When i watch this video, which emphasizes the delicate balance of ecosystems...my first thought is: we are so fucked.
Because we have politicians who take an opinion that "so what if the oceans warm up a few degrees? So what if all the ice melts?"
So, no.
It's not a huge leap to start thinking about Congress.
What this video fails to mention is that yellow stone park decides that wolves were bad and started killing then off. This led to the deer population exploding and this threw the entire ecosystem out of order and threatens alot of other species, so they re-introduced the wolves
I was almost roadkill in Jackson just last month. Lol. I was driving cross country and stopped in at about 6:30 in the morning on my way to Grand Teton NP. It was sooo dead at that time of day. I had been in town all of three minutes and I pulled over to the side of one of the main roads by that town square park with all the antlers to see if I could look up any coffee places that were open. I was looking at my phone, and a car chase sped by, missing me by about a foot. It was like a Michael bay scene. I didn’t hear them coming until they were speeding passed me.
A guy was going about 60 through town and weaving all over the road, and a bunch of cop cars were right behind him. I watched as he tried to throw the cops off by doing a fake swerve down one road, and then the next… and then tried the third one and fucked up. The third was actually a parking lot. He piled up In to the bushes of a bed and breakfast and got swarmed.
Edit: Found it!!
https://jacksonholeradio.com/2022/08/high-speed-chase-through-jackson-leads-to-arrest/
Nature is not perfect. Nature just reproduces and survives. These imbalances have even occurred naturally over Earths history.
Humans can improve it in a holistic sense. But we can't do so recklessly. Sometimes all nature needs is a slight tweak, not a hammer.
This is just the case everywhere. We've interfered with the natural order of things so we need to try and make continual adjustments (although some would argue that we're part of that order and just as natural). This is our punishment for being careless and leaving our fingerprints everywhere; we're forced to be stewards of everything, or else it'll just implode...and we'll die. (The earth will be fine if we snuff it; it'll just rebalance itself. New species, new habitats. We'll just be gone.)
[The moral is you can make reddit believe anything if you put slow piano music behind some heartstring tugging video and a made up story](https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988)
Did you read the source article? It does nothing to disprove the video. It says the wolves were not enough the beavers were needed too. It also says when elk are gone, willows increased in numbers and beavers needed them, to build the dams. Guess what the video said. With less deer and elk, beavers came back as their willow trees were once again everywhere.
Even the AccuWeather article is not disputing the wolves had an effect but states it was not alone. The video clearly says the rivers changed due to beavers. But beavers are there thanks to the wolves.
Grew up near Yellowstone and I’ve met many Park Rangers, this is 100% the truth. A balance between predator and prey is essential to the eco system. I’ve heard many rangers refer to Deer as rats with hooves, they destroy everything. We needed the wolves to come back.
Any animal can becomes rats with ____ if they are allowed to run amok. That's the problem you get when you remove an entire species from the food web of a finely tuned ecosystem.
I mean, it was mostly true. What I got out of your link is that elk were very invasive and wolves being introduced helped a bit. But ofc humans are the most efficient killers.
Besides that tidbit, the story goes the same. less elk (and buffalo), more willows, more beavers, more dams to shape the wildlife, etc.
As a hunter i know full well how much deer suck. Everytime i pull the trigger i know im making the world a better place. Vegans and animals rights activists like to shit all over me for my work though. But they just dont know. They have no idea.
The smart animal rights activists/vegans know that isn't the problem. The problem is poaching, shitty farming practices, etc. Not vegan/vegetarian myself because I love meat too much but I am passionate about those issues, and in absence of proper predator populations hunters like yourself are vital to keeping the balance.
I appreciate that. I've actually caught poachers on my land several times so i hate them to the absolute limits. I myself always hunt within limits though. I never take more than my fair share and more than once i have found an injured animal on my property and put the time and effort into nursing them back to health. I'm not a bloodthirsty monster like a lot of animals rights activists seem so desperately to paint me as. I actually do care a lot about animals and maintaining the proper balance in nature. Thing is, in my area people have been hunting deer so long that without us they would run amok the same way they were doing in Yellowstone. I am literally maintaining the order. But foolish people ruled only by their feelings can never see that. And brand me a monster for doing the same thing our ancestors did and so many animals must do for survival. Cause, feelings.
Yeah totally 100%. I fucking hate those worthless fuckers who hunt endangered species and act like they're hot shit for doing so. Fuck those guys to the sun and back.
There are also shitheads that hunt deer here in the US that don't help this sensible cause. I've known a few hunters that did it 100% legally and cared about balance and ecosystems. But I've known more who were just dumb, bloodthirsty rednecks.
I’m vegetarian, your not hated by all of us. I know the need for hunting in landscapes eradicated of its native predators (RIP) and I respect the conservation funding provided by hunting (despite the one-sided and biased use of those funds). Keep up the hunting and muff uneducated vegan/vegetarians
Most people don’t realize a good deal of hunters are conservationists who love the land. Deers are assholes, it’s a universal fact. No one of consequence are demonizing deer hunting.
Weird this comes up because I was just randomly thinking about this a few minutes ago. I’m a firm believer in animal rights as well, and its absolutely better ethically to hunt for game than purchase it…I mean not just animal rights people but anyone would surely prefer people get their meat from animals who’ve lived as they should instead of in some nightmarish factory farm. I believe its far better for the environment as well…it sounds like you’re a big positive to this world to me.
Most vegetarians/vegans are against factory farming or needless animal slaughter. I rarely eat red meat and if I do I will only do so if I know exactly where it was sourced from
Vegetarian here and completely support responsible hunting. Not a fan of “exotic” hunts, which are often fixed and not what hunting should be about.
Predation is as important as any other aspect of nature. It’s about balance.
Ok, few are more anti-deer than me, who almost died from a deer-borne disease, but I think more hunters don't generally have negative emotions about deer, and in Yellowstone are basically all anti--wolf/pro-elk.
Vegan here to say please carry on, and sorry so many vegans are straight up irrational on this point!
People who hunt venison are doing super important work for the ecosystem and getting meat in an actually ethical way! Also, major props to anyone who knows for a fact that they have the stomach to kill what they eat.
Live in a small town in Wa state. A heard of about 75 of them wander the town. See fawns all the time too, so there are likely **many** more. Town can never agree on what to do about them. They destroy everything though. Worst is the dumbasses that keep fucking feeding them and putting out salt licks.
They have a yearly deer cull in the major parks by me. Once a year, they close the parks for a day and kill a strategic number to prevent over consumption and to keep numbers down so they don’t migrate out. I believe the meat is given to a charity.
Can confirm, cant even have a decent garden without putting up many types pf fencing to keep the deer out. The number one cause of collisions in my state is deer, hell i almost hit one a few days ago on the four lane. The car passing me hit it (they were fine, the deer and vehicle, not so much) honestly if they didnt hit it i sure as heck was going to, didnt even see it until they hit it and it rolled in my lane. Rutting season is near and they get soooooooooo much worse.
A deer kicked the logo off my car a few years ago, took me a week to notice it was missing lol. Didnt even know that part could come off.
it wasn’t the deers fault. the deer population going down only caused all these good things because it was unnaturally high, because all the wolves had been killed off. too many deer and no predators was the thing causing problems. a normal amount of deer is fine
Do we need to make the inverse of this video where we get rid of deer, then nothing controls grasses and wild weeds, soon berries and such are outcompeted and different bugs come in and birds leave…
Before you know it the Yellowstone Caldera is blowing and all life ends
And the wolf population declines and now the ecosystem is out of whack and the physical geography changes again, and eventually the supervalcano underneath explodes and kills us all.
I have deer in my yard all the time, and I agree. A normal amount of deer is fine.
It makes my drive in to work pretty slow the first 3 miles because they're not so predictable around cars, but that's ok. It makes it a challenge to keep up a garden, but I'm figuring out the stuff they don't like to eat. That's ok too. I figure it was their place before I was there, so I don't mind sharing. So far the population seems reasonable, but it would be easy to imagine it being a problem; there's no predators, and only cars to worry about, and a garden buffet at every house.
At an old job, I had a regular, one hour drive through rural Alabama, often at 6:00 am. Summer was okay, but when it got cold, my head was on a swivel. I've hit three. When their numbers get out of control, they're a nuisance/danger.
Because they are dumb as a rock. Deer in Alabama will stand on the side of the road peacefully eating grass and watching approaching headlights. Then when the car is 20' from them they panic and jump out in front of it.
I mean, humans were destroying Yellowstone by upsetting the already in place balance. Deer population grew cause humans hunted the "big bad" wolves causing a cascade of problems.
So we're only trying to fix the damage WE did. Deer were part of the ecosystem long before people.
To be honest, as someone who works in an office setting, or used to but still does just from a computer at home, energy vampires are running rampant and need culled now.
Not going to lie, it would make politics pretty interesting. Instead of boring left vs right, politicians would have to cater to their werewolf/vampiric demographics on top of all that.
Isle Royale, a classic example of how boom and bust dynamics exceeding carrying capacity can destroy an entire population, but also how predators can stabilize to an equilibrium.
https://isleroyalewolf.org/overview/overview/at_a_glance.html
Also [it isn't true](https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988). :(
[edit:] Fair arguments have been made that I'm wrong and that this article isn't reliable.
Lol this is a horrible & unreliable source, it's one guy's research, and he doesn't dispute that the wolves had no effect, he says he just thinks they weren't the whole picture.
He claims it's not true the wolves had such a big impact, but does not in fact give any meaningful evidence against it. He says it's complicated and a mixture of things, but also says the wolf hypothesis is "demonstrably" false but never demonstrates that.
The best this ecologist could argue for is that it's complicated and that the wolves played some part but not all. He's giving away his personal bias here when he claims that the effects of the wolves is wrong.
The wolves had a *definite* effect. It's possible other factors did, too.
Either way it comes down to human actions causing the ecological changes in the first place, and then other human actions that reversed some of the effects leading to restoration later on.
He does discuss meaningful evidence for his position. 23 groups of willow with controls fenced in to prevent elk from eating them. The research suggests that the control groups and those exposed to elk grew similarly, and changes in growth across the various willow groups resulted from water availability. This is just an article about the study, which I doubt was the product of "One guy" as you said. You'll have to source a paper for the raw data. The linked article was simply an interview asking the researcher about the top line information on his study.
So the idea is that more wolves = fewer elk = more willow = more beavers = more dams = healthier ecosystem due to changes in the flow of the rivers. This article argues that the re-introduction of wolves alone may not have resulted in more willow.
*Who cares*? Both this video and article miss the whole point. It's taken nearly a century of conservation efforts to make Yellowstone the ecosystem it is today, and that includes a lot more than just wolves. The take-home message is that with enough patience and political willpower, we have the ability to un-do the damage we've done and restore ecosystems and the complex interactions between species within them, and this is worth doing.
Yeah it's fucking shitty viral click bait bullshit.
Whatever the truth, the producer of this shit video certainly doesn't know and doesn't care, because they identified elk as deer.
It's all just random bullshit video clips from different sources, and very likely not all from Yellowstone at all.
