How Wolves Change Rivers Summary

In the video “How Wolves Change Rivers” we are given the impression that the introduction to Wolves in Yellowstone caused a chain of events to occur. This chain of events includes, the growing of more grassland and willow trees, occurring because the deer population spends more of its time hiding. The introduction to the willow trees results in the increase population of the beavers. Since more trees and grasses were growing this strengthened the river banks which led to less flooding. All of this occurred, but did it occur because of the introduction to the wolves in Yellowstone? Or was it just a coincidence that these events started occurring around the time the wolves happened to show up? According to the article “Is the Wolf a real American Hero?” by Arthur Middleton, a study published in 2010, mentions that trees hadn’t begin to grow back even though the elk (deer) population decreased by 60%.
The wolves mainly focused on the sick and older elks, the younger and stronger elks didn’t have much to worry about. Although elks are preys for wolves, they can be hard to find if they are in adulthood and they aren’t much bigger than wolves in stature. So, what caused the major changes at Yellowstone? According to Middleton, after Wolves were exterminated by humans, elks took over and exploded in terms of population size, they consumed most of the willow shrubs, which was what beavers consumed. Without this vital food source, the beaver population declined. Since there were no beavers, there were no dams which, caused flooding to occur. There’s a lot of evidence that shows that grizzly bears begin to feast on elk calves as a result of the decrease in cutthroat