Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Managing Mother Nature
(& Other Controversies)
If you want to start an argument in Yellow-
stone country, simply start a conversation on
any of the following: wolf reintroduction, the
park's fire policy, bison hazing, grazing rights,
snowmobile access, oil drilling or the health advantages of tofu over Angus steak. Frac-
tured regional politics means that a cloud of legal challenges descends over almost every
major wildlife policy decision made in Yellowstone.
The successful reintroduction of the wolf to Yellowstone since 1996 has been wildly
popular among park visitors, restoring an ecological balance and integrity to the park, yet
opponents of the wolf remain among ranchers and hunters, who believe that wolves are
decimating the local elk population. In 2011 the wolf finally lost its federally protected
status, to howls and cheers from respective sides, just as park wolf numbers dropped to
under 100 in the wake of parvovirus and distemper outbreaks.
The policy of hazing wandering bison back into the park each winter (irritating them
with noises, helicopters etc) in an attempt to stop brucellosis entering the Montana cattle
industry remains another dicey topic, especially since the bloody winter of 2007/8, when
around one-third of Yellowstone's entire bison herd was slaughtered just outside the park
boundary.
Nothing goes to the heart of the public access versus preservation debate like snow-
mobiling access, which the park restricted further in 2012 to limit its environmental im-
pact, much to the anger of businesses in gateway towns like West Yellowstone.
Grand Teton is the only national park in the lower
48 that allows hunting and the only national park
with its own commercial airport, receiving 60,000
flights a year.
An American Icon
The number of elk in Yellowstone has dropped
70% since wolves were introduced in 1995
Maintaining good relations with its neighbor-
ing communities may ultimately turn out to be
a simpler challenge than managing Mother
Nature. The park planners' understanding of Yellowstone's complex web of ecological in-
terconnections will be tested like never before over the coming decades, as climate change
affects everything from grizzlies dependent on thinning white-bark pines to bison faced
with ever-drying meadows. How the park service responds to these changes will define its
second century.
Yellowstone is many things to many people: a natural Eden, a paradise lost, an outdoor
extreme-sports playground or the world's biggest petting zoo. Despite all the controver-
 
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