Conservation Northwest protects and connects old-growth forests and other wild areas from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies, vital to a healthy future for us, our children, and wildlife. Since 1989, Conservation Northwest has worke
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Getting wilder "What escapes the "Apex predators" continued from their wolf overlords and human hunters, Roosevelt elk may have actually changed the way the rivers in the Olympic National Park function by turning the Peninsula's river corridors into an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. The OSU team concluded that eight decades of elk gorging has led to the restructuring of plant communities along river banks in the park, mostly through the lack of cottonwood and big leaf maple "recruitment" or sapling growth into larger trees and the loss of many shrub species to overbrowsing. This overeating has led to increased stream bank erosion, channel widening, loss of sediment deposition on river banks, and reductions in salmon. Conservation and carnivores Who's your daddy Researchers have examined the question of whether human hunters can fill the ecological role of top predators. In a very basic sense controlling absolute numbers of prey animals, , hunters can be pretty efficient. However, the role of apex predators and their influence on ecological communities is complex and often poorly understood. The differences in present-day human and carnivore predation include significant habitat alteration and degradation for hunter infrastructure, including roads; differences in the intensity and timing of predation (e.g., fall vs. spring); the "take" or killing of different prey sex and age classes; collateral mortality of non-targeted species; and changes in the interaction of different carnivore species and alteration of carrion/ scavenger relationships, among others. For human hunters to be stand-ins for predatory animals in an ecological sense, they would have to kill more very young, old, and weak at close range, all year round, and largely without contemporary luxuries like lodges, road systems, and other trappings. The primary difference in death by human hunter and death by carnivore is that the former is usually additive and the latter is usually compensatory. Humans kill mostly prey in the prime of their reproductive lives; carnivores kill mostly older, non-reproductive animals (see spring/summer newsletter). eye…is a much more insidious extinction: the extinction of ecological interactions." –Daniel H. Janzen This fence was erected to exclude elk as part of a study on the effects of elk browsing on forest structure. Before construction, the inside and outside of the exclosure were identical. Outside of the fence, elk have prohibited brush and saplings from growing, while inside, understory plants and trees have flourished. © David Moskowitz In the book, Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity (2005), one of the authors, Kent Redford, points out that the conservation and restoration of large carnivores is both a utilitarian and values-based issue. There is ample data from marine and terrestrial ecosystems that demonstrates the influence that apex predators have in shaping ecological communities and promoting biodiversity and productivity. Owing to their large home ranges and overall sensitivity to human disturbance and habitat fragmentation, large carnivores have become a significant and convenient surrogate for conservation planning and their presence a metric for conservation success. However, human beings have a very long and complicated history with carnivores that is reflected in the mythologies and lore of human cultures worldwide. It can be argued that our very identities are inextricably intertwined with large predatory animals. Over the course of human evolution, our role relative to carnivores has changed from being just "another flavor of meat," in the words of science writer David Quammen—where apex predators made us "acutely aware of our membership within the natural world"—to one where we truly have dominion over bears, lions, tigers, and wolves and their ever-tenuous foothold in a shrinking world. Our relatively new stewardship role over carnivores is tempered and often over-ridden by our ancient and conflicted relationship. Now that relationship translates to competition over game, loss of livestock, and perceived competition around economic and recreational activities. Continued next page Roosevelt elk in the Hoh River valley show very low vigilance. With removal of wolves in the early part of the 1900s, elk numbers increased rapidly and biologists noted significant changes in riparian and rainforest structure from elk feeding activities. © David Moskowitz 6 Fall 2011 www.conservationnw.org