YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- Biologist Doug Smith made his way through the park on a sunny March day, checking on teams of wind-burnt scientists as they tracked and observed every pack of gray wolves in the park.
Smith has played an integral role in the park's wolf program ever since wolves were reintroduced 15 years ago. Yet for all that time spent working on the reintroduction, a day in Smith's life during March can be as unpredictable as wildlife itself.
Throughout the month, throngs of volunteer researchers -- mostly biology students and educators -- spread across Yellowstone in what has become one of the most comprehensive wolf studies in the world.
Just north of Mammoth Hot Springs, Smith, a tall man wearing an unassuming khaki coat over his official park jacket, joined a three-person team tracking the Canyon pack from the windy Dude Hill.
Overhead, the wolf-reintroduction project's Super Cub airplane, affectionately called "the poor man's helicopter," circled the area with researchers aboard also trying to track the wolves.
Acting on information from biologist Dan Stahler in the airplane, the team of volunteer trackers headed into the Mammoth's upper terraces to see if it could get closer to the pack.
The Canyon pack is exceptionally wily because of its tendency to travel back and forth through the Lamar Valley, according to Josh Irving, one of the volunteers. But team members were hopeful that a dead elk under the ice of a nearby creek would bring the pack in for observation.
Teams can go days without seeing their assigned pack, but spend
each one on the lookout, nevertheless. But when researchers do see
wolves, they take note of every detail: time of day, number of
wolves, number of cubs pups, type of prey.
They will even trudge out to a carcass once the wolves have left to
measure the bones in hopes of learning something about the size of
animals wolves select to kill.
Over the years, with researchers tracking and watching the wolves from sunup to sundown, Smith and others have slowly begun to comprehend the predators' complex role in the ecosystem.
Getting the science to the people
When the team left for the terraces, Smith, 49, stayed back to talk to a group of high school students from Idaho's Northwest Academy participating in a Yellowstone Association wildlife program. A good portion of his job is education, and teaching people about a subject as complex as the ecological relationship between wolves and prey can be a daunting task.
A problem, he said, in trying to convey the complexity of the program is that the wolves are not, as they might seem, the center of the ecosystem.
He quoted a popular ecological expression: "Nature is not only more complicated than we think. It's more complicated than we can think."
"Wolves are certainly a piece of the (ecological) pie, but we're constantly looking for what that percentage might be," he explained.
Smith and the volunteers are most interested in the relationship between wolves and elk, but the two species are wrapped up in just about everything else in the park.
In the years that wolves were missing from the Greater Yellowstone area, the ecosystem had become destabilized, Smith said. Their return has helped restore a certain balance of nature, the details of which humans may never fully understand. The wolves "have a finger in the dam, along with so many other factors, but how big is that hole they're filling?"
When the elk population boomed in the absence of wolves for most of the 20th century, it had a profound effect on Yellowstone's ecology -- from vegetation to scavengers -- that is still seen today.
Smith and other biologists call such an interconnection a "trophic cascade" -- the wolves obviously affect elk, but that then affects numerous plants and scavengers, which also affect other aspects of the ecosystem, and so on.
For biologists, the full extent of the wolves' effect in Yellowstone is infinitely hard to measure, but pieces of the puzzle are being witnessed already, 15 years into the restoration.
The rejuvenation of willows and aspens is potentially one of the effects. But, in a testament to the elusiveness of ecology, that regrowth may have more to do with climate factors than with the wolves' effect on the ecosystem. But Smith doesn't think so.
Through the end of a scope
Smith can be deadly serious about his work, but tries to foster friendship and camaraderie with the volunteer ecologists who put in 12-hour days.
Individual teams know their packs like family, even from the other side of the spotting scope.
"I know the packs OK because I get to see them all," Smith said, "but (the volunteers) get to be experts, and they definitely know their pack better than I do."
Driving south on Grand Loop Road, he met up with the group of biologists tracking the Blacktail pack. The wolves were putting on a show.
Through the spotting scopes, the researchers watched a gray wolf standing over the ribs of a spike bull elk, blood on his muzzle. Other members of the pack lounged nearby. Ravens, eagles and a coyote waited for their turn at the carcass.
