The effect on quaking aspens in Pardo is also something we need to study long term. Are the two related?

After all, off in a democracy an expert expects to be paid by taxpayers to make decisions that affect the taxpayer the expert should be, at the very least, be able to explain himself in an intelligible manner.

Thats the bare minimum of expectations. I also expect the taxpayer funded expert to provided full access to his data, notes and analysis software.

Im considered an expert in thermodynamics, materials science and E&M. The people that pay me routinely don't understand what I'm working on, but they expect me to explain myself.

I’ll say that I’ve not read the article so if it’s in the article then I would rather you just point to that, rather than make this response.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44674445

It’s an interesting question and this could be empirically tested if human hunting would be slowly reduced.

Territory sizes range from 25 to 150 square miles

That is 15,000 to 100,000 acres per half-dozen wolves in the GP's units.

I suggest reading Candide by Voltaire, first published 266 years as a critique to the philosophy you are currently espousing.

Waiting for someone to reply to this doing exactly this

However, the introduction of wolves did, incontrovertibly, add a system element that had not been present before. Exactly what that element was, and how it expressed is up for interpretation :-)

> The average height of willows in fenced and dammed plots 20 years after the initiation of the experiment exceeded 350 cm, while the height in controls averaged less than 180 cm

> This suggests that well watered plants could tolerate relatively heavy browsing. It also shows that the absence of engineering by beavers suppressed willow growth to a similar extent as did browsing

They posit that the growth in control groups not matching the fenced areas is evidence of wolves reintroduction not having the effects they are said to have. It is a pretty unconvincing argument since there are so many other variables involved. They also prove that IF the wolves have indirectly lead to either the return of beaver dams, or reduced elk browsing, there is undoubtedly an impact in tree growth, which is a positive result regardless.

Their theory that things will never return to their original state, and instead will settle into a new alternate equilibrium is probably correct, but does not seem like the definitive blow to the wolf theory that it’s made out to be.

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/ys-24-1-the-challenge-of-unde...

TL;DR - the observed reduction of the elk herd correlated with wolf introduction, but also with an increase in cougars, grizzly bears, and even bison, all of which either reduce or compete with elk. Human hunting also added pressure, but that has been limited as the herd size reduced. It is complicated.

It sure sounds like we're just choosing the species we like. It's like a big walled garden.

It's wild, because it's so easy to measure and asses: an ecological desert, dying ecosystem, rich in single overgrazing specie is unequivocally bad.

Rich, lush ecosystems sustaining great biodiversity and ecologically unique features (eg chalk streams or temperate rainforests in the UK) are good. Killing everything for the sake of one specie: Bad.

More on that if your position is honest: https://www.monbiot.com/2025/05/12/the-commoner-kings/

Perhaps without an apex predator the prey species would evolve out of the overpopulation problem eventually. However, species that evolve with a predator tend to reproduce more quickly, which helps avoid being completely wiped out by the predator - when the population constraint impose by the predator is removed, the prey population explodes, leading to particularly pronounced problems.

(Perhaps if we had to contend with some homo-vampirus, we wouldn't have global climate change...)

Overall, humans already interfered in the shape of the ecosystem by removing wolves. You're correct that there's no objective 'correct' state for an ecosystem. But it is worthwhile to help balance ecosystems, especially when they have been unbalanced by our own interventions. Without restoration work, we're headed to a world with humans, livestock, and the few species that manage to live on our margins.

Philosophically though you're correct- humans very easily see themselves as "apart" from the environment, when really we're just another mammal doing our thing. We are nature as much as we are in it, even for all of our tools and manufacturing.

Biodiversity is a good measure of ecosystem health, no? Is it really a human value?

When you "destroy" an ecosystem, a new one will take its place. The remaining animals and plants will converge on a new balanced state.

The ecosystems we admire today are often that new balance after humans destroyed the natural one.

One of the hallmarks of human engineered environments is how shallow and fragile they are. Changes, like the reintroduction of wolves, are "good" because they give us deeper and more resilient environments

Ecological diversity and utility to humans.

The GYE is more diverse thanks to having wolves check grazing populations. And the physical structure of the riparian environment is more stable, which means better (and cheaper) infrastructure and water management.

..we’re shaping nature to fit human values,

You’re right to question it, because the philosophy itself is based on the emotionally satisfying but ultimately unscientific “Gaia” theory of “balance” and “self-sustaining” / “self-correcting” systems.

So, inevitably, the answer must be that people want to conserve them either because of sentimental reasons or because a given ecosystem suits human flourishing, or because it maximizes some metric like species diversity.

> we’re really measuring against a value-laden idea of what we think nature should look like, not some neutral truth.

I will remark, that “value-laden” is not opposed to “neutral truth”. All knowledge is value-laden. Value itself is part of reality. The fact-value dichotomy is a fiction.

Human settlement has a tendency to reduce all of them. The story here isn't that reintroducing wolves established some kind of human-centric value system, it's the surprisingly complex and far-reaching effects of just one change in the ecosystem, particularly the re-introduction of a top predator.

Note also that absent extinction altogether, without humans actively killing wolves, their numbers most likely would have recovered eventually, probably with similar effects. In essence, we just accelerated a type of healing process that would naturally take place when our enormous ecological footprint is removed.

I think where I come down is trying to remove elements that threaten to take over and destroy the balance. Or restore elements that will help re-establish balance. And it doesn't have to all be "native".

And there are some natives like poison oak that I'll get rid of because they're obnoxious and will ruin people's experience of nature. And people's experience with nature matters because that's a big part of how you win people over and get them to support nature restoration work.

It's not even "tricky". It's purely a subjective political football if you live anywhere that was formerly glaciated because humans were there from day 1 and so it's basically a subjective question of which time period you want to restore.

But biodiversity is a good target and as unbiased as you can get. More biodiversity means more adaptability and resilience of the system.

I think you're confusing "arbitrarily meddling in wilderness" and "restoring ecosystems". The latter would be something like demolishing a Walmart and its parking lot and putting soil and trees in its place.

Basically giving back human development spaces back to nature and letting nature take care of itself. This involves things like cleaning up waterways.

Me too, however I think that making an ecosystem functional, rather than dysfunctional is the goal, rather than actual restoration to a nominal "correct".

The thing is that diversity, fecundity and like measures are really important when it comes to ecology, not historical accuracy - that's for aircraft museums.

Basically his take on the whole hobby is that we should stop measuring, changing water and generally stressing about keeping the system as is.

Instead you create a good substrate, add lots of plants and just watch how life will evolve. Fish and plants might die, but that's ok because it's part of the natural process.

It's the United States, that's virtually a constitutional right. If your skin color and cultural conformance checks out.

The article and study doesn't address its disposable nature of the elk in favor of "look at the trees"

When there are animals suffering, which to most actual people is a matter to highlight. This entire discussion about wolves in Yellowstone has always contorted itself to spare the reader's thoughts on the gruesome reality of what's actually happening.