# Wolves Are Changing Rivers



## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

In addition to saving the entire North American ecosystem, wolves are changing rivers in Wyoming's Yellowstone Park.

http://msnvideo.msn.com/?channelind...0#/video/6a4694ae-d81f-40de-8a50-ba37705b077a

Man, how can you not love Wyoming's beloved wolf?


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## RandomElk16 (Sep 17, 2013)

Is this an official UWTCP release?


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## klbzdad (Apr 3, 2012)

I'm going to go hug a wolf now, with my .243.


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## Kevin D (Sep 15, 2007)

Video leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy...


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

RandomElk16 said:


> Is this an official UWTCP release?


 No, I wish. These are Wyoming wolves.


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## RandomElk16 (Sep 17, 2013)

wyogoob said:


> No, I wish. These are Wyoming wolves.


They just summer and winter range there. Purebred Utah Paws.


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## Rspeters (Apr 4, 2013)

How touching....I love wolves now.


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## Wind In His Hair (Dec 31, 2009)

Are these the same wolves that will devour the sun and the moon, according to Norse mythology?


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## fishreaper (Jan 2, 2014)

Yep, Skoll and Hati have come which means ragnarok has been under way the last few years. good fighting, Wind, and die gloriously.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

Maybe if those opposed to the wolf movement hired a narrator with a British accent, and donated big dollars to PBS to air their show, people would believe them. Just don't know how to fight the battle. 

Just curious if the successional recovery from lodge pole to aspen had anything to do with that big forest fire in 1988, that burned up 1/3 of the park. Since aspen tend to love fire like they do. Just wondering if a catastrophic wildfire only a few years prior to the wolfies had anything to doe with any of the changes. Probably not. Fire kills all the trees - not just the old and crippled ones so that couldn't be it.


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## mmx1997 (Sep 27, 2011)

I wonder if wolves will cure cancer as well ;-)


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

That's the first time I have ever heard anyone

1) complain about having too many deer around in Yellowstone or in the west at large or

2) argue that having wolves kill everything is better than people managing specific populations.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

OK. cute responses aside, this is the kind of thing that really bugs me. It is one of those that if enough people keep repeating the same thing without stopping to think about the many other variables that are at play. I've been hearing time and time again that the wolves deserve all credit for the transformation of the riparian corridors in YNP. Yet, the same "studies" I've read that seek to prove this point, completely ignore the DRASTIC transformation the '88 fire caused.These "studies" are the most blatant advocacy papers and leap over the line of biostitution like none other. 

No doubt that wolves have greatly altered things in YNP. For sure they have. But any changes attributed to the wolf reintroduction should ABSOLUTELY consider the far more drastic and far reaching ecological event of the '88 fire. And yet it is conveniently absent. 

Urrrrggggg..Rant over. (Now, if you read it back with an English accent, it sounds even better!)


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## Rspeters (Apr 4, 2013)

I got all the way to "Urggggg" and couldn't figure out how to say it with an English accent....or at least it sounded really dumb.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

GaryFish said:


> ...........................
> 
> Just curious if the successional recovery from lodge pole to aspen had anything to do with that big forest fire in 1988, that burned up 1/3 of the park. Since aspen tend to love fire like they do. Just wondering if a catastrophic wildfire only a few years prior to the wolfies had anything to doe with any of the changes. ........................


Yeah, I thought the same thing. Purely coincidental I'm sure.


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## muzzlehunter (Nov 29, 2009)

I like the how he says pushed deer out of certain areas, and because of that there is no erosion along the river banks. How about killed the majority of elk!


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## torowy (Jun 19, 2008)

The thing is people will see this and believe it....


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

What's that phrase again...oh yeah, you just can't fix stupid!


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

This kind of reminds me of those DirecTV commercials telling you to ditch cable TV.






Indirect relational causation at its finest if you ask me. I am sure that wolves have had interesting impacts on the ecosystem of Yellowstone. Some impacts may even be positive (although I am not sure I see them personally) but to jump to the conclusion that because wolves are thinning the herd thereby causing plant life to grow in abundance around the river which causes beavers to have trees to build dams which brings more abundances of aquatic species to the river which in turn is directly correlated to the mitigation of soil erosion is just too big of a leap for me.

