Posted on 06/19/2024 1:19:47 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
The historic removal of gray wolves from the U.S. West facilitated the rise of mid-ranking predators across the region, wreaking havoc on historical ecosystem dynamics, a new study has found.
Yet just how much havoc — both to their immediate prey and much farther down the line — remains unclear due to a dearth of data, according to the study, published Wednesday in BioScience.
The disappearance of wolves particularly led to a spike in elk populations, which then damaged plant communities through overgrazing, per the study. Also of note was an upswing in medium-sized carnivores like coyotes that threaten smaller animals.
“Various national parks in the western United States, which are considered the crown jewels of American wilderness, lack their apex predators, resulting in them being shadows of their supposed ecological integrity,” the authors stated.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Elk = food...
” How many bison do you see today in downtown L.A. or Denver?”
Can you imagine the chaos of some rancher pulling up in downtown Denver with a trailer, dropping the ramp and letting out 15 or 20 buffalo?
Then hold a quick press conference scolding everyone that the people of Denver are the visitors on buffalo land and should respect the balance of nature.
The only thing I could find in most of the articles published was: By the 1930s, wolves were largely absent from the American West, including its national parks."
Now that could have been from hunting, or some other reason. Gray wolves were at once a protected species. An MSNBC article said that gray wolves had been removed from National Parks from 1955 to 2021.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports on their site that: "In 1978, the Service published a rule reclassifying the gray wolf as an endangered population at the taxonomic species level (C. lupus) throughout the contiguous United States and Mexico, except for the Minnesota gray wolf population, which was classified as threatened."
In late 2020, the Trump administration removed gray wolves from the endangered list citing their successful comeback. The Biden Admin surprisingly supported that decision but their protection in 44 states was restored by a Judge in February 2022.
The writer;
“Sharon is an award-winning staff reporter for The Hill, covering Western climate & policy from her home base in Boulder, Colorado, while also co-authoring a book about the impacts of “forever chemicals” (PFAS) on American communities. She was the recipient of a 2022 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award, and she spent the 2019-2020 academic year as a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. Sharon came to Colorado after nearly a decade in Israel, where she primarily reported on environment, energy and agriculture for The Jerusalem Post. Her work has also appeared in a variety of other outlets, such as The Forward, Ensia, The Colorado Sun, National Geographic News, The Jewish Chronicle, The NY Jewish Week, Hadassah Magazine and Condé Nast Traveller. Sharon was honored by The Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership and the Pratt Foundation in May 2013 for her significant contribution to environmental journalism in Israel. In addition, she taught a course on Professional English for Media Studies to undergraduate students at the College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon Lezion, in both 2015 and 2017.
Prior to her move to the Middle East, Sharon was a staff writer at The NY Jewish Week. She earned her MSc from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2008 and a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007. Sharon grew up in New Jersey. She enjoys spending time with her husband and two children, as well as running, playing tennis, hiking, reading and gardening.”
Total Israeli, Penn, NYC, DC libtard who knows how people should live in the west.
Yeah its OK for wolves to kill and eat ranchers’ cattle, the occasional pet, small child, and female hiker ... all you have to do is get a picture of the culprit in the act and send it to Wildlife who will sometimes reimburse you for your loss.
When reintroduction of wolves is put to the ballot, urban people who have never seen a cute fuzzy wolf overwhelmingly vote ‘yes. and rural folk who have to deal with the consequences overwhelmingly vote ‘no’,
Since there are more urban than rural folk, the eyes have it.
Sometimes its best to leave well enough alone, else lets bring back real apex predators, like Short-Faced bears, Dire wolves, and Smilodons.
Anyone know just what a plant community is??
—
its the patch of green down the road with all the trash, garbage, and needles - you’ll know it when you see it.
“Encourage” her to return to Israel.
“Same thing, if you want people to live there then some animals have to be removed.”
And besides if man removing something from the ecosystem wreaked havoc then nature own depredations, if you will, would have things in a constant state of havoc.
I seem to remember about the parks service reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone or something. IMO, man (humans) are not equipped to be doing that kind of eco-manipulation. Next thing they’ll be wanting is to ‘reintroduce’ coyotes to the suburbs or something.
Bring back snakes and NYs rat problem disappears.
You know those wolves were originally in NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, etc areas. Maybe they should be re-introduced into those areas, along with bears, to return those areas to their natural state ... just look at those areas and what they have become without major predators to keep things in ecological balance.
We need more wolves in Northern California to thin the deer population.
I imagined riding in the same subway car with a seven-foot eastern diamondback rattlesnake!
btt
(((YAWN)))
Horse hockey!
My father’s Grandfather did everything they could to eliminate the Grey Wolves. Only fools see any benefit for them today.
Absolutely correct.
Correct. This is just deep green propaganda, dressed up as "science".
It is scientism, using the image of science to promote a point of view.
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