In this episode, we’re going to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and the incredible impact this reintroduction has had on the ecology of the park.
Wolves have for generations been one of the most maligned of carnivores. They have been demonized, poisoned, hunted, trapped, and in many areas completely wiped out. As American settlers made their way westward following the steps of Lewis and Clark, the persecution of wolves continued.
Settlers and ranchers always saw wolves as the enemy. The 'big bad wolf' was there to kill their cattle and place their families in danger.Click To TweetSettlers and ranchers always saw wolves as the enemy. The “big bad wolf” was there to kill their cattle and place their families in danger. As more and more land was put to the plough and domestic livestock took the best forages, there were fewer and fewer elk and deer for wolves to hunt.
As wolves were forced to hunt domestic livestock, they learned how efficient humans can be at eliminating unwanted carnivores. Programs of predator control, which still take place in many parts of Alberta, focussed on eliminating wolves from the landscape.
Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, making it the first national park in the world. Surely wolves would be welcome in a Park! According to the National Park Act of 1872, the Secretary of the Interior “shall provide against the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within said Park.”
The problem with wolves was that their simple quest to feed their packs was considered to be “wanton destruction” and so they were continually persecuted. According to a National Park Service story, some 136 wolves were killed in the park between 1914 and 1926. By 1950, wolves were completely wiped out from most of the contiguous U.S.
Park managers believed that wolves would indiscriminately damage elk and deer populations. Hunters screamed that the wolves were reducing the elk herds they loved to hunt and ranchers blamed wolves for killing too many of their cattle.
By the 1960s, attitudes were beginning to change in the park and policy changes were brought into effect to allow wildlife populations to regulate themselves. Unfortunately, without including wolves in the picture, true self-management of populations was merely a pipe dream.
In 1973, the Endangered Species Act was passed and by 1978 every subspecies of wolf in the lower 48 states was on the list with the exception of Minnesota (where it was listed as threatened). This act meant measures had to be taken to restore listed species, including wolves, back to their natural role in the ecosystem.
By the 1980s, wolves were beginning to naturally re-establish themselves in Montana, likely seeded by wolves moving south from populations in Alberta and British Columbia, and by 1994, 50-60 wolves roamed the state. While wolves were infrequently spotted in and around Yellowstone, there were no breeding populations within the greater Yellowstone region.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was required to develop a plan to facilitate wolf recovery and identify potential recovery locations. They produced the Northern Rockies Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan. Published in 1980, the plan:
“emphasized gray wolf recovery through natural processes (dispersal southward from western Canada) where possible. Where this is not possible because of distance from ‘seed’ populations, translocation is the only known way to establish a population. either philosophy necessitates conservation of suitable habitat in appropriate recovery areas. Establishing and maintaining wolf populations in three separate areas is believed necessary for recovery at this time. The probability of recovery through natural recruitment is high in northwestern Montana, moderate in Idaho, and remote in Yellowstone National Park. Characteristically, the recovery areas that have been identified are large and remote, where the potential for conflict situations would generally be limited to their periphery. However, resolution of such conflicts is requisite to successful natural reestablishment and thus is an essential element for recovery.”
The goals of the wolf recovery plan were quite modest at first, “to secure a minimum of ten breeding pairs of wolves in each of the three recovery areas for a minimum of three successive years.”
Within each of the recovery areas, the land was divided into one of three zones with zone 1 being areas where recovery would be promoted due to a low likelihood of conflict with other land uses. Zone 3 would be areas where the potential for conflict was high and so recovery would not be emphasized. Zone 2 represented the buffer between the two other zones.
The northwest Montana and central Idaho wolf recovery areas relied on natural repopulation from Canadian packs expanding southward.
Of the three wolf recovery areas, Yellowstone was the one that was isolated from areas with healthy populations capable of naturally reseeding the area so translocation was the only option available to park managersClick To TweetOf the three wolf recovery areas, Yellowstone was the one that was isolated from areas with healthy populations capable of naturally reseeding the area so translocation was the only option available to park managers.
It seems like such a simple decision, but the wheels of politics roll slowly and there were still many steps to be taken before any wolves could be released in the park. First and foremost was the preparation of National Environmental Policy Act documents that included full public input phases. They also had to propose a rule change to designate the Yellowstone population as an “experimental population.”
This was necessary to give park managers more flexibility in how they would be allowed to manage the wolves once they were released into the park. A proposal had to be filed with the Federal Register “of a proposed rule detailing the geographic location of the experimental population and identifying procedures to be utilized in its management”. This step is critical to allow biologists to keep the population within specified boundaries, and if necessary, destroy nuisance animals.