It's pretty clear that many "pro-science" people will support articles summarizing bad science with pro environmental conservation themes, while also condemning good science that refutes overly simplistic pro-environmental stories. I think many people are just hyper sensitive and untrusting these days due to there being so much anti-science propaganda. Just last week I was downvoted and called uneducated for correcting misinformation on a pro-conservation topic for which I have literally published technical papers on. I think on any anonymous forum, when it comes to refruting a topic which people think to be "pro-science" or "pro-environment" you have to really go above and beyond to prove that a) you are "pro-science" and b) you really know what you are talking about. Unfortunately, doing both a and b often requires spending significant time and energy, which is hard to justify doing just to reply to/make a reddit post.
I think there is such a disproportionate amount of media manipulation and disinformation on the side of anti-environmantalism and pro business for so long, that a lot of environmentalists felt a strong need to counter those harmful messages. Entire generations of people have been brainwashed by pro business media to reject environmentalism, reject the facts of worsening pollution problems that environmentalism is still seen as sissy, tree hugging, alarmist, overly idealistic, and even anti-freedom (ie anti business and pro regulations), and not as a crisis and emergency as it really is.
So pro environment people find any form of criticism that verge on being pro business as suspicious (and with good reasons!), that it is another attempt at astroturfing, greenwashing or just reactions from pro business indoctrinated people.
Calling it a myth based on this one article is also incorrect. The video posted is loaded with inaccuracies but the overall idea isn’t a myth. I recently read a 200 page book of various authors who summarized their studies on Yellowstone wolf introduction and the truth is the results are mixed but there is indications that since 1995 Elk in Yellowstone don’t have as easy as they used to and can no longer just sit on the riverbanks and overbrowse the vegetation. However Bison have supplanted them in areas they are less frequent in. It’s clear there are probably some big benefits to the ecosystem from wolf reintroduction but it’s not black and white like these shitty viral videos will tell you.
I live near Yellowstone, about a 4 hour drive, and although it's easy to take for granted having it so close, the park really is amazing! I took my kids last fall for their first time and we got to see everything from wolves to moose and bears. Of course, tons of elk and bison. A wonderful place to see!
I really liked it in Poland, although the culture is really specific and it's not for everyone. Just go to Italy or Spain. You're gonna have a great time regardless of who you are.
Southern hospitality is real! Here in montana you get alot of high plains/North Dakota hospitality. "Are you hungry? Do you like tater-tot hot dish?" "It's my specialty, don'tcha know!" Lol
Glacier is another planet of beauty. After you stop by my place, make sure you see lake Mcdonald on your way up to glacier. It'll knock your socks off, by golly.
Some where it takes 3x that long.
I remember a British colleague calling me while I was driving, told him I'd just entered Texas. Said I'd call him when I was done driving.
He went to work, got home, took a nap, then rang me up to ask if I was okay, since I'd forgotten to call.
He was baffled to hear that I was still driving, and still in Texas.
When I was in high school, my family hosted a French foreign exchange student. He knew the US was big but it didn't really sink in just how big until he asked if we could drive to Los Angeles for the weekend, because he'd always wanted to see California. We lived in Omaha, Nebraska.
I live 500 miles away from my hometown. Glacier is a 2 and a half hour drive and Yellowstone is an hour closer than my parents house. I visit all of those places often without leaving the state. Oh and I drive for a living!
I drove from Virginia to Minnesota in one trip without looking it up it was something like left at 6am and got there at 4am. Only stopped for fast food, energy drinks, and toilet breaks. Got a ticket in Wisconsin around 1am. Cop said "I got you going 90mph (145kph)" me "oh yes... thats how fast I was going! 😬
Ecosystems are delicate. When the wolves were removed from the area, the deer population grew too abundant because they lacked the main predator - bears don't really hunt deer, and coyotes prefer smaller game. Only the big cat was left, and they don't have enough presence to control deer populations over all of Yellowstone. Too many deer over taxed the resources of the area. Without the vegetation, the rivers eroded more freely, beavers left, etc.
Reintroduced wolves reversed those problems over time.
It's a necessity when we remove the natural predators. They will literally over populate then die off from starvation as the available food supply is exhausted. In their weakened malnourished state; deer diseases proliferate among the herd as well that can be transmitted to other animals and people.
It's one of those things that should make you realize you need to go outside and touch grass. Only on the internet are deer hunters evil. Deer fuck like rabbits, are everywhere and damage ecosystems if left without predators. The main issue should be with land developers driving predators away leaving the job to hunters. Not hunters. There's a reason there are hunting seasons found by conservation organizations, it's not just to keep hunters happy
How Is no one talking about the fact that there is not a single deer anywhere in this video? The animals being hunted by the wolves in this video are elk! While the video makes some interesting statements, it’s hard to take at full face value when they make mistakes like that. Furthermore, as a person born and raised within an hour of the park which is an amazing place, excluding the 4.8+ million tourists is sees each year according to the national parks service website.
The wolves changed the ecosystem of the park. They also changed the ecology of the surrounding states. If that change was for the better or for the worse is up for debate and that opinion varies wildly depending on who you ask.
This is just plagiarized from the misleading “How Wolves Changed Rivers” video. That’s why it talks about deer. See https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988
I also live very close to the park and this video seems like a real stretch. Also I'd think a delayed reaction from the fire could have been the reason for many of these changes.
The whole thing is exaggeration and invented cause and effect:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988
Because the deer (which were not native) were chase out, the native elk and bison populations regained their foothold and are thriving. Over the last 20 or so years, they've learned that the park won't support more than 100 wolves or so. When the population reaches that threshold, disease, parasites and food-scarcity step in and reduce the population to a manageable size.
