In 1995 14 wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park from there
those 14 wolves basically saved the entire parks collapsing ecosystem let's
talk about that don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an upload
and let's jump in on March 1st 1872 president ulysses s grant signed the
National Park Protection Act into law creating the first National Park
Yellowstone the goal of creating the National Park was to preserve the
natural landscape and wildlife for generations to come the creation of
Yellowstone protected most of the native species but it didn't provide protection
for most of the Predators like the wolves as a result by 1926 all the
northern Rocky Mountain wolf packs had been hunted to extinction although
reports of single wolf sightings continued they weren't enough to hold a
wolf's prey at bay by the mid 20th century the deer and elk populations
increased substantially resulting in over grazing particularly of the Willows
and other vegetarian important to soil and riverbank structure leading to heavy
erosion as a top predator wolves were one of Yellowstone's linchpins holding
together the delicate balance between predator and prey the removal in the
early 20th century disrupted food webs and set up something called a trophic
cascade the Wolves natural predators in this case the elk multiplied all while
consuming increasing amounts of foliage this hurt the species that relied on
that vegetation like the birds who nested in the trees and the beavers who
use the Willows to create their dams and without the beaver dams hundreds of
native fish species started to decline and as the fish declined so did the
animals that fed on them like the foxes and bears but removing a single species
a cascade of negative effects propagated outward throughout the ecosystem in 1974
the Great Wolf was officially recognized as endangered and so recovery efforts
were mandated under the Endangered Species Act the very next year the long
process to restore wolves to Yellowstone began but for a long time problems were
evident the program lacked both the necessary funding and any meaningful
willpower to get it despite the fact that legally
restoration was supposed to begin in 1975 Congress only got around through
appropriating funding in 1991 only about two decades later which by today's
standards might actually be a fast pace after receiving more than 160,000 public
comments the most of any federal proposal at the time 31 gray wolves were
drugged and abducted or relocated as conservationists like to call it from
Canada to Yellowstone when wolves were brought back to the park they finally
killed the overabundance of elk the out populations decreased for more than
15,000 in the early 90s to about 6,000 last year and not only did their numbers
dwindle but the wolves mere presence was enough to change the Elks behavior they
started to avoid Yellowstone's valleys and gorges where they could easily be
hunted by the newly introduced wolves as a result those areas began to recover
and by 2006 some aspen trees had grown tall enough to where they were too big
to be eaten by the alka these grown trees rented a habitat that allowed for
greater diversity and abundance of bird species like yellow throats warbling
burros and song sparrows that were finally able to nest again and with the
increase in wooded area beavers were able to return the number of beaver
colonies in the park increased from 1 in 1996 to 12 in 2009 allowing for an
explosive growth in fish wildlife it might sound a little strange that beaver
dams helped fish populations but by rising the water level and calming the
stream they make it easier for fish to hang out and reproduce for reference
Wyoming streams with beaver ponds have about 75 times more abundant water life
than those without and without herbivores eating so much vegetation
plant life along the riverbanks once again thrived and erosion decreased
significantly the stabilization of these river banks even made the rivers change
course with the reintroduction of just a small population of wolves the landscape
of the whole park was transformed while these transformations have been
undoubtedly beneficial at preserving Yellowstone's ecosystem for future
generations this might not be set to last in 2018 Congress added a record
number of anti wolf measures to the appropriation bills left
the Department of the Interior that governed the nation's parks these
measures were blocked protections in the Endangered Species Act from applying to
a variety of wolf populations and would likely lead to them being hunted once
again in 2015 it was estimated that there were about 500 wolves in the
Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem that means that after only a few years of hunting
they could be brought back to extinction that's one of the difficulties with
conservation it can take decades to save an ecosystem but only a few years to
destroy it if we don't act fast wolves could once again be subject to the same
hostile extermination practices that push them to the brink of extinction but
hopefully they'll be howling at the moon for years to come I hope you enjoyed
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