Yellowstone National Park is located in the Northern Hemisphere, in the northeast of the United
States, it’s latitude is 44.5979° N and it’s longitude is 110.5612° W.
Since Yellowstone became a national park in 1872 it has been subject to environmental change
due to human actions. For example, the eradication of wolves that began in 1872 with the last
wolf in Yellowstone being killed in 1926 had devastating consequences for the natural
environment causing a trophic cascade that disrupted Yellowstone’s ecosystem. This happened
because, without wolves, elk had no natural predators in Yellowstone which allowed their
population to rise rapidly. Yellowstone’s ecosystem was not able to handle the strain caused by
the elk’s increased gross food consumption. This led to a wide array of consequences such as
destabilising river banks in addition to a decrease in the population of bears, fish, beavers and
birds to name a few. Another example of human-caused environmental change in Yellowstone is
the mining activities that take place near the park. The waste that these mines produce pollutes
the rivers that flow into Yellowstone poisoning the natural environment of the park with metals
concentrations that routinely exceeded the water quality standards of the state. The impact of
this pollution on fish is a higher chance of tail and gill rot as well as death, it can also cause
reproductive issues harming the ability of the fish to maintain a population in Yellowstone. This
also heavily affects the bears who rely on this fish for food and are now ingesting heavy metals
when they eat fish.
Yellowstone's management strategy of wolf reintroduction to the park has proved to be highly
effective at restoring the park’s ecosystem to its natural state which had existed before humans
began to drastically alter Yellowstone. It is currently not fully self-sustaining and requires some
monitoring and active management on the part of the National Park Service. But in the long
term, it will likely become self-sustaining as it is restoring the environment to its state before
humans and with continued limited human involvement it can return to how it was for
thousands of years prior. Its economic impacts are minimal, however, it likely has made more
tourists come to the park as it has been revitalised and had some of its natural beauty restored.
The management costs of the program are also relatively low as it is primarily just monitoring
the wolf population, who can look out for themselves for the most part. The aforementioned
restoration of the park’s environment also has a positive social impact as it makes visiting
Yellowstone a better experience. The primary effect of the wolf reintroduction program has
been the environmental impact which has had large impacts all over the park. For example,
there are nine beaver colonies in the park as of 2020 compared to just one in 1996. This
happened as before wolf reintroduction the elk had eaten almost all of the willow trees that
grew near the riverbank when they were saplings. Once the population of elk was reduced the
willow trees were able to grow much larger at which point the beavers were able to use them to
construct their dams. There are a multitude of other examples similar to this that happened all
around the park. Therefore it can be said that given significant environmental benefits the
minimal economic costs and the minor social upside that the wolf reintroduction program has
been a highly effective management strategy in Yellowstone National Park.
Bibliography:
● Smith, D 2021, Wolf Management - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park
Service), [Link], USGS, viewed 24 March 2025,
<[Link]
● Peacock, C 2023, The Impact of Water Pollution on Aquatic Life, Aquaread, viewed 24
March 2025,
<[Link]
● Boyce, MS 2018, ‘dynamics in time and space’, Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 99,
[American Society of Mammalogists, Oxford University Press], no. 5, pp. 1021–1031,
viewed 20 February 2025, <[Link]
● Climate Change Connections: Wyoming (Yellowstone National Park) | US EPA 2024, US
EPA, viewed 27 February 2025,
<[Link]
-national-park>.
● Greater Yellowstone Coalition 2022, Stopping the Yellowstone Boundary Gold Mine,
Greater Yellowstone Coalition, viewed 24 March 2025,
<[Link]
Link to video:
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