DIYSteve
seeking hygge
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
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 Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:43 am |
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There are sound informed arguments supporting culling the herd per sound wildlife management analysis. From a the 2016 HCN article The science behind Yellowstone’s bison cull:
| Quote: | | Cristina Eisenberg, chief scientist with the environmental group EarthWatch Institute, is among a number of wildlife biologists who say the culls make sense.
This year, Yellowstone National Park will cull roughly 1,000 bison from its 5,000-animal herd. That’s because today, Yellowstone bison don’t migrate. Not like they used to. In a human-managed landscape where bison are mostly relegated to the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, anything above 5,000 bison is simply too many. If bison numbers continue to grow — as they would even with predation by Yellowstone’s wolves and hunting outside the park’s boundaries — the bison could decimate native grasses, damaging the native ecosystem instead of helping it.
Rick Wallen, a wildlife biologist who leads Yellowstone's bison ecology and management program, agrees with Eisenberg’s assessment. He compares bison’s influence on grasslands to mowing the lawn around your house: the more you mow the grass, the faster it grows back. Some mowing can lead to a thick, healthy lawn. But if you left your lawnmower running in the same spot all summer, the grass wouldn’t survive. “Bison do stimulate grass production… but they need to be able to move around nomadically,” Wallen explains.
Wallen’s research has shown that at current population levels, bison devour 70 to 90 percent of Yellowstone’s grasses. No one knows if this is more than they would have historically eaten when they were migrating through, but Wallen isn’t sure the vegetation can handle many more bison. “I’d like to think that our culling is preventing unnecessary degradation to the grasslands,” he says. “Nearly every wildlife preserve that has bison has to do some sort of population removal program, because predators aren’t enough to control population, and we don’t allow the fluctuations that would (naturally) result from catastrophic events like drought or fire.” |
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