Stop paying too much money to these hippies and get a membership to a sportsmans organization of your choice. ;-)


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

OR
As the summer monsoonal rains followed the fire, soils and nutrients released from the fire, flowed into the streams, providing better nutrients into the waters for the aquatic micro-invertebrates, which then increased in numbers, providing better forage base for the fish, which then resulted in better prey base for fishing mammels such as otters, muskrats, and beavers. And after the monoculture of lodgepole had gone on in a 100 years of fire suppression, there was no understory for use either as habitat or forage base for grazing and browsing megafauna, as well as concealment and food base for microfauna as wwell. So after the fire, smaller plants could emerge, including new lodgepole, but also grasses and forbes and aspen - all things that come back quite well when not limited by a lodgepole canopy. Under the old canopy, the riparian areas provided the only food base for the grazers, but after the fire, the forest was opened up where grasses and forbe growth surged, drawing the animals away from the riparian and to the uplands where they hang out in areas that don't have wolves, because they can get food to eat. And that actually started trending even as early as in '89, the spring after the fire, and 6 years prior to wolf supplements. But hey, no big deal. It was all the wolves and not catastrophic changes due to fire ecology where it had been suppressed.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Looks like everywhere downstream of the Monroe Unit will be going to hell unless we can get wolves in there to help the coyotes and the lions.

http://utahwildlife.net/forum/12-big-game/74705-coyote-fawn-survival-study-research-meeting.html


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## #1DEER 1-I (Sep 10, 2007)

klbzdad said:


> I'm going to go hug a wolf now, with my .243.


Amen


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

:smile:

.


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## sawsman (Sep 13, 2007)

That's the second damnedest thing I've ever seen.

.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

I didn't watch the video since my antivirus' BS blocker stopped me, but is this like a video about how the blood from all of the dead elk, deer and buffalo gives a lot of nutrients to the rivers making the fish flourish? I have to guess just based on the other comments.


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## The Naturalist (Oct 13, 2007)

GaryFish said:


> OR
> As the summer monsoonal rains followed the fire, soils and nutrients released from the fire, flowed into the streams, providing better nutrients into the waters for the aquatic micro-invertebrates, which then increased in numbers, providing better forage base for the fish, which then resulted in better *prey base for fishing mammels such as otters, muskrats, and beavers*. And after the monoculture of lodgepole had gone on in a 100 years of fire suppression, there was no understory for use either as habitat or forage base for grazing and browsing megafauna, as well as concealment and food base for microfauna as wwell. So after the fire, smaller plants could emerge, including new lodgepole, but also grasses and forbes and aspen - all things that come back quite well when not limited by a lodgepole canopy. Under the old canopy, the riparian areas provided the only food base for the grazers, but after the fire, the forest was opened up where grasses and forbe growth surged, drawing the animals away from the riparian and to the uplands where they hang out in areas that don't have wolves, because they can get food to eat. And that actually started trending even as early as in '89, the spring after the fire, and 6 years prior to wolf supplements. But hey, no big deal. It was all the wolves and not catastrophic changes due to fire ecology where it had been suppressed.


I don't believe muskrats and beaver are fishing mammals...that aside...absolutely, opening the canopy from the lodgepole pine would/should increase regeneration of forbs and aspen. However, prior to the fires nearly 2/3 of YNP's aspen stands had already died out. You could attribute that to the lodgepole canopy or heavy browsing by ungulates, or more likely due to both. A study by U of Oregon professors Ripple and Beschta showed that in many areas browse (particulary Aspen) had a difficult time making a comeback after the fires. In some cases 100% of the new aspen leaders had been browsed.
A few years after the wolf reintro these same areas showed remarkable recovery and aspen leaders have now reached heights above the browse line for ungulates. This is important for the aspen stands to reach a maturity level where they reproduce sexually instead of the creeping underground root structure. Aspen seed then can spread to other areas of YNP that have died out over the last 70 + years.
Trophic cascades make for interesting studies. In science we try to avoid terms like "good or bad". We just try to analyze and report the results. Individuals have to decide if the wolf reintro was for the better or worse in YNP, and that depends on where you are coming from. No question the wolves have had a major impact in YNP. That being said I thought the video had some interesting points but overall was kind of cheesy.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

So, after this video, I figured I'd try to learn even more about this assertion. The video was preceeded, or accompanied by an article that the New York Times picked up, and traces the concepts back to a book by wolf biologists Douglas Smith and Gery Ferguson, titled Decade of the Wolf, revised and updated edition: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone. So I decided to download it to my tablet nook reader thingy.

