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These wolves arrived in Yellowstone in two shipments—January 12, 1995 (8 wolves) and January 20, 1995 (6 wolves). They were released into three acclimation pens—Crystal Creek, Rose Creek and Soda Butte Creek in the Lamar Valley in Northeast East Yellowstone National Park.
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is one of the last remaining large, nearly intact ecosystems in the northern temperate zone of the Earth. [1] It is located within the northern Rocky Mountains , in areas of northwestern Wyoming , southwestern Montana , and eastern Idaho , and is about 22 million acres (89,000 km 2 ). [ 2 ]
The restoration of the gray wolf to the Yellowstone National Park not only restores an important ecosystem component (the wolf) and process (predation by wolves) to bring the park into better ecological balance, but it also is economically sound. After weighing the costs (including full reimbursement to ranchers for the loss of livestock) and ...
A cow/calf winter herd is a herd that consists only of female elk and their young. In a normal winter, defined as one where there is a decent amount of snow fall, one study found that when the groups of cows and calves were safe from predation by wolves, about 75.6-83.0% of their diet was made up of graze whereas when wolves were present this number dropped to 61.6-69.4%. [3]
By the 1970s, scientists found no evidence of a wolf population in Yellowstone; wolves persisted in the lower 48 states only in northern Minnesota and on Isle Royale in Michigan. Canadian grey wolves were introduced into Yellowstone in 1995. [17] This move has returned wolves to land that was once ruled by the canine.
Winter-weakened or sick elk also play an important part of Yellowstone wolf diets, and it is estimated that over 50 percent of winter-weakened or sick elk in Yellowstone are killed by wolves. Of these, about 12 percent of carcasses were scavenged by other predators, including ravens, bald eagles, black bears, grizzly bears, and coyotes. [17]
The elimination of the gray wolf from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem had profound impacts on the trophic pyramid. [17] Without predation, herbivores began to over-graze many woody browse species, affecting the area's plant populations.
Cougars and timber wolves are large apex predators that inhabit the forest. Since the 1990s wolf reintroduction program in Yellowstone National Park, wolves have migrated into the forest and established permanent packs. [42] Approximately a dozen wolf packs totaling 70 individual wolves were documented in the forest in 2012. [43]