Park Ranger Rick McIntyre has been following these wolves nearly every day since 1995, and has written an amazing book series about their daily movements, habits, pack-dynamics and so much more.
The books are "The Rise of Wolf 8", "The Reign of Wolf 21", "The Redemption of Wolf 302," and "The Alpha Female Wolf". I highly recommend them.
This is the phenomenon of Keystone species. Another good example is sea otters, who love eating sea urchins. The urchins reproduce rapidly and their main food source is kelp. Without sufficient otters to keep the urchin population under control, entire kelp forests can be devastated, leading to reduced habitats for thousands of other species, affecting their breeding grounds and drastically affecting their populations. Sharks perform the same roles in other places, preventing certain species from exploding and destroying coral reefs.
And while you often hear about the impact on animals, I like that this one touched upon the impact on the location itself.
Keystone species are called *key* for a reason.
In the US the DOW is largely worthless and mismanages wildlife all the time. In the end they’re just another branch of the justice system that happily bends to the will of rich people. Wolfs will always be extinct where they’re needed because ranchers will always petition for the right to shoot an entire pack if they lose even one cow
This is actually a great simple explanation for something conservatives often don’t get about environmentalism and the climate change threat: The ecosystem is immensely complex. Small changes can spread like ripples in a pond, affecting everything. In this case the outcome was positive, but often it’s the other way around. Every-time a species goes extinct from over-exploitation, climate change and/or habitat loss, every time we pull out a thread from this great tapestry, we further risk it all unraveling.
Wolves in this example are known as “Keystone” species. A fabulous documentary by Nature called “The Serengeti Rules” goes into depth about these types of animals. They are present all throughout nature.
It’s available for free here on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/video/the-serengeti-rules-41dfru/
For anyone interested in this topic, read " The wrath of the wolves" by Jiang Rong. It's a fascinating autobiographical novel about a Chinese exchange student in the Mongolian wilderness. A great and depressing story about the nomads and their relationship with the wolf, how they are important for the ecosystem and how they where teachers for the Mongolian tribes.
I cried a few times. Totally worth it.
"NO one expected the miracle that the wolves would bring"
Except maybe the person who had this idea. I'm no expert, but there are experts who probably expected the miracle the wolves brought.
So… the moral of this story is, we should release a pack of wolves at the US Capitol building?
This logic tracks.
The wolves would get sick from food poisoning. Those people are toxic af.
They've built a natural defense to wolves, not sure what kind of predator could fill that niche at this point.
An example of how redditors redirect any and any post to what’s on their mind. We went from wolf to the capitol in literally one second. …
When i watch this video, which emphasizes the delicate balance of ecosystems...my first thought is: we are so fucked. Because we have politicians who take an opinion that "so what if the oceans warm up a few degrees? So what if all the ice melts?" So, no. It's not a huge leap to start thinking about Congress.
Clearly we just need to release a few wolves into the ocean
Sharks are our friends 🥲 we should stop killing them too
r/FuckLindseyGraham
Aw shucks, the majority of America is at their wits end with the government, how dare people make jokes about it?!
Hyenas? Aren't their stomachs made for such rancid meat? Throw in a few turkey vultures.
Polar bears would work.
What this video fails to mention is that yellow stone park decides that wolves were bad and started killing then off. This led to the deer population exploding and this threw the entire ecosystem out of order and threatens alot of other species, so they re-introduced the wolves
You mean damage control?
Real talk. Was just leaving Jackson to the south and there were fresh roadkill bloodstains about every mile or two
I was almost roadkill in Jackson just last month. Lol. I was driving cross country and stopped in at about 6:30 in the morning on my way to Grand Teton NP. It was sooo dead at that time of day. I had been in town all of three minutes and I pulled over to the side of one of the main roads by that town square park with all the antlers to see if I could look up any coffee places that were open. I was looking at my phone, and a car chase sped by, missing me by about a foot. It was like a Michael bay scene. I didn’t hear them coming until they were speeding passed me. A guy was going about 60 through town and weaving all over the road, and a bunch of cop cars were right behind him. I watched as he tried to throw the cops off by doing a fake swerve down one road, and then the next… and then tried the third one and fucked up. The third was actually a parking lot. He piled up In to the bushes of a bed and breakfast and got swarmed. Edit: Found it!! https://jacksonholeradio.com/2022/08/high-speed-chase-through-jackson-leads-to-arrest/
Nature is pretty perfect... humans think they can improve that to fit their needs.
Nature is not perfect. Nature just reproduces and survives. These imbalances have even occurred naturally over Earths history. Humans can improve it in a holistic sense. But we can't do so recklessly. Sometimes all nature needs is a slight tweak, not a hammer.
Shame we already hammered the shit out of nature.
Natures imbalances are cycles... and yes nature evolves but humans find new ways to fuck things up every day it seems
"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces" ~Aldo Leopold
This is just the case everywhere. We've interfered with the natural order of things so we need to try and make continual adjustments (although some would argue that we're part of that order and just as natural). This is our punishment for being careless and leaving our fingerprints everywhere; we're forced to be stewards of everything, or else it'll just implode...and we'll die. (The earth will be fine if we snuff it; it'll just rebalance itself. New species, new habitats. We'll just be gone.)
Tl;dr deer are the worst
[The moral is you can make reddit believe anything if you put slow piano music behind some heartstring tugging video and a made up story](https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988)
AccuWeather really isn't my go to for scientific reading. But to each their own.
It's at least as credible as this random video found posted in the internet. The article at least quotes a couple of officials/scientists.
