Education | Nature
Wolves: Monsters or Saviors?
Only science will tell
The wolf reentry program that happened in 1995 in Yellowstone National Park was very controversial and even 26 years later still has many people divided. The 2016 news of 19 elk killed by a pack of wolves in Jackson, Wyoming created a lot of headlines. People who had always been skeptical of the wolf-reentry programs jumped on the chance to show wolves as bloodthirsty monsters that kill off all the herbivores in an ecosystem.
As a researcher raised in a community with ranchers, I have heard both sides of the wolf issue. I empathize with the emotional struggle ranchers and farmers may have against wolves. With the people closest to me being divided on the issue, I decided to do what I am best at, research.
The verdict: Wolves are keystone predators that are crucial for ecosystem regulation. The animals that would kill an entire herd of elk in one night good for their ecosystem, let's discuss why.
Why do wolves kill more than they can eat?
Wolves in the wild hunt members of herds that are the weakest, mainly the elderly, young, or malnourished members of the elk herd. The smallest an elk gets is female cows around 500lbs, while the average wolf is 95lbs. Wolves are intelligent enough to know that even in group hunting, going after a strong elk is going to hurt them more than help, in fact, studies from Yellowstone show that wolves are successful in killing elk only 18–28% of the time. The percentage changes based on the grazing available to the elk, especially leading into winter. A malnourished bull heading into winter is easier to kill than a well-fed elk.
When wolves do get a lucky year and the ability to kill extra elk/moose/etc-they do. This extra hunting is known as surplus hunting. Just as you keep extra meat in your freezer to use later-wolves keep elk carcasses in the snow to come back and eat later. The uneaten elk is “stored” in snowdrifts and the wolves return for weeks to finish off the carcasses. Once the majority of the meat has been eaten off the carcass, the wolves leave the rest for scavengers such as crows and foxes, to pick apart.
Wolves surplus killing plays an important part in the winter ecosystem-Other scavengers pick off the elk carcass that wolves keep “stored”, sometimes this can be the only way scavenger animals get through the winter, as they have become dependent on the larger carnivores leaving carcasses for them to pick apart.
Since the wolf pack killing rate is actually very low, surplus killings are done whenever the wolves can. They know that three elk carcasses now when they only need one might save them in the following weeks when their hunting fails.
The important point to stress is that surplus killings are good for wolves, other scavenger animals, and do not, as many people are afraid of, kill off entire elk populations. Wolves' surplus killings rarely go beyond a few extra bodies, 19 in one night is not natural.
So if wolves are animals going on hunting instinct to kill a few extra elk instead of bloodthirsty monsters, how the hell did they get to murder 19 elk in one night?
Wolves only manage to kill 18–28% of the elk they try to hunt because of the elk’s strategy for survival. Elk knows to stay out of paces that are easy for wolves to hunt in; valleys and gorges. They stick to elevation and have warning calls when a wolf is spotted. These strategies work more often than they fail.
How the wolves of Jacksonville managed to kill 19 elk in one sitting? Humans. The winter of 2015/2016 was a bad year for elk health-there was little grazing to be done. Wolf surplus killings, as previously stated, tend to be larger in winter with malnourished bulls being weaker, this is a natural part of the ecosystem and the elk population hits its natural low.
But humans hunt elk for enjoyment and sport-so they don’t want malnourished bulls in the winter. The state of Wyoming and concerned citizens created elk feed ground; a spot in the valleys closer to human towns where they spread massive amounts of hay to feed the elk.
So now mass amounts of malnourished weak elks can gather to eat hay in valleys they normally never travel to because it is an easy hunting ground for wolves. Can you see where this is going? Elk herds concentrate in one easy-hunting area like a prey buffet, and wolves, close in and kill as many as they can- which is natural. But in natural situations, there never amounts to this number of dead elk.
With humans trying to exert control over an ecosystem they do not have basic knowledge on- the wolves increase that natural 18–28% rate to 90%; aka 19 elk in one night.
Why even have wolves?
Well for one thing gray wolves are native to these regions of the united states and were only killed off and driven out by humans in the 1930s.
After the wolves left elk populations skyrocketed; causing a concerning decrease in plant life. Plantlife affects rivers, and now unnatural erosion made the rivers wider and slower with no riverbanks. Wide, slow rivers are unable to host beaver and fish populations.
In natural parks similar to Yellowstone (Isle Royale, Denali, and Riding Mountain) when there was a wolf population in the parks; the trees and plants were able to flourish-and tree growth affect litter composition and soil nutrients. Having the trees grow gave other plant life a chance to survive, and the bugs necessary for decomposition more food.
This Gray wolf has unknowingly helped to restore the natural plant growth of its ecosystem. Wolves cap herbavore herd populations-allowing for plant undergrowth and tree populations including but not limited to willow, cottonwood, aspen, to grow and mature.
Moose and elk herds naturally have a small flux in populations, but without wolves, those fluctuations become a dangerous-the explosion of elk babies eats through the natural plant life, and then the next year the population plummets as a large amount of the herd starves to death, leaving corpses in the winter littered around the park, not as scary sounding as the wolf kills, but starvation kills more elk and hurts the ecosystems while wolves provide a natural way for the ecosystem to support itself while giving healthy elk grazing.
Furthermore, because wolves form packs, they also cap their own populations through aggression between packs. It is important to note that wolf packs might have grown when first re-introduced to their native land, as the Yellowstone wolves did in 1995 but will cap their own populations and never be able to kill off all the members of the several species they hunt (such as elk).
Conclusion
Preserving America’s great national parks and ecosystems is extremely important, and wolves are keystone predators. Science supports wolves because of their essential role in the ecosystems they belong to. Wolves only perform “monstrous” acts because of the human manipulation of local herbivores.
Originally published at https://kosowrote.com on November 9, 2020.
