Wolves Make Mark on Yellowstone

  • The wolves in Kinna Ohman's report as seen through a spotting scope. Wolves have helped strengthen several species of plants and animals in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Marlene Foard)

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:

Transcript

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:


Yellowstone National Park holds many wonders, but few things capture a visitor’s imagination
like the wolf:


“Whoa, I can see their eyes.”


Marlene Foard lets me peek through her scope and see members of the Slough Creek wolf pack
tearing into a recent kill. As we watch, we hear another group of wolves howling in the distance:


“Did you hear ’em? Yeah, did you hear that? Oh my God…”


(Sound of wolves howling)


Visitors are not the only ones fascinated by the wolves. Lately, scientists have been caught up in
the excitement too. Not just by the wolves, but how the wolves are changing Yellowstone.


(Sound of creek)


It’s a cold yet sunny day in the park. I’ve met up with Doug Smith, the project leader of
the park’s wolf recovery program. But we’re not going to look for wolves today. We’re about to
see how wolves are changing the landscape:


(Sound of footsteps)


“This is Blacktail Deer Creek that we’re walking up on. And it’s surrounded by willows.
And these willows about ten years ago were not growing as luxuriantly as they are right
now.”


This new willow growth happened after the wolves’ reintroduction to Yellowstone, and many
scientists are making a connection. Willow can be a food for elk especially in the winter, but
since the wolves have returned, elk would rather be on hillsides and open areas where they can
see wolves coming. And once they leave the river valleys behind, plants like the willow are
recovering.


The willow’s recovery is important because it helps other wildlife. Beaver eat willow and use it
for building dams. And ponds created by beavers are great habitat for endangered birds, like the
warbler. Doug Smith says the fact this could be caused by wolves caught everyone by surprise:


“Nobody thought of this. I was around at the beginning. There were many studies done
looking at what the impacts of wolves would be. And I can’t remember reading about this
at all.”


And it goes beyond the willow. Bill Ripple is a professor of Ecology at Oregon State University.
He came to Yellowstone in 1997 to study why aspen trees were declining. Ripple wasn’t thinking
wolves, but one day, when studying tree ring data, he saw the aspens’ problems began just when
the last wolves were killed off in Yellowstone. He was equally surprised:


“I didn’t see anything in the record. It wasn’t on my radar to see how wolves may be
affecting aspen trees. That was not even considered at all. And all of a sudden, it appears
that this one animal can have this profound effect on the entire ecosystem.”


And this got Ripple thinking about the top predators a little differently. He says these effects
might even extend to other animals:


“I think that this effect of predators would probably go well beyond just cougars or wolves.
You know everything from black bears to grizzly bears to lynx to wolverines. They may all
play important roles that we don’t even know about at this point.”


Not everyone thinks predators are needed for ecosystems to thrive. There are hunters who
consider wolves unnecessary and even competition for animals such as deer and elk, but Doug
Smith says it’s important to realize the contribution of wolves goes beyond what hunters can do.
Willow and aspen re-growth depends on wolves changing elk behavior. And this has to happen
year round:


“Human hunters, well known this fact, and I’m a hunter and I know this, prey behavior
changes during the hunting season, and before and after they go back to doing what they
want. Having a carnivore on the landscape changes prey behavior year round. A totally
different presence than human hunting.”


But there’s a caveat. Smith says there has to be a certain number of wolves on the landscape for
these changes to occur. And the number might be more than humans are willing to tolerate:


“You know, just having wolves on the landscape does not do it. And that’s a very, very
important point because some people are using wolves to argue that we’re going to get this
ecosystem restoration, this ecosystem recovery. But they need to be at a certain minimum
density. And that might be in some places at densities that are too high for humans to
socially tolerate.”