Control plans also needed to be developed to detail exactly how managers would deal with wolves preying on domestic livestock and procedures for reducing conflicts with ranchers. the plan had to detail how they would remove the minimum number of wolves in order to resolve any conflicts while not impacting the recovery program.
The plan allowed them to use numerous options including live-capture and relocation, holding offending animals in captivity, or killing animals if initial efforts to trap a problem wolf were unsuccessful and the predations continued. It was also an option if relocated wolves returned. They also were given the option of reducing wolf numbers if unacceptable numbers of elk and deer were being killed, but only to a point where it wouldn’t jeopardize the recovery.
Prior to the reintroduction, Alistair Bath of the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary undertook a study to gauge the public attitudes towards the wolf, their basic wolf knowledge, and their willingness to support the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone.
In making decisions concerning wildlife reintroduction programs, especially of controversial species such as the wolf, resource managers need not only biological knowledge but also sociopolitical dataClick To TweetAs the wolf recovery plan stated:
“In making decisions concerning wildlife reintroduction programs, especially of controversial species such as the wolf, resource managers need not only biological knowledge but also sociopolitical data.”
In fact, according to this study, resource managers had to deal with five different types of variables: biological, physical, economic, social, and political. It’s important to keep in mind this study was done before the first wolf ever made paw prints in Yellowstone.
The University of Calgary study looked to explore numerous objectives:
- “to define the extremes of the resource management issue spectrum by documenting attitudes of two diametrically opposed interest groups,
- to define significant lobby groups in the resource management issue area and to document their attitudes toward the issue
- to document the attitudes of the statewide general public, and
- to document the attitudes of the public surrounding the resource management issue.”
Within each various study group, they wanted to also explore their attitudes towards wolves in general, their basic knowledge of wolf biology and ecology, their openness towards reintroducing wolves, and compromises that would need to be made by individuals on both for and against reintroduction.
The study revealed some interesting insights towards public attitudes towards the recovery, along with large variations in basic wolf knowledge.
As expected, members of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and the Defenders of Wildlife had slightly higher basic knowledge about wolf biology and ecology, it seemed that all groups would benefit from additional public education.
91.2% of the Stock Growers opposed wolf reintroduction, while only 6.2% of the Defenders of Wildlife and 22.1% of members of the Wildlife Federation opposed it. Statewide though, 48.5.% of Wyoming residents and 38.8% percent of Americans supported the planClick To TweetWhen they looked at attitudes towards reintroduction, 91.2% of the Stock Growers opposed wolf reintroduction, while only 6.2% of the Defenders of Wildlife and 22.1% of members of the Wildlife Federation opposed it. Statewide though, 48.5.% of Wyoming residents and 38.8% percent of Americans supported the reintroduction.
When researchers looked into the variances in support of reintroduction, they found that most of the differences were based on the respondent’s basic attitude towards wolves. Those with more positive attitudes towards wolves were 72% more likely to support reintroduction. In addition, people living closer to the park were also less likely to support the reintroduction when compared to respondents living further away.
Unfortunately, for those most fiercely opposed to reintroduction, their attitudes were not swayed very much regardless of various compromise proposals.
Offers of financial compensation changed 9% of respondent’s minds. Measures to limit livestock losses to less than 1 percent swayed 12%. Measures designed to keep wolves restricted to the park and surrounding wilderness changed 20% of opinions and killing offending wolves only impacted 10% of opponents.
So why is it important to go into so much detail when looking at public attitudes towards reintroducing a species like wolves? As the report states:
“This study proceeded by documenting extreme viewpoints, thus identifying the emotional spectrum of the issue, and then by identifying attitudes of other interest groups and the general public in comparison to these viewpoints. This approach is useful in making sure that highly vocal lobby groups are not overrepresented in the decision-making process.”
So often, when it comes to changes on a local level, there are very strong negative views held by those people who live closest to the area experiencing those changes. It also reflects the challenges of land managers in trying to achieve a larger conservation goal while still trying to allay the concerns of, in this particular case, ranchers and stock growers.
It’s critical that governments try to reach accommodation wherever possible and attempt to find ways to improve local buy-in.
Once the decision was made to move forward with the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone, it was up to park staff like Norm Bishop, the park resource interpreter to begin to sell the idea of a restored ecosystem including wolves.
With polarized views regarding the possibility of wolves being transplanted into the park, education became a critical tool for creating a positive political landscape.
In a profile posted by the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, he detailed his years of doing programs to educate park visitors on both the need for a reintroduction program and of the predicted impacts that returning wolves were expected to have on the park.
