1st TEXT COMMENTARY: Wolves

HEADLINE 

We Reintroduced Wolves To Yellowstone 20 Years Ago And It Profoundly Changed The Ecosystem

SUMMARY

A group of people has done a real-world experiment related to wolf population which started 20 years ago.

The experiment started in 1995/1996. Researchers reintroduced around 30 wolves back to Yellowstone and left them there to grow with barely none human interaction. As a result, the wolf population in the park grew and got stable. At the same time the elk population grew smaller, as their predators had increased. This led to a change of behaviour of the elks during the day, as they moved more carefully than before to not be haunted. On the other hand, bison, which are more difficult to prey, replaced the elks on the largest herbivore species. Thanks to the increase and decrease of herbivore species, the park suffered a recovery of willow, cottonwood and aspen trees.

The researches took as conclusion that this could not have happened if there were human interaction, as the wolf recovery wouldn’t have been the same because the agriculture, livestock and hunting would have influenced the way carnivores live. They have prove of these, as it has already happened across Alberta, and the effects indeed vary depending on the human alteration of the system.

LINK OR REFERENCE

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/we-reintroduce-wolves-to-yellowstone-20-years-ago-and-it-profoundly-changed-the-ecosystem/

PUBLICATION DATE

18 OCT 2018

SCIENTIFIC SCOPE

Biology

TEXT COMMENTARY

This text shows how people interaction with the environment tends to make things work in a different way than they should, usually worse. Without human interaction a whole ecosystem could change and balance by itself, while it is known that in other areas where there’s human interaction, the ecosystem doesn’t balance, and it ends up with the extinction of some species.

This shows us how nature is so perfect and balanced. It doesn’t need to be altered. We can take as conclusion that if we try to live in the environment we are meant to live, and not in an artificial one we’ve created, other species won’t suffer or extinct. It would be ideal, but we, humans, have lost the ability to adapt and survive in most of the cases, so instead to live in the environment without changing our surroundings, we can do it in a way that is not harmful to other species. And in the case some species are in danger because of us, do something to change it.

 

GLOSSARY

None needed