Posted on 07/24/2025 4:18:55 AM PDT by Cronos
Yellowstone's wolves are helping a new generation of young aspen trees to grow tall and join the forest canopy — the first new generation of such trees in Yellowstone's northern range in 80 years.
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) had disappeared from Yellowstone National Park by 1930 following extensive habitat loss, human hunting and government eradication programs. Without these top predators, populations of elk (Cervus canadensis) grew unfettered. At their peak population, an estimated 18,000 elk ranged across the park, chomping on grasses and shrubs as well as the leaves, twigs and bark of trees like quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). This stopped saplings from establishing themselves, and surveys in the 1990s found no aspen saplings.
"You had older trees, and then nothing underneath," Luke Painter, an ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author of the new study, told Live Science.
But when wolves were reintroduced in 1995, the picture began to change. As wolf numbers rose, the elk population in the park dropped sharply, and it is now down to about 2,000.
In the new study, published Tuesday (July 22) in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, Painter and his colleagues surveyed aspen stands — specific areas of the forest where these trees grow.
The team returned to three areas surveyed in 2012 to examine changes to aspen sapling numbers. Of the 87 aspen stands studied, a third had a large number of tall aspen saplings throughout, indicating the trees are healthy and growing. Another third of the stands had patches of tall saplings.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Other than OSB there is no market for Aspen timber.
Making the logs not worth very much.
Here in NH there are not any sawmills that want Aspen/Popular at all. Other than to use for pallet boards. Which makes the timber almost worthless.
That is why Canadian and northern US OSB mills started using it. It chips up well and it is light/not too dense. Plus they could buy the timber for almost nothing. So, their cost of materials to make OSB Board out of was very low.
The advent of OSB basically put almost all the sheathing plywood mills out of business.
Wolves are protected in MN, they have too many wolves & farmers are losing livestock at an alarming rate. I don’t recall seeing many Manatees in MN, perhaps the DNR should meddle with nature a bit more.
Moot.
We visited Yellowstone in the 70s.
There were quaking aspens.
From 18,000 to a mere 2,000 elk now. Must be some really fat wolves. No wonder they are venturing out beyond the park, they are running out of elk meat.
Hmm...
One important thing I get from this article is that ICE should be capturing, training, and deploying wolves to thin out the 60,000,000 disease-ridden migrant-invader herd roaming freely throughout the country, destroying the economy, public safety, and culture......
This is interesting.
I planted some maple and white birch sapling I got from the state and had to put cages around them to protect them from the deer and rabbits, and anything else that might want to browse the trees and eat the bark in winter.
We made them from turkey wire and then wrapped chicken wire around that. They’ll stay that way for a few years until the trees are big enough to manage without them.
What a novel concept!!!!!
You mean we get to hunt politicians now?🤔
They were quaking in fear of the elk.😆
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