The most interesting thing about the putative effect of wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone is that 30+ years later nobody has managed to reproduce it, though not for the lack of trying. This has been clear for a long time now, but large carnivores and trophic cascades are one of the fundamentals of the rewilding religion, and so not open to questioning. So it is refreshing to see an article in the BBC Wildlife Magazine offering a bit more balanced perspective (Apple News link here). A couple of points I’d like to make on this.

There is a bit in the article in conversation with Dan MacNulty of Utah State University on the effect of the wolf population on aspen which is worth quoting:

[A] paper published a decade ago … predicts the northern area of Yellowstone … will become increasingly inhospitable to aspen trees due to climate change. Already … there is evidence that aspen are growing at higher elevations. … [A]n interpretative display in … Lamar Valley … outlines the trophic cascade caused by the wolves and points to a regenerating aspen stand across the way. But what the sign doesn’t tell the visitor is about the other aspen stand that has completely vanished since the wolves were reintroduced. … It was a forest in 1954 and is absolutely gone now, and showing no signs of recovery.

Two points:

  1. Climate change beats rewilding hands down, and it doesn’t make a zilch of difference how firm your faith in rewilding is,

  2. This is typical of how rewilders handle data, it is characteristic of how the story of the Yellowstone wolfs is being sold, and we have seen this same selective treatment of facts here in the UK with the persistent sidestepping of the Norwegian data when it comes to Lynx predation on sheep.

Wolfs won’t save us, and neither will beavers. We need to move beyond this trophic fairytale, which has set UK conservation back a great deal, and start taking climate change seriously and plan for rich healthy ecosystems that will remain viable into the future.