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 ...
I’m guessing that deer liked to eat Aspen trees?
The elk now live in terror.
And there is something called forestry.
We need more Aspens?? Really??
I have a cousin that lives on the edge of a national forest in Arkansas. Many years ago they reintroduced some kind of rattlesnake into the forest. Why?
If wolves have been so great for the Yellowstone environment, then the next logical step would be to introduce wolves to the Los Angeles environment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Just have a long hunting season”
It is just that simple.
Alligators we save in case we need a prison with a really big moat. lol
Unseen for 80 years...Bet that’s one big lie...
Based on the feeding rate from the wolves over the past 30 years, the Yellowstone elk population will be extinct in less than 4 years.
I’m guessing that deer liked to eat Aspen trees?
—
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.
Introduce Winchesters or Remingtons...instead of wolves.
What is this...Hire a Wolf? This was entirely experimental. From 18,000 to 2,000. Time to kill off the wolves...since there’s a lot less promiscuity going on.
Try forestry...Aspens have a huge dense canopy.
They may already have been. Go ICE!!!
Then we spend $50,000,000 of taxpayer money to reintroduce elk to the region and another $100,000,000 to cull the wolf packs.
What a simple solution.
Oh, I forgot, $75,000,000 for Job Corps employees to plant 10,000 Aspen trees.
Oh wait. Trump is President.
The solution is simple. Do nothing and let nature run its course.
So the wolves have killed off 16,000 Elk? 🤔
It's not just a herd headcount issue, it's also that those herds need to be kept moving.
This is Yellowstone so there are no farmers or ranchers to complain about wolf packs so they are doing what nature intended. Wolves should be managed also and I believe they are.
Forestry will do nothing to stop the Elk from eating the bark off a sapling and killing it.
Yes, they need more aspens. Really conservation has nothing to do with global warming and climate change hoax. It has to do with maintaining a balance in places like Yellowstone to keep those areas in there natural state. We have and still are damaging those eco-systems. Between killing off buffalo increasing elk herds for hunters and killing off wolves, we have to now find a balance so that region can thrive again.
But then the Yellowstone caldera may erupt and leave a third of the western USA under water or at the bottom of a large crater, killing off crops in Nebraska and Iowa and this whole discussion will be mute.
I reintroduced a 54” rattlesnake to my 20 guage pump shotgun this spring.
It was a calming event, for me…🐍
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