I just started reading it this week. I'm only about 40 pages in so I don't know if that is enough to form an opinion yet. So far, it has been purely, 100% emotional piece, throwing up a couple of theories with no evidence to back it. I'll see how the book goes. I REALLY hope there is more to it than broad based assertions from an admitted lover of wolves. 

And, when I'm done, I can "loan" it to anyone else with a Nook account that would like to read it. 

More later as I read more.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

One thing you can't argue: 

The man in the video said since wolves have been introduced to YNP the number of weasels have increased.


;-)


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

So are you saying there are more wolf biologists in YNP now?


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

GaryFish said:


> So are you saying there are more wolf biologists in YNP now?


No, no, I'm saying there's more weasels now...on both sides of the fence...uh, I mean river.

I'm not a big fan of Biologists; they base everything on fact...unacceptable...un-American really. They're prolly hippies too.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

That's funny that you'd use "biologists" and "fact" in the same sentence. That's funny stuff right there. That's about as likely as finding as video of some wolfies in Utah! Can that be part of your association?


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

GaryFish said:


> That's funny that you'd use "biologists" and "fact" in the same sentence. That's funny stuff right there. That's about as likely as finding as video of some wolfies in Utah! Can that be part of your association?


I can't believe you'd throw up a nonsensical post just to get to the top of the page!

.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

Not nonsensical. Its factual. Because its on the interweb. And you can't put anything on the interweb that isn't true. 
Fact: I got top of page. 
Therefore: I'm a biologist.
And since: a moose bit my sister,
YOU: are a witch. 

And that my friend, deserves:
*(())*-*|*--~|-*()*-()/-


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

wyogoob said:


> One thing you can't argue:
> 
> The man in the video said since wolves have been introduced to YNP the number of weasels have increased.
> 
> ;-)


Don't forget about the fruits, nuts and granolas.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Listen, at one time YNP had 19,000 elk....uh....a little over carrying capacity I would say, but then I'm not a biologist. Most of them were concentrated along riparian corridors, cooredoors, corridoors....a strip of green grass along a stream.

So, from what I hear on MM and the UWN the wolves killed all 19,000 elk in the Park. Then they only ate the tender calves, about 7,562 animals by all accounts. The rest of the carcasses, plus a nice layer of elk poop and some recent wet weather revitalized the riparian areas.

Geeze, I wish you *Moderators* would stay on the subject.


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## cklspencer (Jun 25, 2009)

wyogoob said:


> Listen, at one time YNP had 19,000 elk....uh....a little over carrying capacity I would say, but then I'm not a Biologist. Most of them were concentrated along riparian corridors, cooredoors, corridoors....a strip of green grass along a stream.
> 
> So, from what I hear on MM and the UWN the wolves killed all 19,000 elk in the Park. Then they only ate the tender calves, about 7,562 animals by all accounts. The rest of the carcasses, plus a nice layer of elk poop and some recent wet weather revitalized the riparian areas.
> 
> Geeze, I wish you *Moderators* would stay on the subject.


Before the elk there were so many buffalo so in all reality the decline of both speices and the change along the water ways is now man made and unnatural for the park.


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## hoghunter011583 (Jul 21, 2008)

I've been really sitting back and looking at a lot of things going on in this country and I'm just plain sick. I used to argue and fight back, but now I'm just sitting here observing things and I have to say I'm disgusted with this country! I know not everyone is a total idiot but geez we are headed in some really bad places!!


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## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

Bax* said:


> This kind of reminds me of those DirecTV commercials telling you to ditch cable TV.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Are hippies the result of the wolf,or do wolves eat hippies?:hippie:


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Dunkem said:


> Are hippies the result of the wolf,or do wolves eat hippies?:hippie:


Most of us hippies are stuffy successful businessmen these days, far removed from the wild times of the 60s and 70s when we were trying to change the world and take control of the government.

Well, I think we did a pretty good job of changing the world....uh...and we finally have control of the government; but I'm not so sure we could do a better job of running that.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

hoghunter011583 said:


> I've been really sitting back and looking at a lot of things going on in this country and I'm just plain sick. I used to argue and fight back, but now I'm just sitting here observing things and I have to say I'm disgusted with this country! I know not everyone is a total idiot but geez we are headed in some really bad places!!


That's odd, I've been thinking the same thing a lot lately.

I've working at a refinery. I'll assure you there's no ex-hippies running this place.

I think Utah needs the wolf; something for all the outdoor clubs to rally around.

.


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