Wolves are not going to save the ecosystem
#wolves #fear #trauma #yellowstone #ecosystem
This study makes a lot of sense to me. I did my thesis in grad school about wolves, and I interviewed an environmental law attorney in Colorado for it who told me about something she witnessed in Yellowstone. The wolves had brought down an elk and were eating it, and while the wolves were doing that the rest of the herd was just hanging around grazing and didn't seem to have any problem with one of the elk having been killed and being in the process of being eaten. This supports the idea that creating fear by bringing in wolves is not going to have any significant impact on the elk population. Also, the studies of Peter Levine, an internationally respected psychologist on trauma, were instrumental to his development of Somatic Experiencing therapy for trauma. He found that wildlife does not suffer trauma from fear reactions that humans do in response to danger. In addition, I've covered the wolf wars for over 22 years, and the allegations that wolves are going to "save the ecosystem" are not scientifically valid. Wolves can improve things somewhat, but research that came out of Rocky Mountain National Park when they had a problem with too many elk showed that there were multiple causes for damage to habitat that threatened the welfare of other species in the Park. They included impacts from climate change, like acid rain among other things, and methane from agriculture many miles away, etc. These are not problems caused by lack of wolves, and so bringing wolves back into the ecosystem will not correct these problems. The reason why people want wolves has more to do with their need to experience the "wild" within themselves, and because of an ongoing, seemingly never-ending land use battle over public lands, including their being used for grazing cattle. Researchers at CSU's Center for Human-Carnivore Conservation recently reported their studies showed the improvement the wolves were making in the ecosystem would take 20 years to show.