What's the Picture of Yellowstone?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Researchers have had some time too get to grips with what happened in yellowstone. What's the picture that's emerging now? Ego systems are so complicated they're really hard to study. So it was probably, understandably, quite easy to look at yellowstone after the introd tion of these wolves and attribute that to the introduction of the wolves. And i think its a case of sed of causation and correlation.

After wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone national park in 1995, researchers noticed some big ecological changes, leading to the regeneration of the landscape. It’s an argument used to justify the return of apex predators – but it’s increasingly being challenged. Phoebe Weston talks to Ian Sample about whether wolves really have the power to shape ecosystems, and what that means for the debate about bringing them back to the UK. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod