To what extent did the reintroduction of wolves in the yellowstone national park in 1995 affect the number of visitors to the park in 2005?

A thunderous “Slap!” travels through the atmosphere over a distant creek flowing to Yellowstone Lake on a peaceful spring morning. For most of the last century, it was an uncommon sound in this national park’s soundscape, but it is becoming a lot frequent today — the grunts of a bear moving the tail by warning one of its own. As per the information from an eminent wildlife scientist Doug Smith, before the wolf was introduced in the park, the park had just one beaver colony. So many years after the reintroduction of wolves, there are as many as nine colonies of beavers. There is a possibility of more to come, as scientists continue to be amazed by the rippling effect of wolves’ reintroduction on the ecology.

What occurred in the park is that the presence of a top predator sparked a cascading effect among animals and plants that is still unfolding and will need decades of study to comprehend fully. “It’s like throwing a stone down a mountain slope when the circumstances were ideal for a falling pebble to cause an avalanche of change.”

So how did the beaver fare in this avalanche of change?

Answering this question will require a trip back to the 1930s when Wolves almost wiped off Yellowstone’s wolf population. While predators like black and grizzly bears, cougars, and, to a lesser extent, coyotes continued to prey on Yellowstone elk, the absence of wolves reduced the amount of predatory pressure on the elk by a substantial amount, according to Smith. The result was that elk populations grew, maybe even to an excessive degree. It happened for two reasons: first, the elk outnumbered Yellowstone’s carrying capacity, and second, they remained in the park throughout the winter, grazing heavily on young willow, aspen, and cottonwood trees.

That was challenging for beaver, who depend on willows for winter survival and must forage for food.

But why should we even care for these species’ change? Well, it seems that the number of visitors has possibly increased because they get to see exotic wildlife reintroduced, which helps in the economics of managing wildlife. Visitors and animal lovers are essential for maintaining the lifestyle of the parks and the health of the animals. More visitors means more money allocated towards the maintenance of the animals. More importantly, I got so interested in the case of Yellowstone and wolves because I am a core animal lover, which is why I would also want to carry forward a similar study in my country. While reading the case of Yellowstone, I was fascinated by how a single move can change the fate of a park filled with beautiful animals!

Yellowstone National Park in the United States of America got a special delivery in late March 1995. Fourteen grey-wolves were released into the park two months after being brought in from the Canadian Rockies Idaho’s neighbor 15 wolves. Grey wolves were meant to be reintroduced and conserved in their natural living condition. The people who helped conserve the wolves did not anticipate that the top predators, with their blood-stained fangs and claws, might bring back the trees’ foliage. Indeed, the case is that the promotion of the top predator had a profound effect on the whole ecosystem of Yellowstone. The tale demonstrates how the mere presence or absenteeism of the top animal predator may fundamentally alter the ecosystem’s structure.

It has been decades since the wolves have been introduced, and the wolves have halved the population of elk, the primary prey for wolves. The elks that survived remained on the outskirts of the wolves’ core area. Woody trees such as aspen and willow, which the diligent elks had eaten and pruned, suddenly grew tall and luxuriant. Rivals of the wolves, such as coyotes, also bore the brunt of their fury. “Coyotes are terrified of wolves,” Ripple observes, having seen wolves’ aggressiveness against coyotes in Yellowstone. “Wolves will pursue coyotes, kill them, and sometimes eat them. Wolves despise coyotes.” After the wolf reintroduction, Coyote populations decreased by almost 40% in Yellowstone’s Lamar River Valley.

When mesopredators are unleashed in the absence of top predators, they may assert dominance. If this occurs, species lower on the food chain will have to deal with an unrestrained mesopredator. Coyote populations increased in the decades after eradicating grey wolves in the United States, but wild rabbit and hare populations declined. Snowshoe hares, white-tailed jackrabbits, black-tailed jackrabbits, and pygmy rabbits have all been placed to species-of-concern lists from coast to coast. Several were wiped off on a local level. Coyotes are suspected of being responsible for the rabbit and hare’s death. When a mesopredator is unleashed that is an invasive species, the effects may be severe.

Null hypotheses:

The re-introduction of wolves in the Yellowstone National Park in the year 1995 has no effect on the number of visitors till the year of 2005.