When the wolves finally arrived in crates towed by trucks on January 12, 1995, the real work for park managers began. Three acclimation pens were set up to release the wolves. Like the recent bison release in Banff National Park, these pens were designed to allow the wolves to become accustomed to their new home until the time came for their wider release into the park.
There was some fear the wolves might just point their noses north and head back to Canada, and by placing them in acclimation pens, it was hoped they would slowly accept their new habitat as home.
In the Chronicle story, Bishop described their arrival:
“After the truck convoy got through the park gate — where a crowd of wolf advocates, reporters and school children had gathered to watch — it headed east from Mammoth Hot Springs. Once it was close enough to the pen, it stopped and park staffers loaded six of the crates onto a mule-drawn sleigh. The sleigh carried the captive animals over the snow to Bishop and the others tasked with hauling the boxes to the pens.
It wasn’t easy — 100 pounds of wolf inside 100 or more pounds of metal. Four people per crate. They were as quiet as possible. So were the wolves, Bishop remembered, unaware of the fanfare of their journey.”
The wolves had been captured in Alberta and translocated to Yellowstone National Park for release. Contrary to popular belief though, they weren’t captured within the boundaries of Jasper National Park, but on provincial lands adjacent to them.
Carter Niemeyer, the trapper involved in capturing the Canadian wolves for transport, recently described the capture of the wolves in a FaceBook post:
The ones we collared early before the kennels arrived were radio-collared and released. Used those collared wolves to located packs for helicopter capture later. In fact, we held the first three in bear culvert traps, collared them and then hauled them back to the field for release.”
Essentially, they captured three wolves, and then radio-collared them and subsequently re-released them. Those three acted as a type of Trojan horse that led the trappers back to the rest of their packs. The trappers then tranquillized the entire pack by helicopter. In this way, the capture of a few wolves helped them to capture entire packs. This kept family groupings together for the transfer and in total, 14 wolves were trucked off to their new homes.
Alberta has for decades been waging its own war against wolves. Just a few episodes ago, in Episode 80 I describe Alberta’s intensive culling program that government officials claim is for the purpose of conserving endangered caribou. However, they don’t do anything to address the real reason that caribou are in trouble – too much human development in their critical range.
Kevin Van Tighem, a former park Superintendent in Banff National Park has an interesting take on this transfer. In a recent Facebook post Van Tighem pondered: “Given what their fate would have been otherwise, one might say they were rescued from us.”
These may have been some of Alberta's luckiest wolves. They escaped constant persecution in their native Alberta to arrive in a landscape without competition from other wolves, and an overabundance of prey to feed onClick To TweetklThese may have been some of Alberta’s luckiest wolves. They escaped constant persecution in their native Alberta to arrive in a landscape without competition from other wolves, and an overabundance of prey to feed on.
Once the wolves were set free in Yellowstone, they quickly took advantage of the virgin terrain and began hunting large game animals, in particular elk, within the park area. Decades of absence had allowed the elk herds to grow to unbelievable numbers.
As the elk herd grew in the absence of wolves, they severely over-browsed the landscape, causing terrible damage to the aspen and willow stands. So aggressive was their browsing that there was virtually no new growth taking place in areas with large elk accumulates. Because willows and aspen reproduce largely by suckers, long underground roots that periodically produce new shoots, the elk chomped down every new shoot as quickly as it emerged from the grassland.
Without willow, the beaver disappeared and along with the beavers, so went their dams. There was a huge ecological collapse in the absence of wolves and I detailed that in great depth back in episode 45, as well as the incredible recovery that the return of wolves aided in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
As I do more and more research in the creation of these episodes, I continue to learn more about wildlife ecology. When I look back at episode 45, I may have been too general in some of my descriptions of the benefits that wolves had on the recovery of willow and aspen trees in the park.
Wolves in Yellowstone have been given so much credit for the Yellowstone recovery, yet they represent a single component of a very complex ecosystem. Some willow and aspen stands have still not recovered despite the presence of wolves and lower elk numbers.
This has forced researchers to look into more complex changes to the landscape that had taken place during the many years the park lacked wolves and many other creatures like beavers.
When an ecology changes for long periods, the changes that take place can, in time, become normalized. The ecosystem finds a new stable state so that simply replacing wolves might not bring things back to the way they once wereClick To TweetWhen an ecology changes for long periods, the changes that take place can, in time, become normalized. The ecosystem finds a new stable state so that simply replacing wolves might not bring things back to the way they once were.
