and more of a way of improving compared to current
| state is the key here.
| johnnienaked wrote:
| There is a "correct" state of nature: one without modern
| humans.
| thrawa8387336 wrote:
| Why do you hate yourself?
| johnnienaked wrote:
| It's not hate, it's love.
|
| "But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature
| is inevitably a war against himself. We are challenged as
| mankind has never been challenged before to prove our
| maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of
| ourselves." --Rachel Carson
| sitkack wrote:
| If "restoring" is tricky, does that mean going in the non-
| restoring direction is less so?
| celticninja wrote:
| Agree but more species is definitely better than less
| species. We are not aiming to get dinosaurs back, but pre
| industrial era levels of wildlife is not a bad thing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _When we say that reintroducing wolves led to ecological
| improvements, what's our reference point?_
|
| Ecological diversity and utility to humans.
|
| The GYE is more diverse thanks to having wolves check grazing
| populations. And the physical structure of the riparian
| environment is more stable, which means better (and cheaper)
| infrastructure and water management.
| 42772827 wrote:
| >I've always found the idea of "restoring" ecosystems a bit
| philosophically tricky.
|
| ..we're shaping nature to fit human values,
|
| You're right to question it, because the philosophy itself is
| based on the emotionally satisfying but ultimately
| unscientific "Gaia" theory of "balance" and "self-sustaining"
| / "self-correcting" systems.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| > because the philosophy itself is based on the emotionally
| satisfying but ultimately unscientific "Gaia" theory of
| "balance" and "self-sustaining" / "self-correcting"
| systems.
|
| I'm certain some have used those ideas, but that is not
| what _the_ philosophy itself is based on.
| owenversteeg wrote:
| [flagged]
| tdb7893 wrote:
| I think this is a misunderstanding of what the goals are,
| it's not just to go back to some arbitrary time in the past.
| Often reintroduction of keystone species like wolves lead to
| increased biodiversity and resilience of the ecosystem, which
| is useful especially since we are currently going through a
| mass extinction.
| computerdork wrote:
| I saw a PBS nature episode on keystone species (maybe you
| did too?), and how they keep ecosystems in balance. Was one
| of the most interesting documentaries I ever saw. Am glad
| to see that in wolf species actually did help rebalance the
| ecosystem, really amazing to see the theory in practice!
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I've also had this feeling when conservation of particular
| species comes up. Species come and go. Why conserve this
| particular species?
|
| So, inevitably, the answer must be that people want to
| conserve them either because of sentimental reasons or
| because a given ecosystem suits human flourishing, or because
| it maximizes some metric like species diversity.
|
| > we're really measuring against a value-laden idea of what
| we think nature should look like, not some neutral truth.
|
| I will remark, that "value-laden" is not opposed to "neutral
| truth". All knowledge is value-laden. Value itself is part of
| reality. The fact-value dichotomy is a fiction.
| titzer wrote:
| Biodiversity, biomass, and ecosystem robustness are all
| objective measures.
|
| Human settlement has a tendency to reduce all of them. The
| story here isn't that reintroducing wolves established some
| kind of human-centric value system, it's the surprisingly
| complex and far-reaching effects of just _one_ change in the
| ecosystem, particularly the re-introduction of a top
| predator.
|
| Note also that absent extinction altogether, without humans
| _actively killing_ wolves, their numbers _most likely_ would
| have recovered eventually, probably with similar effects. In
| essence, we just accelerated a type of healing process that
| would naturally take place when our enormous ecological
| footprint is removed.
| gdubs wrote:
| 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 balance. Or restore
| elements that will help re-establish balance. And it doesn't
| have to all be "native".
|
| And there are some natives like poison oak that I'll get rid
| of because they're obnoxious and will ruin people's
| experience of nature. And people's experience with nature
| matters because that's a big part of how you win people over
| and get them to support nature restoration work.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >I've always found the idea of "restoring" ecosystems a bit
| philosophically tricky.
|
| It's not even "tricky". It's purely a subjective political
| football if you live anywhere that was formerly glaciated
| because humans were there from day 1 and so it's basically a
| subjective question of which time period you want to restore.
| DHRicoF wrote:
| Ecosystems are dynamic by nature, so "make them like where
| 222.22 years ago" is a little meaningless.
|
| But biodiversity is a good target and as unbiased as you can
| get. More biodiversity means more adaptability and resilience
| of the system.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > I've always found the idea of "restoring" ecosystems a bit
| philosophically tricky.
|
| I think you're confusing "arbitrarily meddling in wilderness"
| and "restoring ecosystems". The latter would be something
| like demolishing a Walmart and its parking lot and putting
| soil and trees in its place.
|
| Basically giving back human development spaces back to nature
| and letting nature take care of itself. This involves things
| like cleaning up waterways.
| gerdesj wrote:
| "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.
| thom wrote:
| Not sure where opinion ended up on this, are there dissenting
| voices still?
|
| https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debun...
