Yellowstone Elk

Bowedark · Post by **Bowedark** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:59 am

Hello, all I thought everybody would find this interesting and/or maddening
I got this from the US F&WS grey wolf recovery website
Research

Yellowstone National Park continues with their annual late winter wolf predation study for the month of March. Volunteers are following wolf packs in the northern range daily to determine prey selection and kill rates. Smith said it appears to be a very strange year. Elk are in horrible condition and they are starting to see lots of winter-kill elk. Wolf kills rates appear near normal but the bone marrow condition of wolf-killed elk appear near starvation levels. The Park has normal snow depth but has had freezing thawing conditions that hardened snow making it tough for the wind to blow it off ridges or for elk to dig through it.

http://westerngraywolf.fws.gov/wk03102006.htm

Post by **MuleyMadness** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:06 pm

Yep crud that doesn't sound good.

Post by **ABert** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:40 pm

It's just Mother Nature's way. Man can't handle the fact that he can't control nature. If man wasn't here, would the elk herds be dwindling and the wolf packs growing. Pretty much the old adage of supply and demand. The more wolves, the less elk; which in turn would be a lesser food supply for the wolves. The wolves begin to decline and thus the elk herds grow. Then the cycle will start over yet once again. Can be said for any predator/prey combo you can think of. Man can only watch from the sidelines in the long run, but can do tremendous damage in the short term. Just my .02