Smith had arrived after the wolves had "rallied," which, as team member Hilary Zaranek put it, is a "group ceremony when they howl and wag their tails looking like it's the happiest moment of their lives seeing each other."
Another member of the team, Dave Unger, was turning 40 that day and said witnessing the rally was the greatest birthday gift he could have had.
"I tell you, that Big Brown is one of the most beautiful wolves I've ever seen," he said, his eye glued to the end of a scope focused on the alpha male of the pack.
Keeping it simple
Smith told the team a lively story about Blacktail No. 692,
referring to the wolf's tag collar number,
and how she has it out for him after a particularly harrowing
encounter.
One day, Smith was attempting to dart and sedate No. 692 so he could do a periodic check. He was hanging from a helicopter, trying to get a shot at her, when she became angry and tried to jump up at him, gnashing her teeth.
"If she knew I were here right now, I'm pretty sure she'd come sprinting over," he said with a laugh, as the pack howled around the mangled elk.
Smith has accumulated a lot of wolf stories during his 30-plus year career studying the canines. After earning a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Nevada-Reno, he started his career at Isle Royale National Park in Michigan's Lake Superior, working on another of the world's most researched wolf populations. His first post there was as a research technician, doing the same kind of work as the volunteers he now supervises.
He spent 13 years, from 1979 to 1992, in Isle Royale, working with Dave Mech, another renowned wolf expert.
Then in 1994, Smith took a job with the National Park Service specifically to work on the Yellowstone reintroduction project.
Between radio-collaring, tracking from the airplane and shooting darts from helicopters, he's not afraid to get his hands dirty. But a lot of the work is done in the office, also, managing the program's efforts and contemplating the big questions.
"How do you learn? You keep things simple," Smith said.
"We like to keep asking the same questions, and then see how the answers change over time," he said. "I wish I knew how much all the other factors contributed to the system, but all we can do is ask questions, make observations and learn as much as possible."
Michael Gibney can be reached at mgibney@dailychronicle.com or 582-2638.
Reality22 posted at 9:07 pm on Sat, Apr 2, 2011.
I'm involved with the deer study going on in Wisconsin on predation. As a small part of the study UW researchers have trapped 9 deer on my Shawano County property, four of which they put on tracking collars. As a landowner, I would be very interested in the information they collected on these deer as far as where they have been and where they hung out during the deer season. We were told by research leaders that they would gladly give us that info AFTER a deer was harvested or perished. The two reasons I was informally given was 1) Obviously they did not want anyone to get an advantage for the hunting season. 2) They did not want someone forming an unhealthy attachment to the wild animals. Needless to say, the way the reintroduction of the wolf went these rules were ignored and if anything they were encouraged and flaunted to this day. Part of the mess we have out there these days are because of these unhealthy attachments to "Casanova" and "Cinderella". These are things that are talked about in the schooling that these Jokers when threw yet they choose to ignore it and flaunt it! This is where our federal Tax dollars are being spent? To have a team of researchers following around a pack of wolves in Yellowstone?
Rockholm posted at 11:24 am on Fri, Jan 21, 2011.
Doug Smith-Ed Bangs will go down in history as the liars that destroyed Yellowstone!
ThinkFirst posted at 8:47 pm on Sat, Apr 3, 2010.
At 19,000, the elk population was beyond the carrying capacity for the environment. That was evident with the sharp decline in willow, cottonwood and aspen seedlings being devoured by elk and other herbivores. Without these plants, birds lacked cover and a place to nest, beavers had no material for dams or lodges, meadows were overgrazed which led to increases in lake/river sediment....and so forth and so on. I've seen plenty of moose, bighorn and mountain goats so please provide a credible link as to the decline in their numbers.
With the reintroduction of wolves, elk numbers have decreased, vegetation is returning in key riparian areas along with birds and beavers. Bald and gold eagle numbers are up as they have a bounty of wolf kills on which to feed.
The "rich" ecosystem in pre-wolf years to which you refer was out of balance and not sustainable. Without wolves, the park's herbivores would have eaten all the vegetation and caused more damage than the '88 fire.
ThinkFirst posted at 8:46 pm on Sat, Apr 3, 2010.
