I finally made it back to Yellowstone September, 2019. I had been staying away because the last time there, in 2015, I was overcome by the Asian Invasion, which has now extended through September. I detest crowds and the road management in Yellowstone needs work. Anyhow, in those regards the situation was tolerable.
Alas, I was devastated to see first hand (again) that the decimation of the Elk herd has not recovered. In five days we saw about a dozen Elk. In the 1970s through the introduction of the wolves we would have seen hundreds.
And I did see my first wolf.
The BS the wolf advocates extoll continues. The wolves had nothing to do with Beaver repopulating some rivers. They were planted outside the park about the same time as the wolves. As beaver do, the young travelled upstream into the park building dams and restoring willows...which the Elk had nothing to do with depleting. The claims are the classical logical fallacy of cause/effect reversal.
I’ll try to find some accurate data go show the problem. Alas, the Elk counters appear to have been compromised by the wolf advocates so the data is harder to find. But my personal observations are indisputable.
