Looks like the wolves aren't so beneficial after all!A new analysis challenges one of the most publicized claims about Yellowstone's wolves. In a detailed comment published in Global Ecology and Conservation, researchers from Utah State University and Colorado State University demonstrate that the 2025 study by Ripple et al. overstated the ecological effects of wolf recovery in Yellowstone National Park.Ripple et al. based their conclusion on a 1,500% increase in willow crown volume, calculated from plant height data using a regression model that defines and predicts volume from the same variable. "Because height was used both to compute and to predict volume," MacNulty explained, "the relationship is circular—mathematically guaranteed to look strong even if no biological change occurred."The authors identified several additional issues:>The height-to-volume model was applied to heavily browsed willows with distorted shapes, violating model assumptions and exaggerating apparent growth.>Willow plots compared between 2001 and 2020 were largely unmatched, conflating ecological change with sampling bias.>Selective photographic evidence and omission of key factors such as human hunting further distorted causal interpretation.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989425005001?via%3DihubThe study reconciles conflicting interpretations of the same dataset. Ripple et al. (2025) concluded that carnivore recovery produced a strong trophic cascade, whereas Hobbs et al. (2024), who collected the data through two decades of field experimentation, found only weak cascade effects.
>>5062940The wolves have a right not to be exterminated by nasty fucking bloodthirsty hick fucks.Hunters are a cancer.
>>5062941Not really. Man is the ultimate apex predator. He was born as a hunter and killer. We can do whatever we want with wolves.
>>5062940Wolves are more interesting and important than seething hunters and faggot ranchers.
>>5062940>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989425005001?via%3DihubThis study doesn’t refute the impact wolves had on elk though. It just outlines some problems with another paper that is far more recent than the initially documented environmental changes>joe roganlol
>>5062946No they aren't. You sound like a soifaced urbanite Redditor.
>>5062947Read the last part.>Hobbs et al. (2024), who collected the data through two decades of field experimentation, found only weak cascade effects
>>5062950Why are you citing papers you didn’t read?
Humans should be eradicated from North America and the whole continent rewilded.
>>5062947In Canada, wolves have had such a negative impact on caribou that hunters are now allowed to shoot wolves from helicopters to reduce their numbers.
>>5062946Ranchers are welfare queens who do nothing but block recovery efforts under the guise that they have any actual worth in therms of food production>>5062957This only happened because of deforestation in the first place. Caribou have lived with wolves for millions of years and you think the wolves just randomly decided to start wiping out the caribou now? You don’t actually care if what you’re saying is true, you’re just trying to push propaganda even though nobody on the board will fall for it
>>5062945I hope “the ultimate apex predator” homeless crackhead smashes a wrench over your head while you leave the convenience store with your bottle of Dew you fucking despicable piece of dogshit.
>>5062948When the issue was put to a vote ranchers lost.
>>5062940https://desuarchive.org/an/search/image/9i3XkuVgHdZU1vTR64DMxA/Imagine making the same thread twice
>>5062969its probably the same guy that made the vegan troll threads and bitches about feds. he has a cycle of copypasta shitposts.
>>5062969It's not the same thread, just the same image. The new study was just published today.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989425005001?via%3DihubGlobal Ecology and ConservationVolume 63, November 2025, Why do wolffags lie so much?
>>5062981It is the same thread. Again why are you citing studies you haven’t read
>>5062941Coyotes survive just fine. Why are wolves such pussies?
>>5062945Why they gotta look like this tho
>>5062940AI generated OP
>>5063017Probably because coyotes are highly flexible in social organization and can also be solitary hunters unlike wolves, so you don't get to shoot that many together in one place or disrupt the entire family dynamic when you kill one of the elder.
>>5062981>"Once these problems are accounted for, there is no evidence that predator recovery caused a large or system-wide increase in willow growth," said Dr. David Cooper, co-author and emeritus senior research scientist at Colorado State University. "The data instead support a more modest and spatially variable response influenced by hydrology, browsing, and local site conditions.">The authors emphasize that their critique does not diminish the ecological significance of large carnivores but underscores the need for rigorous methods when evaluating complex food-web interactions.>"Our goal is to clarify the evidence, not downplay the role of predators," MacNulty said. "Predator effects in Yellowstone are real but context-dependent—and strong claims require strong evidence.">The study reconciles conflicting interpretations of the same dataset. Ripple et al. (2025) concluded that carnivore recovery produced a strong trophic cascade, whereas Hobbs et al. (2024), who collected the data through two decades of field experimentation, found only weak cascade effects. So it's disputed, not disproven.
>>5063070He doesn’t care, he just really wants to post cow propaganda
>>5062956this will happen eventually, but I cry for all the species that won't make it in the process
>>5063048Exactly, It's just a fed-generated AI nothing-burger OP comment probably from Israel.
>>5063048>>5064734There's nothing AI about it. Cope and seethe, wolffag.
I am gently stroking the supple rump of a female malamute right now and wondering why the fuck you people want wolvesWe literally have wolves at homet. Based white guy
>>5065109Now I’m rubbing her belly and her fur is very soft there. You don’t need wild wolves they live in civilization just fine.
>>5062956Can I just move?