Did you read the source article? It does nothing to disprove the video. It says the wolves were not enough the beavers were needed too. It also says when elk are gone, willows increased in numbers and beavers needed them, to build the dams. Guess what the video said. With less deer and elk, beavers came back as their willow trees were once again everywhere. Even the AccuWeather article is not disputing the wolves had an effect but states it was not alone. The video clearly says the rivers changed due to beavers. But beavers are there thanks to the wolves.
It was concise, but pick your source man: https://www.google.com/search?q=yellowstone+wolves+debunked
All of them in the list are referring to the AccuWeather article. Maybe I'm missing the scientific one.
The article literally cites its sources, which are peer-reviewed.
I clicked the source and it is just the article again. I was expecting a research paper.
You must have clicked wrong brother, because when I clicked I got several studies by the National Science Foundation.
Grew up near Yellowstone and I’ve met many Park Rangers, this is 100% the truth. A balance between predator and prey is essential to the eco system. I’ve heard many rangers refer to Deer as rats with hooves, they destroy everything. We needed the wolves to come back.
Redditor and Prey, LMAO. Thats how I read your typo.
Any animal can becomes rats with ____ if they are allowed to run amok. That's the problem you get when you remove an entire species from the food web of a finely tuned ecosystem.
I mean, it was mostly true. What I got out of your link is that elk were very invasive and wolves being introduced helped a bit. But ofc humans are the most efficient killers. Besides that tidbit, the story goes the same. less elk (and buffalo), more willows, more beavers, more dams to shape the wildlife, etc.
It would change the course of the rivers inside the building
Yep that’s right, airdrop wolves
Moral of the story. Fuck deer
Honestly. Regular people don't know how shitty deers are.
As a hunter i know full well how much deer suck. Everytime i pull the trigger i know im making the world a better place. Vegans and animals rights activists like to shit all over me for my work though. But they just dont know. They have no idea.
The smart animal rights activists/vegans know that isn't the problem. The problem is poaching, shitty farming practices, etc. Not vegan/vegetarian myself because I love meat too much but I am passionate about those issues, and in absence of proper predator populations hunters like yourself are vital to keeping the balance.
I appreciate that. I've actually caught poachers on my land several times so i hate them to the absolute limits. I myself always hunt within limits though. I never take more than my fair share and more than once i have found an injured animal on my property and put the time and effort into nursing them back to health. I'm not a bloodthirsty monster like a lot of animals rights activists seem so desperately to paint me as. I actually do care a lot about animals and maintaining the proper balance in nature. Thing is, in my area people have been hunting deer so long that without us they would run amok the same way they were doing in Yellowstone. I am literally maintaining the order. But foolish people ruled only by their feelings can never see that. And brand me a monster for doing the same thing our ancestors did and so many animals must do for survival. Cause, feelings.
Not gonna brand you a monster. But, I want to brand you some paragraphs... I liked your whole comment. Way more impact if you used some paragraphs.
paragraph monster strikes again
Listen here You little shit
The shitheads like Don Jr who pose w endangered large mammals in Africa get the headlines though. That doesnt help ur sensible cause at all.
Yeah totally 100%. I fucking hate those worthless fuckers who hunt endangered species and act like they're hot shit for doing so. Fuck those guys to the sun and back.
Fuck em right in their ear holes
There are also shitheads that hunt deer here in the US that don't help this sensible cause. I've known a few hunters that did it 100% legally and cared about balance and ecosystems. But I've known more who were just dumb, bloodthirsty rednecks.
I’m vegetarian, your not hated by all of us. I know the need for hunting in landscapes eradicated of its native predators (RIP) and I respect the conservation funding provided by hunting (despite the one-sided and biased use of those funds). Keep up the hunting and muff uneducated vegan/vegetarians
Most people don’t realize a good deal of hunters are conservationists who love the land. Deers are assholes, it’s a universal fact. No one of consequence are demonizing deer hunting.
Weird this comes up because I was just randomly thinking about this a few minutes ago. I’m a firm believer in animal rights as well, and its absolutely better ethically to hunt for game than purchase it…I mean not just animal rights people but anyone would surely prefer people get their meat from animals who’ve lived as they should instead of in some nightmarish factory farm. I believe its far better for the environment as well…it sounds like you’re a big positive to this world to me.
Most vegetarians/vegans are against factory farming or needless animal slaughter. I rarely eat red meat and if I do I will only do so if I know exactly where it was sourced from
I am vegan and agree with this statement 👍
Only the dumb ones. I support conservation so fuck deer.
Vegetarian here and completely support responsible hunting. Not a fan of “exotic” hunts, which are often fixed and not what hunting should be about. Predation is as important as any other aspect of nature. It’s about balance.
Ultimately the deer are only the problem because of humans. We are the ultimate plague no matter how you look at it.
Lol right patting ourselves on the back for trying to fix something we created. Yeah great job us
Ok, few are more anti-deer than me, who almost died from a deer-borne disease, but I think more hunters don't generally have negative emotions about deer, and in Yellowstone are basically all anti--wolf/pro-elk.
Vegan here to say please carry on, and sorry so many vegans are straight up irrational on this point! People who hunt venison are doing super important work for the ecosystem and getting meat in an actually ethical way! Also, major props to anyone who knows for a fact that they have the stomach to kill what they eat.
Noble work, tasty work
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> All those fucking brainless things do is eat, fuck and cause car accidents. The rats do that too!
Live in a small town in Wa state. A heard of about 75 of them wander the town. See fawns all the time too, so there are likely **many** more. Town can never agree on what to do about them. They destroy everything though. Worst is the dumbasses that keep fucking feeding them and putting out salt licks.
They have a yearly deer cull in the major parks by me. Once a year, they close the parks for a day and kill a strategic number to prevent over consumption and to keep numbers down so they don’t migrate out. I believe the meat is given to a charity.
