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elk

A grey wolf (Canus lupus) in the Lamar Valley, April 2009. Credit, Jim Peaco, Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone wolves take a blow to their rep

A well-publicized depiction of wolves revitalizing Yellowstone’s ecosystem is a myth, said writers for the NY Times’ op-ed page and a Nature news feature last week.

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Twenty-five minute old elk calf in Mammoth Hot Springs. Jim Peaco; Yellowstone National Park. June 9, 2010; Catalog #18798d; Original #RD7Y0096.

Declining fortunes of Yellowstone’s migratory elk

Are human choices redefining the fitness of an ancient survival strategy?

Eighteen ecologists weigh in on new data in a Forum in Ecology.

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Backbone: the bared vertebrae of an elk lie on a riverbank in Yellowstone National Park. Credit, Joshua Miller.

Elk bones tell stories of life, death, and habitat use at Yellowstone National Park

Josh Miller is one among a small cadre of ecologists looking at living ecosystems through the relics of their dead. by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Flags mark bone locations as field assistant Jared Singer maps a carcass near a lake in Yellowstone National Park. Credit, Joshua Miller. ________________ JOSH Miller likes to call himself a conservation paleobiologist. It’s a…

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Fear as an ecosystem engineer

This post contributed by Cristina Eisenberg, conservation biologist at Oregon State University Over the past three years I have conducted thirteen hundred focal animal observations on elk in the northern and southern Rocky Mountains. This involves patiently watching one animal at a time for up to twenty minutes and recording its wariness–that is, the amount of time it spends with…

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Ecosystem snapshot: reassessing the role of wolves in Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park is home to more than 1,350 species of vascular plants and numerous species of mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds—not to mention the natural landmarks such as Old Faithful Geyser. Among the inhabitants of Yellowstone is the famous quaking aspen, a deciduous tree that has significantly declined in the park since the 20th Century, due in large part to elk grazing.

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