They only moved few dozen wolves, over 1000km from their homes, which is not going to have any significant consequences. Even today there's only about 100 wolves in the park?
2,200,000 acres, with 100 wolves.
Then they've made the claim that those 100 wolves in 2.2million acres has resulted in plants and fish returning? As opposed to their efforts doing nothing at all?
I'm not a biologist, but I grew up in West Yellowstone around the time wolves were reintroduced. Their return—and its impact—has been extensively studied by experts far more qualified than me.
That said, I believe wolves had a profound effect on the Yellowstone ecosystem, particularly on elk and deer populations. Before their reintroduction, those species had few natural predators beyond hunters, vehicles, bears, and the occasional mountain lion. The imbalance led to overgrazing and the spread of diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in elk.
The science is pretty clear on this Im not sure what you exactly are criticizing other than you don't like the vibes or vaguely incredulous? It doesn't take many wolves to change the behavior of nearly every herbivore they prey upon. Which then changes the river bank erosion. Which causes hundreds of more species to change behavior.... Trophic Cascades are not really up for debate .
“I do not like the results!” Or “The result does not make sense to me!” are not valid criticisms of science. They are arguments made from emotion. And in your case, based on your account history, it’s clearly something political for you. I would encourage you to write that kind of commentary in a more appropriate venue. Like the bathroom stall of your local truck stop. Just not here.
> Then they've made the claim that those 100 wolves in 2.2million acres has resulted in plants and fish returning? As opposed to their efforts doing nothing at all?
They've studied it and came to these conclusions, yes. Have you studied it and come to different conclusions?
While I find your counter argument vague, it did prompt me to dig in and find that human hunting is arguably still the bigger suppressor of elk population. However, that’s been going on since the ‘40s.
The reintroduction of wolves is associated with an immediate, steady, and durable decline in elk - i.e. pushed the ecosystem past an inflection point into a new equilibrium.
The simple answer for how is the elk population in that 2,200,000 acres dropped from ~18,000 to ~2,000 or 1 elk per 2 square miles.
16,000 elk do quiet a lot, especially as they aren’t spending nearly as much time along river banks. Which changes what plants are in and around steams and thus what’s happening in and around those streams.
Without engaging with the rest of your comment, and even assuming that wolves are distributed evenly (of course they are not, and some parts of the park are not suitable for wolves):
This equates to 1 wolf per chunk of land measuring about 6 miles square, so about 15% smaller than the city of San Francisco (which is a small city).
Wolves are territorial and they move through forest quite well. A ~35 square mile territory wouldn't be out of the question.
Edit: Notes from elsewhere:
> Wolf packs in Minnesota, for example, can have territories that range from 7.5 mi2 to >214 mi2 — a 28 fold difference in territory size
> Average territory size in northwestern Montana was 220 square kilometers (185 square miles) but was highly variable (USFWS et al. 2002). Average territory size for Yellowstone Gray Wolves was larger, averaging 891 square kilometers (344 square miles) (USFWS et al. 2002).
> Pack size is highly variable due to the birth of pups, but is typically between 4 to 8 wolves. Territory sizes range from 25 to 150 square miles; neighboring packs can share common borders, but territories rarely overlap by more than a mile.
It's amazing the impact that the reintroduction has had. On a recent winter trip there I also learned that the reintroduction literally moved rivers [1]:
- Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels.
- The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetlands.
- With healthier riparian zones came deeper pools, colder water, and a surge in native trout and song-bird nests.
I talked to a local who was friends with ranchers who now lose stock to wolves. They hate it. Its an interesting use case of local control, is the greater good more important than the people who live there?
"greater good" is a poor phrasing that doesn't point to the real thing-under-discussion. I prefer the phrase "common good" because it points to the feature that is unique to this good - it can only be held in common. That is, rather than being a "bigger" or a "fuller" good, it is a good that can only be achieved through collective action. No one person can have it of themselves, but together we can all have it. This necessitates collective sacrifice for the sake of this good.
It is also worth noting that not every good that is a "common good" is a necessary good. There are many common goods that can be legitimately given up because there is a hierarchy of goods as well.
> Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP) is proposing new, despicable wolf hunting regulations that could allow up to 500 wolves to be killed. This would increase the number of wolves that can be killed next season by 50 percent, nearly half the state’s entire wolf population. MTFWP is also pushing expanded hunting and trapping rules, including allowing hunters to kill up to 30 wolves per person.
> This proposal comes despite livestock losses remaining near historic lows, with only 35 confirmed cattle deaths in 2024, and a significant drop in the number of wolves killed due to livestock conflicts. It is also worth noting that revenue from wolf hunting licenses is among the lowest ever recorded – which helps explain why these expanded rules are less about science and more about politics, profit, and desperation.
> The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission will vote on this proposal at its next meeting on August 21. In the meantime, public comments are open through August 4, and wolves need your voice. In your comment, consider including the following:
- There is no scientific or ethical reason to kill this many wolves.
- Wolves pose no significant threat to humans.
- Wolves help maintain healthy prey populations by targeting the weak or sick, which may help control the spread of chronic wasting disease in elk and deer.
- Legal hunting can increase poaching.
- Traps and snares are cruel, outdated, and often harm pets and endangered species.
Has no one considered the possibility that the aspen trees are eating the wolves to grow strong? I mean, we know that the decline of pirates causes global warming.
Also collapsed the elk population from 18,000 to 2,000 and they’re worried the bison will eat the trees… I understand nature is incredibly complex and intelligent, and I’m curious what the end effect will be. But from an anthropocentric perspective, this is silly. When will the first human death occur?
"Embark on a journey to Yellowstone, where a few wolves did not just roam, but rewrote the rules of an entire ecosystem. Discover how these majestic predators triggered a cascade of life, transforming not only the park's wildlife but its very rivers and landscapes. It's a story of how nature's architects can reshape our world in ways we never imagined."
From my perspective this is a doomed ideological project, to restore a ecological "balance" that is already historic- as the climate this "balance" adapted to will vanish and the luxury of ecological preservation projects will evaporate with the funds available for such luxuries.
In my eyes, ecological historicism is just another sin, wasting precious finite resources on keeping up a facade.
It would be much wiser, to take specimen from the developing bulb-belt and transplant them up the lattitude to near similar developing bioms, trying to breed them to survive the winter that now befalls there "migrated" biom.
Let the wulves fight for their own survival in this mess and remove protection status. The ground is moving, no sense in building cabins and planting trees on it. Cosplaying nature while sacrificing saveable species seems absurd to me.
> Browsing, grazing, loitering in an ideal environment
> Suddenly, mid life, an unidentified powerful beast appears that stalks and kills your kind
> Never know why, the source, or that a third species engineered this outcome because they were too lazy to kill you all themselves and just wanted an automated way of doing so
For readers who are not local perhaps worth noting that Wolf reintroduction is a very emotional subject in this area. The wolves were brought back just before I moved here 25 years ago and I remember wondering if anyone ever wrote a letter to the editor at the Bozeman paper that wasn't about wolves. It's a kind of pre-Trump anti-science, anti-intellectual issue, the echoes of which you'll see in the comments on the article.
It's one of the things featured in that TV show with Kevin Costner that's actually accurate.
It's like a real-life case study of a trophic cascade, and it kind of underlines just how interconnected everything is. You pull one species out, and decades later entire ecosystems are still feeling it
32 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 46.3 ms ] thread2,200,000 acres, with 100 wolves.
Then they've made the claim that those 100 wolves in 2.2million acres has resulted in plants and fish returning? As opposed to their efforts doing nothing at all?
That said, I believe wolves had a profound effect on the Yellowstone ecosystem, particularly on elk and deer populations. Before their reintroduction, those species had few natural predators beyond hunters, vehicles, bears, and the occasional mountain lion. The imbalance led to overgrazing and the spread of diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in elk.
They've studied it and came to these conclusions, yes. Have you studied it and come to different conclusions?
The reintroduction of wolves is associated with an immediate, steady, and durable decline in elk - i.e. pushed the ecosystem past an inflection point into a new equilibrium.
