Wolves change rivers?

[Deleted member 20812]

To affect the elk population by impacting the elk population in Yellowstone to drop from nearly 20,000 to around 6,000 and blame that on the grizzly bear and his diet of cutthroat trout is a bit fishy. There aren’t that many grizzlies in Yellowstone and the diet shift from cutthroat trout to elk would represent an enormous consumption of cutthroat trout that would be hard to swallow...

And I’m sure you also know that calf recruitment in the NYE elk herd has sucked for decades, even pre wolf expansion. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if changing grizzly bear predation habits because of lost fish resources can have some level of impact on an elk herd. Probably not as much as shooting thousands of cow elk each year had during low recruitment years.

 

[Deleted member 16014]

Nothing screws up a good riparian monitoring site like beavers. They flood it for a while, then it blows out, head cuts for a mile, causes huge down cutting, some hydrologist who doesn’t know a carex from a bluegrass calls it functioning at risk, and on it goes. Beavers.

 

[Irrelevant]

Listen, ya'll got it wrong. Wolves don't change rivers, they eliminate CWD.

Using Wolves as First Responders Against a Deadly Brain Disease (Published 2020)

Some scientists say that the predators are essential to curbing the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease because they pick off weak deer.

www.nytimes.com

 

[NickOnTheRun]

Wolves and bears are blamed for everything it seems.

 

[matechakeric]

those wolves reshape the rivers because they change elk behavior is obviously propaganda. I'm not saying they are false, but they definitely over simplify a much more complicated situation