How climate change could spell the end of America's Yellowstone Park

Yellowstone National Park: On a recent northern autumn afternoon in the Lamar Valley, visitors watched a wolf pack lope along a thinly forested riverbank, 10 or so black and grey figures shadowy against the snow. A little further along the road, a herd of bison swung their great heads as they rooted for food in the sagebrush steppe, their deep rumbles clear in the quiet, cold air.

Pronghorn antelope in Yellowstone National Park,
where winters are getting shorter and warmer.CREDIT:

In the United States, Yellowstone National Park is the only place bison and wolves can be seen in great numbers. Because of the park, these animals survive. Yellowstone was crucial to bringing back bison; reintroducing grey wolves; and restoring trumpeter swans, elk and grizzly bears - all five species driven toward extinction found refuge here.

Read the story from The Age by Marguerite Holloway and Josh Haner - “How climate change could spell the end of America's Yellowstone Park.”

Oregon 'jihad is a manifefestation of our misunderstanding of public versus private

The yahoo jihad at the wildlife refuge in Oregon is part and parcel of the larger problem across the public lands of the West including here in Colorado.

A better understanding of our prime
predators will help us confront
some aspects of climate change.

Ranchers aren’t just occupying that federal building in Oregon, they’ve been occupying our public lands across the West for over a century and that occupation has been armed, violent and completely subsidized by state and federal taxpayers.

Read Gary Wockner’s story on EcoWatch - “Oppose Welfare Ranching, Not Wolves.”

(Our misunderstanding of public versus private and our general affinity for the latter contradicts the behaviour we need to abide if we are to have any chance of truly mitigating the processes that are root causes of climate change. It has been clearly shown that wolves, one of America’s prime predators, play a key role in allowing our environmental landscape to heal from human onslaught and yet it has been the public purse that has been repeatedly raided to ensure that America’s ranchers (Australia’s farmers) can profit as wolves by their millions have been put to the sword. Watch this four minute Youtube clip - "How wolves change rivers" - narrated by George Monbiot to learn about and understand the importance of wolves– Robert McLean).