Yellowstone Park's politically correct wildlife management is killing the animals that live there.
Yogi Bear may have occasionally accused Ranger Smith of trying to starve him to death, but we all knew he was just engaging in post-hibernation hyper-bole, and we counted on his level-headed little buddy Boo-Boo to chastise him for it. The real problem, as all Hanna-Barbera buffs know, was that Yogi happened to prefer "pic-a-nic" baskets to the traditional diet of the "average bear." The ranger was merely doing his duty in trying to keep Yogi from jeopardizing his health with too many sweets, while at the same time protecting the personal property rights of the patrons at Jellystone Park. As it turns out, Ranger Smith's solicitude compares quite favorably to the callous neglect of certain real-life rangers.
"Yellowstone National Park is currently administered under what is termed 'natural regulation,' or hands-off management," observes Utah State University professor Charles Kay. "According to the view of nature underlying this approach," Kay explains, "the number of elk and bison is determined by the avail-able food supply. When these animals exceed the available food supply, the weaker ones die. In other words, the Park Service contends that it is natural for thousands of elk and bison to starve to death."
Kay, an expert on wildlife ecology, disputes these claims in the June issue of PERC Reports. He points out that "Native American hunters [once] kept the numbers of elk, deer, and bison low, so that there was no overgrazing. As a result, Yellowstone's rangeland could support a great variety of plants and animals. Today," he continues, "Yellowstone's northern range is overpopulated by elk and bison. Their overgrazing has denuded the range, destroying plant communities and eliminating critical animal habitat."
Flora and fauna alike have suffered from the Park Service's misguided management approach. "Beaver were once common in the park," Kay reports, "but that species is now ecologically extinct on the north-ern range because overgrazing has eliminated the aspen, willows, and cottonwoods that beaver need for food and dam-building materials." Yellowstone is now lacking in the "bear necessities," too. "Since bears are primarily vegetarians," Kay explains, "over-grazing in the park has had a severe negative effect on Yellowstone's grizzlies. Unlike their counterparts in other ecosystems," he observes, "Yellowstone's grizzlies eat virtually no berries, because repeated browsing by 'naturally regulated' elk and other ungulates has destroyed those once plentiful shrubs."
No longer able to find food in Yellowstone, the bears "seek food outside the park, where they often are destroyed." What's really killing them, Kay insists, is misguided management, which has allowed the park's growing elk and bison populations to destroy the vegetation bears feed on.
The bureaucrats call such mismanagement "natural regulation." It isn't natural at all, however, and it doesn't work. "If the Park Service has nothing to hide, and actually has the research data to support its claims regarding 'natural selection,'" Charles Kay asks, "why has the agency not welcomed an independent review of Yellowstone's management?"