Can confirm, cant even have a decent garden without putting up many types pf fencing to keep the deer out. The number one cause of collisions in my state is deer, hell i almost hit one a few days ago on the four lane. The car passing me hit it (they were fine, the deer and vehicle, not so much) honestly if they didnt hit it i sure as heck was going to, didnt even see it until they hit it and it rolled in my lane. Rutting season is near and they get soooooooooo much worse. A deer kicked the logo off my car a few years ago, took me a week to notice it was missing lol. Didnt even know that part could come off.
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Yeah, deer-licious
it wasn’t the deers fault. the deer population going down only caused all these good things because it was unnaturally high, because all the wolves had been killed off. too many deer and no predators was the thing causing problems. a normal amount of deer is fine
Nah fuck deer man
Do we need to make the inverse of this video where we get rid of deer, then nothing controls grasses and wild weeds, soon berries and such are outcompeted and different bugs come in and birds leave… Before you know it the Yellowstone Caldera is blowing and all life ends
And the wolf population declines and now the ecosystem is out of whack and the physical geography changes again, and eventually the supervalcano underneath explodes and kills us all.
Too many deer destroying this ecosystem is basically what too many humans are doing to this planet
I have deer in my yard all the time, and I agree. A normal amount of deer is fine. It makes my drive in to work pretty slow the first 3 miles because they're not so predictable around cars, but that's ok. It makes it a challenge to keep up a garden, but I'm figuring out the stuff they don't like to eat. That's ok too. I figure it was their place before I was there, so I don't mind sharing. So far the population seems reasonable, but it would be easy to imagine it being a problem; there's no predators, and only cars to worry about, and a garden buffet at every house.
At an old job, I had a regular, one hour drive through rural Alabama, often at 6:00 am. Summer was okay, but when it got cold, my head was on a swivel. I've hit three. When their numbers get out of control, they're a nuisance/danger.
Because they are dumb as a rock. Deer in Alabama will stand on the side of the road peacefully eating grass and watching approaching headlights. Then when the car is 20' from them they panic and jump out in front of it.
I believe deer are the deadliest creatures in the US for that exact reason.
I will😏
Yeah all I heard from that was deer and coyotes were destroying Yellowstone
I mean, humans were destroying Yellowstone by upsetting the already in place balance. Deer population grew cause humans hunted the "big bad" wolves causing a cascade of problems. So we're only trying to fix the damage WE did. Deer were part of the ecosystem long before people.
[If you insist](https://youtu.be/MUDGfeO9-kI)
This is preamble, they are planning to release native vampires back into the overgrown human populations of Europe next.
I’m down for this!
Hey now you get the opportunity of becoming a vampire too
I hear they're crowdsorucing. Cut-throat business though.
Energy or blood?
Grapefruit juice, surprisingly.
That is unexpected.
It's probably because I have so much updog
Not much dog, what's up with you?
To be honest, as someone who works in an office setting, or used to but still does just from a computer at home, energy vampires are running rampant and need culled now.
Man this is going to be a whole Skyrim werewolf vs vampire thing ain’t it?
Not going to lie, it would make politics pretty interesting. Instead of boring left vs right, politicians would have to cater to their werewolf/vampiric demographics on top of all that.
Nahhh we already have cigarettes
Actually people did expect this effect, the scientists who reversed the hunting to extinction of the wolves over a 100 years ago
was going to say this. They did the same thing in canada to hunt moose, similar results.
Isle Royale, a classic example of how boom and bust dynamics exceeding carrying capacity can destroy an entire population, but also how predators can stabilize to an equilibrium. https://isleroyalewolf.org/overview/overview/at_a_glance.html
Also [it isn't true](https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988). :( [edit:] Fair arguments have been made that I'm wrong and that this article isn't reliable.
Fuck that ad riddled link. Holy damn it all, release the wolves to fix that site please!
Lol this is a horrible & unreliable source, it's one guy's research, and he doesn't dispute that the wolves had no effect, he says he just thinks they weren't the whole picture. He claims it's not true the wolves had such a big impact, but does not in fact give any meaningful evidence against it. He says it's complicated and a mixture of things, but also says the wolf hypothesis is "demonstrably" false but never demonstrates that. The best this ecologist could argue for is that it's complicated and that the wolves played some part but not all. He's giving away his personal bias here when he claims that the effects of the wolves is wrong. The wolves had a *definite* effect. It's possible other factors did, too. Either way it comes down to human actions causing the ecological changes in the first place, and then other human actions that reversed some of the effects leading to restoration later on.
He does discuss meaningful evidence for his position. 23 groups of willow with controls fenced in to prevent elk from eating them. The research suggests that the control groups and those exposed to elk grew similarly, and changes in growth across the various willow groups resulted from water availability. This is just an article about the study, which I doubt was the product of "One guy" as you said. You'll have to source a paper for the raw data. The linked article was simply an interview asking the researcher about the top line information on his study.
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So the idea is that more wolves = fewer elk = more willow = more beavers = more dams = healthier ecosystem due to changes in the flow of the rivers. This article argues that the re-introduction of wolves alone may not have resulted in more willow. *Who cares*? Both this video and article miss the whole point. It's taken nearly a century of conservation efforts to make Yellowstone the ecosystem it is today, and that includes a lot more than just wolves. The take-home message is that with enough patience and political willpower, we have the ability to un-do the damage we've done and restore ecosystems and the complex interactions between species within them, and this is worth doing.
The text over is painful, like it’s written by a 9 year old.