| rr808 wrote:
| _" It is a classic example of how saying something many times
| with enthusiasm can make it true, regardless of what the
| science says," Hobbs said. _
|
| Welcome to the age of social media.
| patall wrote:
| Because data it is inconclusive. I.e this publication that says
| that the impact of wolves is beyond their population pressure,
| reducing traffic accidents by making deer more wary:
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023251118
| ForOldHack wrote:
| If I could pick 10 stories to follow every day on a HN dashboard,
| this would be first. It's really four or five stories in one.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| This is great news! Why doesn't fish and game just increase the
| number of elk tags they sell? There are multiple ways to reduce
| the elk population.
| tossandthrow wrote:
| Based on another commenter it appears that it is not merely
| about the number of elk, but likely also how they act.
|
| But is see This has a human imperialist reaction: why don't we
| just micro manage everything!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Humans hunt very differently than wolves. The impacts on elk
| behavior are thus potentially very different.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| There are other studies that show that reintroduction of wolves
| also appeared to lead to a decrease in coyotes and changed the
| populations and behaviors of other prey animals, in turn
| changing other plant populations. This particular headline does
| not indicate all the apparent changes. These second and third
| order effects are not things a state fish and game body would
| particularly care about until it was forced to by other arms of
| government.
| arnon wrote:
| Finally some good news today
| trgn wrote:
| All it took is hundreds of elk calves scurrying away in mortal
| fear each year before getting disembowled alive
| rr808 wrote:
| 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?
| kingkawn wrote:
| Yes
| jeffbee wrote:
| Welfare ranchers grazing on BLM land? Yes.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| Your question rephrased from an Indigenous People's
| perspective:
|
| "is the greater good more important than the _original people
| who lived there_? "
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| More important than their desire to continue doing business the
| way they're used to? I'd say so. You phrase it like we're
| feeding _them_ to the wolves.
|
| It's not just predators vs livestock, there are a bunch of
| things that we didn't used to understand about ecosystems that
| we do now. The societal cost of letting people displace or kill
| wild animals with abandon is quite high.
|
| Zoonotic diseases are the first to come to mind. How many
| preventable cases of Plague or Lyme disease is that livestock
| worth to us?
| perlgeek wrote:
| Losing stock to wolves and bears was why we used to have
| shepherds, shepherd dogs, fences etc, at least in Europe.
|
| Eradicating predators created a very convenient, intermittent
| period where this was less of a necessity, but it also had
| quite negative externalities.
|
| So the question isn't "is the greater good more important than
| the people who live there?", but more "is the greater good more
| important than the convenience of some people who live there?"
|
| This is a question we have to ask ourselves a lot; nobody wants
| to live near a landfill, a prison, a sewage treatment plant
| etc, and yet we want them for the greater good.
| fundad wrote:
| Convenience, lifestyle and the ability to hire fewer people
| (keeping more money). If it doesn't make money after
| expenses, get a second or third job like most artisans.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I think it's very obvious that it is more important what people
| like me who sit on the other side of the world thinks about
| wolves in Yellowstone, than what the people living there think.
| wpm wrote:
| Yes. They should nut up and get over it.
| spicyusername wrote:
| Yes.
| inahga wrote:
| Colorado, at least, provides several resources for minimizing
| and compensating wolf depredation.
|
| https://cpw.widencollective.com/assets/share/asset/pzqhipzb1...
| (see Funding)
|
| Cursory search shows that not just Colorado does this.
| floatrock wrote:
| 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
| carbon is against the "greater good", but if we can pretend
| that our high-energy lifestyle is somehow independent and
| unconnected to the planetary ecological systems that support
| us, then of course, why shouldn't I mortgage my descendants'
| future for some toys today.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| More important their businesses? Yes, very likely. To what
| extent should their business interests be protected over
| nature?
| tomrod wrote:
| Oof. Bad place for a ranch. Natural ecology needs those apex
| predators. They should consider relocating if they are deep in
| the ranching world. If we've learned anything since the
| industrial revolution, we have learned that sustainability is
| highly desirable, even more so than marginal ranchland.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| 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.
| tomrod wrote:
| Great question! Once lab grown meat becomes economically
| viable, there will be few good places for ranches that make
| sense.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| There are millions of acres to grow cows where there are no
| wolves.
| fillskills wrote:
| Spoke with someone on the Yellowstone team a few weeks ago.
| They mentioned most wolves lose life to ranchers. Avg wolf life
| in Yellowstone is just 3 years!
| bawolff wrote:
| > I talked to a local who was friends with ranchers who now
| lose stock to wolves. They hate it.
|
| Well if they liked it, their anscestors wouldn't have killed
| the wolves in the first place.
| pengaru wrote:
| yes
| pcmaffey wrote:
| There's a raging battle to decimate wolf populations in Montana.
| I'd encourage any and all to speak up.
|
| https://fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/public-comment-opportunities Click on
| the dropdown for "Fall 2025-Winter 2026 Furbearer and Wolf
| Trapping and Hunting Seasons and Quotas."