Alternate hypotheses:

The re-introduction of wolves in the Yellowstone National Park in the year 1995 has an effect on the number of visitors till the year of 2005.

Since my IA is based on secondary data, I didn’t come in contact with the species, so there was no significant risk involved. But in terms of the risk for the IA results, the data used from secondary sources might not be reliable and inaccurate as the researcher’s intent cannot be fully evaluated.

While conducting this exploration, I wanted to be fully aware of any credits given for the information borrowed from various sources. Hence, while using any secondary data, it was mentioned using the MLA-8 referencing style.

There is no viable method to find primary data for the above research question as the official statistics are only available to the Yellowstone Park Foundation. Hence, it is challenging to find secondary data. Therefore, I started looking for secondary data to analyze the above research question. Initially, I found many news articles and publications talking about the history and effects of the introduction of wolves in the park. Finally, I came across a study that the Yellowstone Park Foundation financially sponsored. The study was conducted by the students of the University of Montana, and the Yellowstone staff helped the students extensively collect data regarding the visitors and wildlife.

The study chosen as a source of secondary data is reliable as it has huge number of citations and is intended for an academic purpose. Thus, the data can be considered to be free from bias in context of any economical or political interests. Moreover, the study also surveyed around 3000 visitors to Yellowstone Park.

All the data is borrowed from the main secondary resources — funded by the Yellowstone National Park. The data is borrowed from the three historically funded studies by the Yellowstone national park in 1991, 1999, and 2005 with the results explained below.

Yellowstone visitors participate in a range of activities all over the year. One item on the survey report from the visitors included a list of potential activities and asked visitors and identify the ones they engaged in during their stay. Figure-4 depicts the proportion of park visitors involved in the three main birdwatching and wildlife photography. More than 85% of visitors saw animals throughout all seasons, displaying a rate of participation of over 90% in the terms of summer, spring and autumn. Birdwatching participation was about 20%, somewhat higher in the autumn and slightly lesser in the winter. Around 45-50% of tourists engaged in wildlife photography while in the park throughout the year, with the greatest proportion in the spring.

The above results indicate that wildlife viewing is the most engaging activity in the park for all the visitors.

Participants in the survey were questioned to identify their main activity at the park and their decision to visit the park even if they did not have the chance to engage in the activity. In the spring and winter, animal watching was the most often selected main activity (Figure-6). In the summer and autumn, seeing scenery was the most frequently chosen primary activity, with between one-third and one-half of visitors selecting it as their major activity. The second most population activity was watching geysers, with 14-18% of tourists indicating that this was their main activity throughout the spring, summer, and autumn. Snowmobiling, snow coach trips, and cross-country skiing were, as one would anticipate, more popular in the winter than in other seasons, with about 6-11% of winter tourists selecting each of these sports as their major activity.

This again indicates that the most engaging activity in the park is wildlife viewing which definitely allows us to claim that re-introduction of wolves in the national park will attract more tourists to the park.

The participant visitors in survey informed in concern to their desire for viewing various animals throughout their travels. In particular, respondents were asked to choose three animal species from a list of sixteen on a priority basis, they want to view while at the park. It’s worth noting that the “charismatic megafauna,” which includes big predators and ungulates, consistently ranks near the top of the rankings. Large carnivores account for four of the top five species constantly. Consistency in ranking over the years is exceptional (apart from wolves). Between resident and non-resident tourists, a similar consistency is found. Figure 7 compares visitor preferences for viewing various species across three independent surveys performed in 1991, 1999, and 2005. The data in figure 7 pertains to the summer season 2005 results, in chronological sequence, should be like the projected summer visitor sample findings from 1991 and 1999.

In a 1991 survey, 15% of park visitors identified wolves as the animal they most wanted to see, despite wolves not being present in the area at the time. This percentage places them eighth. Eight years later, and after the 1994 introduction of wolves, a 1999 survey found that the percentage of tourists who want to see wolves had risen to 36%, making the species second only to grizzly bears. According to a 2005 survey, 44% of tourists said they would most want to see wolves during their visit to Yellowstone, and wolves rank second only to grizzlies as the desired animal to observe. The wolf’s shift in status is graphically shown in the figure below.