At 19,000, the elk population was beyond the carrying capacity for the environment. That was evident with the sharp decline in willow, cottonwood and aspen seedlings being devoured by elk and other herbivores. Without these plants, birds lacked cover and a place to nest, beavers had no material for dams or lodges, meadows were overgrazed which led to increases in lake/river sediment....and so forth and so on. I've seen plenty of moose, bighorn and mountain goats so please provide a credible link as to the decline in their numbers.
With the reintroduction of wolves, elk numbers have decreased, vegetation is returning in key riparian areas along with birds and beavers. Bald and gold eagle numbers are up as they have a bounty of wolf kills on which to feed.
The "rich" ecosystem in pre-wolf years to which you refer was out of balance and not sustainable. Without wolves, the park's herbivores would have eaten all the vegetation and caused more damage than the '88 fire.
LOBO WATCH posted at 6:58 am on Thu, Apr 1, 2010.
Yellowstone and Glacier are the two places in the Northern Rockies where the wolves belong. Then...when they step out of those sanctuaries, they need to be eliminated.
I thought we were supposed to have some "wolf experts" in charge of and running the wolf recovery project. Guess Not...best they could come up with were a bunch of amateurs like Doug Smith, who are at best now trying to learn what they can with "on the job training". Hopefully they are learning something...because it has become extremely evident that when wolves were dumped back into Yellowstone's wildlife rich ecosystem...those experts were as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to wolves and the damage wolves cause.
It's what they didn't know...and which they are too egotistical to now accept...was just how damaging wolves are to all other wildlife speices. Take the northern Yellowstone elk herd. At the time of the first wolf release into the park area, that herd numbered right at 19,000...today, it is down to 5,000 or less. Moose have become nearly non-existent. Even bighorns and mountain goats are disappearing quickly. And when that prey base is gone...so will be the wolves.
Does that sound like a conservation success story to you? Folks with more than two active brain cells see it for what it really is...the greatest ecological disaster of our lifetime.
Doug Smith is nothing more than another greenie ecoterrorist, along with the likes of Ed Bangs, Carolyn Sime, and a few others who have forced wolves upon us under the disguise of the Endangered Species Act. And those wolve are not our native wolf, but rather a larger, more aggessive and invasive non-native subspecies. These "wolf scientists" have purposely manipulated science, and in doing so are guilty of violating that same Endangered Species Act.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
ThinkFirst posted at 5:41 pm on Tue, Mar 30, 2010.
CORes, there's no such thing as anonymous posting on the internet. Publishing what can be taken as a serious threat puts you up there in intelligence with the people who post their crimes on Youtube and make threats via their Facebook pages.
I will say one thing...those studying the wolves in the park are the most rude and nasty people I have ever met. As a tourist armed with a camera, if you try to ask them where the wolves are in the hopes of getting a photo, they will at best ignore you and walk away. I love wolves, but hey wolf-dudes, my tax dollars (through government grants) are funding your research...so ante up.
CORres posted at 8:42 am on Tue, Mar 30, 2010.
This Was intended to be an experimental project of this species, (canis lupus occidentalis). Now these huge wolves are spreading like the plague. Stop watching this species and start taking them back to Canada. You were warned that this species was not suitable for our eco-system by the "pro" wolf bio's. NOW TAKE THEM BACK TO CANADA!!!! We will not tolerate them any longer in the lower 48. If you want wolves back in the Rockies, then bring them from Michigan. At least they were closer to the species native to our eco system. This is your final warning. We will take this matter into our own hands if you do not heed this warning. So if you want to save this species from the fate of a gun, help them by trapping and remove them from our lands.
thewildphotographer posted at 9:44 pm on Mon, Mar 29, 2010.
The Yellowstone Wolf Project has served it's purpose and needs to stop. The description given in this article of the multitude of so-called research teams harassing every pack of the wolves, refutes everything that Yellowstone is supposed to be: A refuge for animals (wolves) to live wild and free and unencumbered by man.
Smith and his assistants pursue these wolves to exhaustion by helicopter, dart them, drug them, and are putting radio collars on up to 50% of the Park's wolves.(Classic example of studying animals to death) This intrusion, disguised as research, as described in this article has been going on for over 15 years. Give the wolves a break.