|
| > Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP) is proposing new,
| despicable wolf hunting regulations that could allow up to 500
| wolves to be killed. This would increase the number of wolves
| that can be killed next season by 50 percent, nearly half the
| state's entire wolf population. MTFWP is also pushing expanded
| hunting and trapping rules, including allowing hunters to kill up
| to 30 wolves per person.
|
| > This proposal comes despite livestock losses remaining near
| historic lows, with only 35 confirmed cattle deaths in 2024, and
| a significant drop in the number of wolves killed due to
| livestock conflicts. It is also worth noting that revenue from
| wolf hunting licenses is among the lowest ever recorded - which
| helps explain why these expanded rules are less about science and
| more about politics, profit, and desperation.
|
| > The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission will vote on this
| proposal at its next meeting on August 21. In the meantime,
| public comments are open through August 4, and wolves need your
| voice. In your comment, consider including the following:
|
| - There is no scientific or ethical reason to kill this many
| wolves.
|
| - Wolves pose no significant threat to humans.
|
| - Wolves help maintain healthy prey populations by targeting the
| weak or sick, which may help control the spread of chronic
| wasting disease in elk and deer.
|
| - Legal hunting can increase poaching.
|
| - Traps and snares are cruel, outdated, and often harm pets and
| endangered species.
| tuna74 wrote:
| Yes! It would be good if people could be more interested in
| reducing the number of ticks that causes much more human and
| cattle damage than wolves.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Totally. What spreads ticks - out of control deer populations
| that lack apex predators.
| searine wrote:
| Made possible by 1 grant from the Oregon State University
| Foundation.
| staplung wrote:
| Has no one considered the possibility that the aspen trees are
| eating the wolves to grow strong? I mean, we know that the
| decline of pirates causes global warming.
|
| https://doctorspaghetti.org/pastafarians-pirates-and-climate...
|
| We also know that dog predation of frisbees is a real problem for
| healthy disc populations.
| jb_rad wrote:
| Also collapsed the elk population from 18,000 to 2,000 and
| they're worried the bison will eat the trees... I understand
| nature is incredibly complex and intelligent, and I'm curious
| what the end effect will be. But from an anthropocentric
| perspective, this is silly. When will the first human death
| occur?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > When will the first human death occur?
|
| what?
| tomrod wrote:
| Right? The first human death happened millions of years ago.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| You can usually understand this kind of phrase as having the
| qualifier "in a way relevant to the current discussion",
| meaning in this case "first human death caused by re-
| introduced wolves".
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Why would a single human death, or even a few deaths a year
| matter to the policy? Dogs kill people, bees kill people, lots
| of things kill people and plenty of those things don't even
| serve as much of a purpose as wild wolves. If there are
| benefits to be had as a result of this policy, the question
| isn't some artificial zero-tolerance policy towards human death
| and injury, it's the usual balance of pros and cons.
| jb_rad wrote:
| Fair point. Except for "don't even serve as much of a purpose
| as wild wolves." I'd argue dogs, bees, and let's say cars,
| all serve an enormous purpose to humanity. The pros/cons of
| replenishing an ecosystem is a good framework to analyze this
| through. I am selfishly an advocate for humanity, and safer
| forests with more wild game for hunting seems like a bigger
| pro to me. Of course, I could be disastrously wrong. But we
| don't know yet.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| If you're going to exterminate every species that kills humans,
| there's gonna be a lot of very angry dog owners on your
| doorstep.
| jb_rad wrote:
| That's not my argument. I'm saying wolves are dangerous, and
| as a human, I don't want to have to worry about wolves when
| I'm hiking Yellowstone. Call me selfish but I'd rather be
| alive than feel good that the forest is back to its natural
| state.
| cactacea wrote:
| Yup that is pretty selfish.
| triceratops wrote:
| No steaks either. Cows kill nearly as many humans as dogs
| (~20/year vs ~40/year)
| tomrod wrote:
| Lucas Miller teaches this to kids via song. Wonderful!
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nBUqz2hG0
| thangalin wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W88Sact1kws
|
| "Embark on a journey to Yellowstone, where a few wolves did not
| just roam, but rewrote the rules of an entire ecosystem. Discover
| how these majestic predators triggered a cascade of life,
| transforming not only the park's wildlife but its very rivers and
| landscapes. It's a story of how nature's architects can reshape
| our world in ways we never imagined."
| hinkley wrote:
| Now report back in ten years about Lyme disease cases.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| 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, to take specimen from the developing bulb-belt and
| transplant them up the lattitude to near similar developing
| bioms, trying to breed them to survive the winter that now
| befalls there "migrated" biom.
|
| Let the wulves fight for their own survival in this mess and
| remove protection status. The ground is moving, no sense in
| building cabins and planting trees on it. Cosplaying nature while
| sacrificing saveable species seems absurd to me.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > 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
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