16,000 elk do quiet a lot, especially as they aren’t spending nearly as much time along river banks. Which changes what plants are in and around steams and thus what’s happening in and around those streams.
Without engaging with the rest of your comment, and even assuming that wolves are distributed evenly (of course they are not, and some parts of the park are not suitable for wolves):
This equates to 1 wolf per chunk of land measuring about 6 miles square, so about 15% smaller than the city of San Francisco (which is a small city).
Wolves are territorial and they move through forest quite well. A ~35 square mile territory wouldn't be out of the question.
Edit: Notes from elsewhere:
> Wolf packs in Minnesota, for example, can have territories that range from 7.5 mi2 to >214 mi2 — a 28 fold difference in territory size
> Average territory size in northwestern Montana was 220 square kilometers (185 square miles) but was highly variable (USFWS et al. 2002). Average territory size for Yellowstone Gray Wolves was larger, averaging 891 square kilometers (344 square miles) (USFWS et al. 2002).
> Pack size is highly variable due to the birth of pups, but is typically between 4 to 8 wolves. Territory sizes range from 25 to 150 square miles; neighboring packs can share common borders, but territories rarely overlap by more than a mile.
Can other ecosystems do this? Or is Yellowstone the only one?
"Gray wolves were reintroduced ... to help control the numbers of elk that were eating young trees"
- Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels.
- The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetlands.
- With healthier riparian zones came deeper pools, colder water, and a surge in native trout and song-bird nests.
[1] https://phys.org/news/2025-02-predators-ecosystems-yellowsto...
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debun...
It is also worth noting that not every good that is a "common good" is a necessary good. There are many common goods that can be legitimately given up because there is a hierarchy of goods as well.
https://fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/public-comment-opportunities Click on the dropdown for “Fall 2025–Winter 2026 Furbearer and Wolf Trapping and Hunting Seasons and Quotas.”
> Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP) is proposing new, despicable wolf hunting regulations that could allow up to 500 wolves to be killed. This would increase the number of wolves that can be killed next season by 50 percent, nearly half the state’s entire wolf population. MTFWP is also pushing expanded hunting and trapping rules, including allowing hunters to kill up to 30 wolves per person.
> This proposal comes despite livestock losses remaining near historic lows, with only 35 confirmed cattle deaths in 2024, and a significant drop in the number of wolves killed due to livestock conflicts. It is also worth noting that revenue from wolf hunting licenses is among the lowest ever recorded – which helps explain why these expanded rules are less about science and more about politics, profit, and desperation.
> The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission will vote on this proposal at its next meeting on August 21. In the meantime, public comments are open through August 4, and wolves need your voice. In your comment, consider including the following:
- There is no scientific or ethical reason to kill this many wolves.
- Wolves pose no significant threat to humans.
- Wolves help maintain healthy prey populations by targeting the weak or sick, which may help control the spread of chronic wasting disease in elk and deer.
- Legal hunting can increase poaching.
- Traps and snares are cruel, outdated, and often harm pets and endangered species.
https://doctorspaghetti.org/pastafarians-pirates-and-climate...
We also know that dog predation of frisbees is a real problem for healthy disc populations.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nBUqz2hG0
"Embark on a journey to Yellowstone, where a few wolves did not just roam, but rewrote the rules of an entire ecosystem. Discover how these majestic predators triggered a cascade of life, transforming not only the park's wildlife but its very rivers and landscapes. It's a story of how nature's architects can reshape our world in ways we never imagined."
In my eyes, ecological historicism is just another sin, wasting precious finite resources on keeping up a facade. It would be much wiser, to take specimen from the developing bulb-belt and transplant them up the lattitude to near similar developing bioms, trying to breed them to survive the winter that now befalls there "migrated" biom.
Let the wulves fight for their own survival in this mess and remove protection status. The ground is moving, no sense in building cabins and planting trees on it. Cosplaying nature while sacrificing saveable species seems absurd to me.
> Browsing, grazing, loitering in an ideal environment
> Suddenly, mid life, an unidentified powerful beast appears that stalks and kills your kind
> Never know why, the source, or that a third species engineered this outcome because they were too lazy to kill you all themselves and just wanted an automated way of doing so