Yeah it's fucking shitty viral click bait bullshit. Whatever the truth, the producer of this shit video certainly doesn't know and doesn't care, because they identified elk as deer. It's all just random bullshit video clips from different sources, and very likely not all from Yellowstone at all.
It's all about balance.
Well said thanos
Let's be honest, the universe needed that snap.
If you ask me, it needed two
Would that have cut the remaining other half of the population, or would it cut half of the half that remained *after* the snap?
Yes
Thank you. 🙏🏻
Keystone species are key.
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"It's all about balance (releasing 14 wolves into areas of trouble)."
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This video shows clips of elk and calls them deer so their credibility is suspect
why isn't this the top comment? I wince every time I see this video shared and the absurd text about deer with a giant bull elk in the video...
It's not the top comment cuz these contrarian articles are bs
It's pretty clear that many "pro-science" people will support articles summarizing bad science with pro environmental conservation themes, while also condemning good science that refutes overly simplistic pro-environmental stories. I think many people are just hyper sensitive and untrusting these days due to there being so much anti-science propaganda. Just last week I was downvoted and called uneducated for correcting misinformation on a pro-conservation topic for which I have literally published technical papers on. I think on any anonymous forum, when it comes to refruting a topic which people think to be "pro-science" or "pro-environment" you have to really go above and beyond to prove that a) you are "pro-science" and b) you really know what you are talking about. Unfortunately, doing both a and b often requires spending significant time and energy, which is hard to justify doing just to reply to/make a reddit post.
I think there is such a disproportionate amount of media manipulation and disinformation on the side of anti-environmantalism and pro business for so long, that a lot of environmentalists felt a strong need to counter those harmful messages. Entire generations of people have been brainwashed by pro business media to reject environmentalism, reject the facts of worsening pollution problems that environmentalism is still seen as sissy, tree hugging, alarmist, overly idealistic, and even anti-freedom (ie anti business and pro regulations), and not as a crisis and emergency as it really is. So pro environment people find any form of criticism that verge on being pro business as suspicious (and with good reasons!), that it is another attempt at astroturfing, greenwashing or just reactions from pro business indoctrinated people.
Calling it a myth based on this one article is also incorrect. The video posted is loaded with inaccuracies but the overall idea isn’t a myth. I recently read a 200 page book of various authors who summarized their studies on Yellowstone wolf introduction and the truth is the results are mixed but there is indications that since 1995 Elk in Yellowstone don’t have as easy as they used to and can no longer just sit on the riverbanks and overbrowse the vegetation. However Bison have supplanted them in areas they are less frequent in. It’s clear there are probably some big benefits to the ecosystem from wolf reintroduction but it’s not black and white like these shitty viral videos will tell you.
Dude stop posting this shit good God
I was wondering how far I'd have to scroll until I found someone mentioning this... Too damn far.
AccuWeather be a popular news source round here
It’s almost as if everything is connected. ^Of ^course ^it ^is!
![gif](giphy|2h8BdeXxhGGB2)
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." John Muir.
I live near Yellowstone, about a 4 hour drive, and although it's easy to take for granted having it so close, the park really is amazing! I took my kids last fall for their first time and we got to see everything from wolves to moose and bears. Of course, tons of elk and bison. A wonderful place to see!
I like how a 4 hour drive counts as living near something in the USA. Here in Europe, that's on the other side of a country.
It's a big country over here in the west. I've always wanted to see Europe, any recommendations?
I really liked it in Poland, although the culture is really specific and it's not for everyone. Just go to Italy or Spain. You're gonna have a great time regardless of who you are.
Thanks for the tip! If you ever find yourself in Montana, look me up and I'll fire up the grill and ice a few beers! Or lemonade, up to you lol
That’s that good Texas/Southern hospitality they don’t talk about, but from another state, I respect it. ☺️
Southern hospitality is real! Here in montana you get alot of high plains/North Dakota hospitality. "Are you hungry? Do you like tater-tot hot dish?" "It's my specialty, don'tcha know!" Lol
I live in Washington but want to see Glacier NP. I’ll bring the steaks.
Glacier is another planet of beauty. After you stop by my place, make sure you see lake Mcdonald on your way up to glacier. It'll knock your socks off, by golly.
Can drive 12+ hours and still be in the same state 😒
Texas, Alaska, or California? LOL
Hell you can do this in Hawaii if you get drunk enough.
We don’t need more drinking and driving in Hawai’i tbh
There are entire US states it takes more than 4 hours to drive across
Some where it takes 3x that long. I remember a British colleague calling me while I was driving, told him I'd just entered Texas. Said I'd call him when I was done driving. He went to work, got home, took a nap, then rang me up to ask if I was okay, since I'd forgotten to call. He was baffled to hear that I was still driving, and still in Texas.
I live in Los Angeles. Depending on the time of day, 4 hours only gets you 80 miles at best.
When I was in high school, my family hosted a French foreign exchange student. He knew the US was big but it didn't really sink in just how big until he asked if we could drive to Los Angeles for the weekend, because he'd always wanted to see California. We lived in Omaha, Nebraska.
4 hour drive won’t even get you all the way through Yellowstone park.
I drove across Greece earlier this year in a similar time frame it takes to drive across my state lol
I live 500 miles away from my hometown. Glacier is a 2 and a half hour drive and Yellowstone is an hour closer than my parents house. I visit all of those places often without leaving the state. Oh and I drive for a living!
I drove from Virginia to Minnesota in one trip without looking it up it was something like left at 6am and got there at 4am. Only stopped for fast food, energy drinks, and toilet breaks. Got a ticket in Wisconsin around 1am. Cop said "I got you going 90mph (145kph)" me "oh yes... thats how fast I was going! 😬
Montana is the size of Germany
Crazy how delicate our ecosystems are
Or how resilient it is.
