Ithaca 37
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Wolves bring a suprising ecological recovery to Yellowstone
By Nicholas Thompson, Globe Correspondent, 9/30/2003
LAMAR VALLEY, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- It's a morning of freezing rain in the valley and a pack of wolves is roaming around Black Tail Creek. A few pups gnaw on an old elk carcass while some adults scout the nearby valleys for prey. Not far away, a few elk have sensed the impending danger and are dashing about. To the tourists in the park, the prospect of a wolf attacking an elk is riveting. To the biologists staring into their binoculars, the real action is taking place in Black Tail Creek itself.
There, a cluster of willow plants is flourishing along the creek bed -- a small but crucial sign that wolves are boosting biological diversity and restoring balance to America's oldest national park.
According to numerous biologists and wolf-watchers, the willows have grown because the elk, worried about staying too long in open streambeds, no longer gorge on the nutritious plants. Since the reintroduction of wolves in 1995, the elk have been increasingly itinerant and drawn up out of the wetlands to high rocky areas where they eat more grass. As hunters, soldiers, and elk all know, streambeds and valleys are dangerous. Attackers can scout from up high and pounce.
This is just one of the biologically salutary effects that wolves may have brought to the park, restoring a centuries-old balance that was.........
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/09/30/not_just_a_predato r/
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 10-03-2003 20:35: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>
By Nicholas Thompson, Globe Correspondent, 9/30/2003
LAMAR VALLEY, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- It's a morning of freezing rain in the valley and a pack of wolves is roaming around Black Tail Creek. A few pups gnaw on an old elk carcass while some adults scout the nearby valleys for prey. Not far away, a few elk have sensed the impending danger and are dashing about. To the tourists in the park, the prospect of a wolf attacking an elk is riveting. To the biologists staring into their binoculars, the real action is taking place in Black Tail Creek itself.
There, a cluster of willow plants is flourishing along the creek bed -- a small but crucial sign that wolves are boosting biological diversity and restoring balance to America's oldest national park.
According to numerous biologists and wolf-watchers, the willows have grown because the elk, worried about staying too long in open streambeds, no longer gorge on the nutritious plants. Since the reintroduction of wolves in 1995, the elk have been increasingly itinerant and drawn up out of the wetlands to high rocky areas where they eat more grass. As hunters, soldiers, and elk all know, streambeds and valleys are dangerous. Attackers can scout from up high and pounce.
This is just one of the biologically salutary effects that wolves may have brought to the park, restoring a centuries-old balance that was.........
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/09/30/not_just_a_predato r/
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 10-03-2003 20:35: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>