This was particularly evident in the northern reaches of the park, particularly along creeks like Blacktail Deer Creek, Lost Creek, and Elk Creek. While the intensity of elk browsing was also reduced in these areas due to the renewed predation by wolves, aspen and willow trees did not recover as they had in other areas of the park.
Without willow and aspen recovery, these areas still didn’t have sufficiently available willow to attract beaver recolonization. Beavers create dams along watercourses that helps to raise the water table across wide areas, even areas distant from the flooded area.
It was also documented that in the decades where wolves and beaver were both absent from these northern streams, the river eroded more deeply into the bedrock, lowering the water level even further. Beaver dams naturally slow the movement of water down a valley bottom. When the beaver vanished, and the dams eventually collapsed, the faster flowing streams had much more erosional power.
As river channels deepened, the water table dropped in keeping with the lower river levels. Willow and aspen are particularly thirsty trees and biologists speculated that reducing browsing on willows may not be enough without the water table corrections that returning beaver dams would bring to the landscape.
Biologists believed these northern streams could not improve on their own. While browsing had been reduced, they feared that water levels had dropped too far for aspen and willow roots to reach and if that were true, then they wouldn’t be able to recover. Without willows, beaver wouldn’t return to these streams. It was a classic catch-22.
To test the impacts of each of these factors, they designed an experiment that took place along several of the creeks that had shown no improvement despite the return of wolf predation on elk. They asked two main questions:
- Does water table depth limit willow height increases in the absence of browsing? and
- Does water table depth influence willow height gain under changing ambient browsing pressure?
In the study area, water tables dropped substantially throughout the summer months. In spring, they averaged less than .5 m below the surface but dropped as deep as 1-2 metres by late summer. When they started the experiment, most of the willows were small, between 30 and 60 cm tall.
They looked at three species of willow native to the region. Over the years, excessive foraging prevented shoots from growing high enough to prevent elk from browsing the top of the stem, or the terminal bud. This prevented the tree from growing vertically to take on a taller tree-like form that might attract beaver to recolonize the stream. For a willow to escape this type of browsing, it needs to grow higher than 200 to 250 cm, putting it out of reach of the hungry jaws of elk.
When dams were added to the streams, the impact on water tables was immediate. On average, they rose 0.37m higher, but in August the effect could be as high as 0.9 m. By damming the river, the late-summer drop in water levels was limited because the standing water allowed for a more consistent water table.
Some areas were enclosed to keep elk from browsing, but in areas where elk were able to continue feeding, they browsed approximately 70% of a particular year’s growth. Almost immediately, there was a very positive impact on willow growth in the area. All four species began to grow vertically, whether or not browsing took place.
It shows that in areas with narrow stream channels, elk may have precipitated the problem by overbrowsing and out-competing local beaver colonies. However, once the beavers were gone, excess downward erosion in the channel meant that simply reducing the amount of browsing by reintroducing wolves, wasn’t enough to allow for a full recovery.
To fully recover these narrow stream ecosystems, reduced browsing had to be paired with water table management – at least until beaver return to the area and take over the water management in the way they did before wolves were first removed from the park.
After four years, willows in the study area where the water wasn’t managed averaged only 87 cm tall, meaning that elk could easily browse the entire tree height. The combination of water table management and reduced browsing showed incredible vertical growth
This study was limited in its scope because its permit didn’t allow it to build dams that might create overland flooding, which is exactly what natural beaver dams do. It’s also important to remember that as beavers flood an area, the increase in the water table is experienced in areas quite distant from the river channel or even the flooded beaver pond. Gravel river systems allow water to travel kilometres on either side of river banks to create vast impacts from any increase in the water table. Way back in Episode 15, I describe the amazing ecology that spreads across entire valleys in gravel-bed ecosystems in the mountains.
Studies like this one have helped ecologists to understand the complexity of large wildlife reintroductions like Yellowstone’s wolf recovery. Once a component is returned to the ecosystem, it doesn’t automatically mean that everything will return to what it was in the past. In many areas of Yellowstone, in particular, those areas with a stable water table, adding wolves to the ecosystem was enough to allow willows to regrow and the ecosystem to rebound.
Unfortunately, in others, the cascade of changes left behind in the absence of wolves means that more work is still necessary to bring more significantly altered landscapes back to their historic ecologies. Reintroducing wolves may need to be supplemented with reintroducing beavers to some locations. It seems the wolves may need an industrious partner to finish the ecological rehab that started with a few wolves from Alberta.
Don’t forget that Ward Cameron Enterprises is your source for exploring the mountains on foot, snowshoe, or motorcoach. Why not visit www.WardCameron.ca to book your mountain adventure. As a business, we have one philosophy – we sell wow!. Book your adventure now.