Was the "trophic cascade" effect of reintroducing the wolf back into Yellowstone park debunked?
There was a fascinating documentary put out by National Geographic about the impact reintroducing the wolves back into Yellowstone had. It’s called “trophic cascade.”
I had reason to bring that up on a homesteading Face Book page. The page has a very conservative, Republican spirit, but we have some interesting conversations some times.
A guy came on immediately and said that the documentary had been debunked. I said that since it was put out by Nat Geo it was going to take some pretty convincing evidence to change my mind.
Well. He tried. He sent a link to Wolf.org. That article said virtually nothing, except that the cascade effect wasn’t true.
It had a link to an Accuweather article. That was the first I heard that Accuweather as anything but a weather forecaster. I read the article, though. All that did was to claim the video simplified the process. I can agree to that. It was designed to reach everyone with at least a 4th grad education. It wasn’t written for scientists.
Within the Accuweather article was a link to Wolf restoration project. That dealt with the restoration project, and did nothing to debunk the cascade effect of the last 20 years.
The next link was to a National Science Foundation article, which only discussed the role beavers play in Yellowstone. Again, it barely touched on the cascade effect.
The very last link was to a Yellowstone Science publication which was a dead link.
So, what I took away from it all is that the video oversimplified the process. That isn’t debunking anything, in my mind.
What do you think?
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Over simplifying things or leaving certain things out is enough for some people to go “They are lying! It didn’t happen!”’
National Geographic is something meant for anybody to read. I don’t think its intended audience are people that are experts in the field of whatever the article/documentary is about. It is for people to learn things that they had little to no knowledge of before. They have a “kids” version of the magazine and that over simplifies everything because they are children.
It’s no different than learning the basics of something in grade school, then having it elaborated on in high school. Doesn’t mean you were lied to, just means they explained things in a way that catered to your academic level.
@Dutchess_III I saw some comment thread on a different app, where someone was talking about the Holocaust and instead of listing off each and every single way the Nazis killed the Jews and disposed of the bodies, they just mentioned the cremations. Obviously, not everybody was cremated, they just used one example. Well, that was enough for someone to go into some weird rant about how they believe we are being lied to about the Holocaust because “It takes XX amount of time to burn a 100 pound body so they’d still be doing it today if they were really cremating the bodies” Like???? And they were acting like everybody was at Auschwitz too.
People just love to incite debates just for the hell of it, and will go crazy coming up with ridiculous counterpoints.
What that is, is the liberal, logical people with critical thinking skills making headway. The emotional conservatives are trying to copy our debating skills and methods but they don’t have what it takes.
Yeah…I’m On my phone. I can’t log in to my normal account on my phone. I finally just made a different one for when I use my phone.
Liberals have always been the emotional outburst bunch. My gawd, the sixties, duh.
But, I do agree with you on the wolf debunking.
What do you mean “But, I do agree with you on the wolf debunking.?”
I am so confused because I don’t even know why you told me the phone thing and I was saying ”??” because I didn’t get your liberal comment. I AM CONFUSION
I don’t even know what TUT means
It was supposed to me TTUL.. “Talk To You Later.”
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How can reintroducing wolves to a national park be a political issue? If anything, conservatives should identify with the wolves.
The reason for releasing wolves in Yellowstone was that the elks were decimating the plant population. Every article I have ever read on this, like this one, says that the wolves reversed this process. How could it be otherwise?
I haven’t seen the video. I’ll keep an eye out for it & get back to you later.
@Pinguidchance, that is the exact video they said had been debunked.
@LostInParadise I didn’t mean to make it sound like a political issue. I said that page had a conservative feeling to it. Lots of misspelled words, poor grammar, improper use of “there, their, they’re,” into conspiracy theories, that kind of thing.
@LadyMarissa, Here is the video.
@SergeantQueen when you just said, ”@Dutchess_lll ??” I was left to my own imagination to determine what you were asking. People used to get confused between my two accounts, so I assumed that’s what you were confused about.
What I meant was, for the last couple of years conservatives are trying to debate the way liberals debate, by providing proof instead of simple opinion. That’s liberals making headway. But it still doesn’t work with conservatives because they still aren’t open to changing their minds, and they can’t read with an open mind.
You nailed it when you said they were grasping at any straw to “prove” that they are right, that it has been debunked. That straw, in this case, was the fact that it was somewhat exaggerated and simplified. That is not the same thing as debunked.
I am a center leaned conservative, and yes, I identify with the wolves.
Youth in the sixties felt conservatives were too rigid, and mucking things up.
The Republican party, and many who voted Republican, were bigoted, and outdated, and changes did need to take place, but like executing all the wolves I Yellowstone, the answer is not a total reversal.
The Democrat party took advantage of the peace marches, civil rights protests, and appealed to these protesters as being sympathetic of their causes. It was a means intended to permanently crippled the Republican party. Shifting from one extreme to another is not the answer.
Sometimes a herd, or pack needs to be culled, but extermination is a bad thing in the other direction.
Anyway, wolves are the topic. They absolutely have a place in the environment where wildlife is still there. Bringing them back into the niche left empty has been heavily documented. Their return had a profound effect, and there is no logical dispute for the known data.
Well, apparently some people think they found logical dispute…but they didn’t.
And that is why I said I agree with you. It may be hard to believe, but I do.
It’s not hard to believe. You’re smart.
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