# Wolves: 4 minutes worth watching



## lenarenee (Oct 9, 2014)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q[/ame]

The tremendous impact of returning wolves to Yellowstone


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## Ruthie (Oct 10, 2014)

wow!!


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## shunt2011 (Oct 10, 2014)

Wow, this is pretty amazing!


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## Ellacho (Oct 10, 2014)

Wow, thanks for sharing! I watched the video with my 12 year old daughter.


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## Dahila (Oct 10, 2014)

Thank you for the video.  I love and admire those magnificent animals.  I am following Yellowstone program for some time.  Many local farmers do not want the wolves to come back, not realizing how huge is the impact on animals and evironment,  without the wolves the caribou dissappeared.. it is coming back.  In my old country we have the say that Wolves are doctors of the wild.  Time proved that is not the say, it is the true.  Canadian wolve is very special wolve and beautiful animal


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## Nevada (Oct 11, 2014)

.... By 1915, Roosevelt realized the elk had become a problem, and he urged scientific management, which meant culling. His advice was ignored. Instead, the Park Service did everything they could to increase the number of elk. The results were predictable. Antelope and deer began to decline. Overgrazing changed the flora. Aspen and willows were being eaten at a furious rate and did not regenerate. Large animals and small began to disappear from the park.

.....In an effort to stem the loss, the park rangers began to kill predators, which they did without public knowledge. They eliminated the wolf and the cougar, and they were well on their way to getting rid of the coyote. Then a national scandal broke out. New studies showed that it wasn’t predators that were killing the other animals. It was overgrazing from too many elk. The management policy of killing predators therefore had only made things worse.

.....But that didn’t actually continue—the good behavior, I mean. There were more bears, and certainly there were many more lawyers, and thus the much-increased threat of litigation, so the rangers moved the grizzlies out. The grizzlies promptly became endangered. Their formerly growing numbers shrank. The Park Service refused to let scientists study them, but once they were declared endangered, the scientists could go back in again.

....And by now, we’re about ready to reap the rewards of our 40-year policy of fire suppression, Smokey the Bear and all that. The Indians used to burn forests regularly, and lightning causes natural fires every year. But when these are suppressed, branches fall from the trees to the ground and accumulate over the years to make a dense groundcover such that when there’s a fire, it is a very low, very hot fire that sterilizes the soil. In 1988, Yellowstone burned, and all 1.2 million acres were scorched, and 800,000 acres, one third of the park, burned.

....Then having killed the wolves, having tried to sneak them back in, they officially brought the wolves back. And now the local ranchers screamed. The newer reports suggested the wolves seemed to be eating enough of the elk that slowly, the ecology of the park was being restored. Or so it is claimed. It’s been claimed before. And on and on.

....As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly impossible to overlook the cold truth that when it comes to managing 2.2 million acres of wilderness, nobody since the Indians has the faintest idea how to do it. And nobody asked the Indians, because the Indians managed the land very aggressively, very intrusively. The Indians started fires regularly. They burned trees and grasses. They hunted the large animals, elk and moose, to the edge of extinction. White men refused to do that, and made things worse.

http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=111


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## Dahila (Oct 13, 2014)

Nevada thank you for this post  There was a man living with Canadian Wolfs for over two years, according to his observation, the big animals are seldom eaten, 90% of diet is just mice. It was an eye opening for me.  The problem is to keep genetic diversity with the animals they let to the wildness.  Unfortunately people who came here are hunting them for century, to the extinction.  The wolf program started a few years ago and they had 16 wolves only.  Inbreed breading is not good for a health of animals.  Eh once the balance in nature is damaged, nothing can  go back to previous state.


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## bugtussle (Oct 13, 2014)

Wonderful!


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## Kittie (Oct 13, 2014)

Lovely and inspiring video which I enjoyed watching. The circle of life, once broken by ignorance of true nature, may be nigh on impossible to repair. Hopefully, they will also introduce a few new males and females to the mix of the gene pool every now and then to prevent problems with the breeding.


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## claudep (Nov 1, 2014)

Wow!  Thank for sharing.  Will probably show it to the kids tomorrow.  Cheers


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## boyago (Nov 11, 2014)

There is a pretty cool doc called "The Wolves of Chernobyl" (I think it's on netflix) about the wildlife rebound around the Chernobyl plant and Pripyat in the exclusion zone despite the radiation.  I found it very interesting and highly recommend it.

I'm also a big cheesy horror fan and think that whole situation crys for a "Werewolves of Pripyat" series.  Maybe set in the future when people start moving back to find that something has already taken up residence.  Any of you Hollywood people can feel free to run with that one.


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## snappyllama (Nov 12, 2014)

boyago said:


> Any of you Hollywood people can feel free to run with that one.



<Furiously takes notes>


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