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WKR
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2022
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- 545
According to their numbers, and they are purposely EXTREMELY vague about the predator-ungulate relationship studies, the elk will be basically unaffected by wolf introduction and hunting will continue as usual.
CPW doesn't specify the end goal, but openly states in the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan that 300 wolves is generally accepted as a minimum robust population, and way later on admits that each wolf kills an average of 15-22 elk annually. That only equates to 4500-6600 elk which is only 1/60th of the total population and 10ish percent of annual harvest by hunters. Thats what got their foot in the door. Once you open up the linked sources about ungulate population responses to wolves that they glassed over, nearly every one of them mention how destructive wolves can be in unaccustomed areas and how they routinely go on killing sprees when surrounded by abundant prey. Below is an excerpt from an article I found online about secondary effects of wolf presence. Apparently the anti's "love animals" when we hunt them, but don't give a crap about large populations when wolves do.
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Wolves have caused elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to change their behavior and foraging habits so much that herds are having fewer calves, mainly due to changes in their nutrition, according to a Montana State University (MSU) study.
During winter, nearly all elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are losing weight, says Scott Creel, ecology professor at MSU and lead author of the study that appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. With the presence of wolves, elk browse more—eating woody shrubs or low tree branches in forested areas where they are safer—as opposed to grazing on grass in open meadows where they are more visible, and therefore more vulnerable to wolves. Browsing provides food of good quality, but the change in foraging habits results in elk taking in 27% less food than their counterparts that live without wolves, the study estimates.
“Elk regularly hunted by wolves are essentially starving faster than those not hunted by wolves,” says Creel, who shares authorship on the paper with his former doctoral students John Winnie, Jr. and David Christianson. The decline in the greater Yellowstone’s elk population since the reintroduction of wolves in 1995 has been greater than was originally predicted. In the three winters prior to the reintroduction of wolves, elk on Yellowstone’s northern range numbered roughly between 17,000 and 19,000. In the three winters prior to 2008, annual elk counts had declined to between 6,738 and 6,279.
Obviously, wolves kill elk, and direct predation is responsible for much of the decline in elk numbers, but the rate of direct killing is not great enough to account for the elk population declines observed since 1995. In addition to direct predation, the decline is due to low calving rates, which are subtle but important effect of the wolves’ presence, Creel says. “We knew the presence of wolves caused lower calf-cow rations, but we did not know why,” Creel says. “Radiocollaring calves revealed that calf numbers were low immediately after the birth pulse, suggesting that a decline in the birth rate was part of the population decline.” The birth pulse is that time in spring when most cow elk have their calves.
This suggestion was confirmed when the researchers found that elk facing high levels of predation risk had substantially decreased progesterone levels prior to the annual birth pulse. The MSU researchers did chemical analysis of 1,200 fecal samples collected over four years, as well as urine samples for the study. They found that elk living in the presence of wolves had lower levels of progesterone, a hormone necessary to maintain pregnancy, than those elk that did not live with wolves. “The elk are trading reproduction for longevity,” Creel says. “Elk are potentially long –lived, and many prior studies have shown that, in species like this, natural selection favors individuals who do not compromise their own survival for the sake of a single reproductive opportunity.” If predators commonly affect the reproduction of their prey, it will change the thinking about predator-prey dynamics, and might change how wildlife managers plan for the reintroduction of predators, Creel says. Until now, it would have seemed obvious to conclude that a herd losing many of its numbers to predators would decline faster than a herd where predators were less successful. “However, now it is conceivable that the herd with the lower direct predation rate could decline faster, if it spends more of its time and energy avoiding being eaten and less on reproduction,” Creel says.