Visitors were asked to react to a series of Likert-scaled wildlife-related items in the 2005 visitor survey. Visitors were given the option of agreeing, disagreeing, agreeing but not disagreeing, or stating that they were unsure of their opinion in answer to each of these statements. By and large, the answers to these statements (as shown in figure 8) suggest a high level of care about ecological problems in general, and specifically regarding Yellowstone National Park animals.

As displayed in the graph above, the coefficient of regression between the percentage ranking of wolf and year (R²) is 0.9724 and that shows that there is 97.24% correlation between the percentage ranking of wolf and the year. Thus, the null hypotheses can be rejected and the alternate hypotheses can be accepted.

Although the example mentioned above of Yellowstone Park was very effective in terms of introducing the top-predator and regulating the activity of the mesopredators that disrupted the area’s ecology. On the other side, the dominant animal may have a detrimental effect on the animals lower down in the ecological ladder and prey species on the verge of being lost.

In Australia, restoring dingoes may potentially jeopardize the survival of certain endangered species. According to Deakin University ecologist Euan Ritchie, foxes and cats in central Australia often eat greater bilbies in the wild, and research indicates that dingoes may help bilbies by suppressing foxes. However, in very tiny Bilby populations, “introducing dingoes may just push them over the brink.”

Some similar perspectives have been expressed about dingo predation on northern hairy-nosed wombats, which are severely endangered. “There are undoubtedly places in Australia where you would be reluctant to reintroduce dingoes since this might contribute to the loss of critically endangered species,” Ritchie adds.

Additionally, there is an ongoing battle between sheep and dingoes. “Dingoes and sheep are incompatible,” according to Peter Fleming, a pest specialist at Australia’s Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre. The problem is that dingoes consume more sheep than they consume. “If you have dingoes beside your sheep, they will continue to kill them until either your sheep perish, or the dingoes perish.”

Hence introducing the top predator, which is dingoes, might be a threat to bilbies as well as sheep in the case of Australia. Apart from socioeconomic concerns, experts have yet to agree on introducing a superior-top predator in all cases.

Wolf’s reintroduction into Yellowstone has had a transformational effect on the park. As of 2015, the wolf population has increased from 31 to over 400 individuals! Since then, the population has stabilized. The studies have become a model for understanding wolf ecology globally, how a naturally regulated ecosystem works, and the most effective management of public lands. Biologists and public land managers worldwide regard Yellowstone’s wolf program as one of the species’ most enduring and famous studies.

Understanding the wolves’ effect is a top priority for Yellowstone National Park. It will need a sustained commitment to study and monitoring both inside the park and in the surrounding regions.

To summarize, the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park demonstrated many ecological advantages. Although ranchers express worry about cattle products and profit loss, the advantages substantially exceed expenses. The area’s plant population is flourishing once again, exactly as it was before the great wolves were eradicated. This resulted in improved water quality and a decrease in illness rates among animals. Hopefully, the achievements and benefits of the project will result in the return of many more species to their natural habitats, allowing for the same type of ecosystem improvement as is occurring in Yellowstone.

Strengths

• The main strength of the exploration was that a focused area of Yellowstone was chosen, and the variables to be investigated were clearly defined and carried.
• There was enough data to support the research question, and the control variables were elaborately laid down.
   

Weakness

The weakness of the exploration is that a single primary source was used, and the study's methodology from where the data is taken is not evaluated at all. Hence, the results of the exploration might not be reliable.

Limitations

The visitor statistics are based on the year 2005. Although it is a reasonable amount of time after the introduction of wolves, the study does not paint the current scenario. Coupled with this source, there were two other historic surveys funded by the Yellowstone National Park in the years 1991 and 1999.

Further Application

There has been a disturbance in the ecosystem and food chain in various parks and reserves. Hence, a reintroduction of the top predator could lead to a healthier and more attractive ecosystem, which would improve the economics of preserving wildlife all across the world is a major concern currently.

A possible solution to overcome the problem of attracting more tourists to a national park and maintaining the ecological balance is to re-introduce or preserve species that are endangered. However, the position of the species in the prey-predator system is also an important concern here. Introducing species at the top level of the prey-predator system allows us to ensure that the population at the lower trophic levels are controlled.

There are some possible limitations of this solution:

• Re-introducing a new species means extra cost borne due to the maintenances and taking care of the new species that has been introduced.
• The new species will act as a predator and reduce the population of the species in lower trophic levels.

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