So, ultimately, ecological recovery could depend on humans, not the wolves. Human tolerance
needs to be high enough to allow top predators like the wolf to return to ecosystems, otherwise,
full recovery might never happen.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

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Cash Strapped Biologists Lean on Volunteers

  • The lynx was recently considered extinct in Michigan until a trapper caught one. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

For years, federal and state governments have cut funding for wildlife protection. That’s led to complaints from biologists who say they don’t have enough money to adequately do their jobs, but it’s also led to a new movement. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports on how citizens are starting to take over duties once performed by trained scientists:

Transcript

For years, federal and state governments have cut funding for wildlife
protection. That’s led to complaints from biologists who say they don’t
have enough money to adequately do their jobs, but it’s also led to a new
movement. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee
reports on how citizens are starting to take over duties once performed by
trained scientists:


Ray Rustem says wildlife biologists these days are often chained to their
desks.


“Years ago, when I first started with the Department of Natural
Resources, wildlife habitat biologists spent quite a bit of time in the field
actually doing fieldwork. With the types of things that are going on now,
they’ve become much more in getting the planning done and we’ve had
to shift some of that fieldwork done to the technician level. Frankly,
yeah, we could always use additional people out there.”


Rustem is with the Wildlife Division of the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources. He says state funding has fallen steadily for years,
and one way he’s made up the difference is by involving Michigan
citizens. Rustem says the DNR uses dozens of volunteers for its frog and
toad survey in the early part of the summer.


“This is our tenth year and we’ve got at least 120 people who’ve been
doing this all ten years. That’s a tremendous amount of data that’s being
provided for us on information about species and where they’re located.”


Many groups are now using so-called citizen scientists to collect data.
Sally Petrella is a biologist who works with the non-profit organization
the Friends of the Detroit River.


“We’ve cut out so much of the funding for regular science that there’s a
real lack, and citizen scientists can cover far more areas than
professionals can, at a much lower cost.”


Petrella is standing beside the murky, reed-choked waters of the Rouge
River Watershed. It’s home to six species of frogs and toads. Every
summer, Friends of the Detroit River enlists the help of 700 people to
listen for the creatures as they call to each other from the marshy
grasses.


Petrella is standing beside one of her more loyal volunteers… Al Sadler.
Sadler admits that part of the appeal is the walk along the banks of the
river… but he also believes that public participation in wildlife
protection has become an absolute necessity.


“I think that it’s required if we plan on keeping any wildlife areas
around. I think that if citizens don’t get involved, I think that people
won’t know what they’re going to miss, and before we know it, there
won’t be much wild places left.”


Sadler is a fairly typical citizen scientist. He has a day job as an engineer
and volunteers in his spare time, but there are also people with advanced
degrees in biology and wildlife management who are called citizen
scientists simply because they don’t work for the government.


Dennis Fijakowski is one of those people. He’s the executive director of
the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy.


“We can’t count on the government to do everything for us. We have to
be a part of the solution.”


Fijakowski says ordinary people have made important contributions to
wildlife conservation. He says the lynx was considered extinct in
Michigan until a trapper caught one, and a rare Great Gray Owl was
discovered on a national wildlife refuge last spring by a photographer.


“You look back at the conservation history of our state and it was citizen
led. All of the important, the milestone decisions, legislation… it was
citizen led.”


John Kostyack with the National Wildlife Federation says involving
citizen scientists is great, but…


“They’re not really a substitute for having staff in the wildlife agencies…
state and federal and tribal. Because they are the ones who are going to
take this initial data, which is going to be very rough from volunteers,
and then use it to decide upon where to take the research next.”


And there have been cases in which citizen scientists have clashed with
state and federal governments. They are consistently at odds with government
officials over issues related to global warming and the Michigan Wildlife
Conservancy is locked in a bitter battle with state biologists over whether
the state is home to a viable cougar population.


The Conservancy’s Dennis Fijakowski acknowledges that the union
between government biologists and citizen scientists may not always be
an easy one, but he says the involvement of residents in the protection of
their state’s wildlife can only be a good thing.


“Because all anyone of us wants is that we pass on a wild legacy to our
children and grandchildren… and we’re not going to if we don’t get our
acts together.”


Many organizations offer citizens the opportunity to get involved in data
collection, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


For the GLRC, I’m Celeste Headlee.

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