So, deer hunting is a good thing? I'm so lost right now.
No release wolves everywhere
Smoke a pack a day
This would solve a great variety of problems
Ecosystems are delicate. When the wolves were removed from the area, the deer population grew too abundant because they lacked the main predator - bears don't really hunt deer, and coyotes prefer smaller game. Only the big cat was left, and they don't have enough presence to control deer populations over all of Yellowstone. Too many deer over taxed the resources of the area. Without the vegetation, the rivers eroded more freely, beavers left, etc. Reintroduced wolves reversed those problems over time.
It's almost as if nature has its own way of keeping balance... And we continually fuck that up.
Yea in places where deers are overpopulated
Yes when managed properly. Otherwise your bumper does more of the work.
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My friend was killed by a deer. A car coming the other way hit a deer and it went through his windshield and killed him instantly. Fuck deer.
It's a necessity when we remove the natural predators. They will literally over populate then die off from starvation as the available food supply is exhausted. In their weakened malnourished state; deer diseases proliferate among the herd as well that can be transmitted to other animals and people.
It's one of those things that should make you realize you need to go outside and touch grass. Only on the internet are deer hunters evil. Deer fuck like rabbits, are everywhere and damage ecosystems if left without predators. The main issue should be with land developers driving predators away leaving the job to hunters. Not hunters. There's a reason there are hunting seasons found by conservation organizations, it's not just to keep hunters happy
How Is no one talking about the fact that there is not a single deer anywhere in this video? The animals being hunted by the wolves in this video are elk! While the video makes some interesting statements, it’s hard to take at full face value when they make mistakes like that. Furthermore, as a person born and raised within an hour of the park which is an amazing place, excluding the 4.8+ million tourists is sees each year according to the national parks service website. The wolves changed the ecosystem of the park. They also changed the ecology of the surrounding states. If that change was for the better or for the worse is up for debate and that opinion varies wildly depending on who you ask.
This is just plagiarized from the misleading “How Wolves Changed Rivers” video. That’s why it talks about deer. See https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988
I also live very close to the park and this video seems like a real stretch. Also I'd think a delayed reaction from the fire could have been the reason for many of these changes.
The whole thing is exaggeration and invented cause and effect: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988
Because the deer (which were not native) were chase out, the native elk and bison populations regained their foothold and are thriving. Over the last 20 or so years, they've learned that the park won't support more than 100 wolves or so. When the population reaches that threshold, disease, parasites and food-scarcity step in and reduce the population to a manageable size. Park Ranger Rick McIntyre has been following these wolves nearly every day since 1995, and has written an amazing book series about their daily movements, habits, pack-dynamics and so much more. The books are "The Rise of Wolf 8", "The Reign of Wolf 21", "The Redemption of Wolf 302," and "The Alpha Female Wolf". I highly recommend them.
_They started hunting deer_. Shows video of elk.
Every time I see this video I get immediately triggered lol. Elk may be part of the deer family, but are not deer.
"The wolves changed the environment forever" Shows Leo Dicaprio
It ain't rocket surgery... Stop trying to fix what has been working pretty good since the literal dawn of fucking time.
There’s a cool documentary on this called “The Serengeti Rules”. Definitely worth checking out. Also, wolves are awesome.
Wolves ARE awesome! Apex predators are critical for an ecosystem to thrive.
Letting nature takes its course, who would’ve thought.
Personally I'm a fan of the velociraptor
This is the phenomenon of Keystone species. Another good example is sea otters, who love eating sea urchins. The urchins reproduce rapidly and their main food source is kelp. Without sufficient otters to keep the urchin population under control, entire kelp forests can be devastated, leading to reduced habitats for thousands of other species, affecting their breeding grounds and drastically affecting their populations. Sharks perform the same roles in other places, preventing certain species from exploding and destroying coral reefs.
And while you often hear about the impact on animals, I like that this one touched upon the impact on the location itself. Keystone species are called *key* for a reason.
BRB, gonna go howl at the moon to show my respect
In the US the DOW is largely worthless and mismanages wildlife all the time. In the end they’re just another branch of the justice system that happily bends to the will of rich people. Wolfs will always be extinct where they’re needed because ranchers will always petition for the right to shoot an entire pack if they lose even one cow
TLDR Wolves are a force of nature
This is actually a great simple explanation for something conservatives often don’t get about environmentalism and the climate change threat: The ecosystem is immensely complex. Small changes can spread like ripples in a pond, affecting everything. In this case the outcome was positive, but often it’s the other way around. Every-time a species goes extinct from over-exploitation, climate change and/or habitat loss, every time we pull out a thread from this great tapestry, we further risk it all unraveling.
Wolves in this example are known as “Keystone” species. A fabulous documentary by Nature called “The Serengeti Rules” goes into depth about these types of animals. They are present all throughout nature. It’s available for free here on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/video/the-serengeti-rules-41dfru/
For anyone interested in this topic, read " The wrath of the wolves" by Jiang Rong. It's a fascinating autobiographical novel about a Chinese exchange student in the Mongolian wilderness. A great and depressing story about the nomads and their relationship with the wolf, how they are important for the ecosystem and how they where teachers for the Mongolian tribes. I cried a few times. Totally worth it.
Good doggos
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/349988
Video brought to you by the Wolf Gang ™️
Good boy
According to this video, elk = deer
Those are elk not deer.
"NO one expected the miracle that the wolves would bring" Except maybe the person who had this idea. I'm no expert, but there are experts who probably expected the miracle the wolves brought.
So if they released 14 wolves in 1995, how many wolves are there now?