General Discussion

I suspect that there is a push to relax their protected status, again, for more hunting. Since I moved away from there, I miss hearing the wolves sing at night and seeing tracks on occasion. I used to track one particular pack, right after it established, near town. It was one of my fun things to do while skiing but more often they were shadowing my movements through their established range.

I read the article and it is kind of a mealy-mouth approach to the idea that some calculations were reassessed and what was anticipated as park-wide spread of the wolves was not a smooth coverage as there were no wolves on the west side of the park for over a decade and so the effects were not as impactful throughout the park as expected by Bechta and Ripple back in like 2001. I saw the exclosures where areas were fenced off to see what would happen if no grazing took place over time. I also had conversations with Bechta and Ripple after their first study on this topic was published.

So what happened was that the wolves were released in the northeastern portion of the park. The least impacted by humans, the rest of the park is swarmed by humans for half the year so it makes sense that it took so long for the wolves to migrate there. The impacts where the wolves have been established longest are clearly seen in the Lamar Valley where the riparian areas are recovering, still. But you go to the west side of the park and along the Madison River, it looks like a golf course because the elk hang out and graze like cattle because there are not enough wolves to make them move around as roving ungulate do in a balanced ecosystem. I used to point that out in my ranger talks on wolves because you could see the golf course right there in front of you along with a lot of elk.

Anyway, you know the story, it's the one I'm sticking with. I liked Dan McNulty when I was in contact with him and I think he a good researcher. I might have to make a couple phone calls, I might not to get to talk to him but I can get close.

I'll let you know if I find anything worth repeating!