Yellowstone's Northern Range - Greater Yellowstone Science ...

CONCLUSIONS
Wildlife management policy and practice have undergone almost
continuous evolution in Yellowstone National Park (Haines 1977,
Houston 1982, Schullery 1992, Wright 1992). Following the initial
decade of uncontrolled wildlife slaughter, civilian and military administrators adopted
intensive husbandry practices, including protection, culling, the killing of predators,
winter feeding of ungulates, and semi-domestication or other manipulation of a variety of
species. A gradual shift away from human intervention in the ecological setting led to a
less intrusive approach, governed by policies protecting native species and the ecological
processes generated by the interaction of all elements of the landscape.
There has been an additional shift in the past 30 years, from viewing park landscapes
as "primitive vignettes," (Leopold et al. 1963) being managed to preserve settings
as they were when first encountered by whites, to viewing parks as places where ecological
processes (indeed, all processes, whether geological, hydrothermal, or other) function
as unhindered as possible by humankind. The national park has evolved, then, from its
original goal of conserving distinct wonders (in Yellowstone's case, these were originally
geological: geysers, lakes, canyons, wateIfalls, and other scenery), to preserving distinct
wonders and favored wildlife species, to preserving all wildlife species, to preserving the