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

THE NORTHERN RANGE
32
systems-range or forest-tended to reach a stable
state, a sort of idealized equilibrium, that would be
relatively easy to manage. In recent decades,
however, instability has become more apparent as a
fundamental characteristic of wild ecosystems, and
has become especially important to students of
wild ranges that are grazed only by native ungulates.
Paleontology, as well as practical experience
over the past 120 years, has shown us that ecological
processes are far less predictable, and far more
unruly (by human standards), than was previously
supposed. This realization has led at least some
observers, including park managers, to be more
cautious about pronouncing a range "overgrazed,
"unnatural," or "damaged," because we now
realize that even without human influences, the
conditions on a given range are far more variable
than was once thought.
Earlier assumptions about the nature of
wildlands have been challenged as ecologists have
realized that nature has little regard for the range
management and wildlife management textbooks
written earlier in this century. Research in wildland
grazing systems, that is systems in which wild
ungulates use the landscape with relatively little
interference from humans, have focused on sites
like Yellowstone's northern range-large nature
reserves. The researchers report many interesting
things, some of which are reviewed below. Perhaps
most important of all, they report that a wild
rangeland, grazed only by free-ranging native
ungulates, may not look the same as a commercial
livestock rangeland. Wild ungulates will not use
the range in the same way that livestock do; they
will use the plants differently and to a different
extent, they will move as the seasons dictate rather
than when humans decide to move them; their
numbers will vary-sometimes dramatically-with
environmental conditions; and the range's appearance
will depend upon many environmental factors
rather than upon close supervision by a human
manager whose primary goal is to maintain the
highest sustainable level of livestock production on
that range.
For all their localized imperfections in terms
of human disturbances, reserves such as the
northern range, are the closest modern humans can
come to seeing truly wild ranges in today's
intensively fanned world.
This is not to say that either type of range
should somehow be regarded as better looking, or
better managed. One of the reasons Yellowstone
National Park's policies have been drawn into
range management controversies is that natural
regulation is perceived as a threat to traditional
range management beliefs. Though there are
lessons commercial range managers can learn from
wildland range ecologists. it has never been the
intent of the National Park Service to place a value
judgment on natural regulation that would rank it
qualitatively above or below other range management
practices or philosophies.
On the other hand, Yellowstone's experience
after nearly 30 years under the natural regulation
policy suggests that for a commercial livestock
specialist to come into Yellowstone National Park
and judge its northern range by the standards of
livestock management practices is as inappropriate
as it would be for a wildland ecologist to expect a
livestock range to resemble a wildland grazing
system. Without a deep familiarity with local
conditions-history, climate, soil, native plant
composition prior to settlement, and other factors-these
environments do not easily yield
accurate assessments of their conditions. The
notion that all ranges, regardless of their history
and their management goals, can be judged by
some standard "cookbook" approach will not work
well in Yellowstone. Unfortunately, some participants
in the dialogues over the condition of
national park ranges are not aware of the importance
of this philosophical difference in goals.
This problem of perception is central to the
Yellowstone northern range issue. Until the two
differing perspectives are recognized, grim
pronouncements from the livestock industry about
Yellowstone's rangelands will continue, just as a
host of wildland ecologists will continue to extol
the health and wonder of the northern range and
criticize the appearance of commercial ranges.
These philosophical complications aside,
there remain the fundamental scientific questions
about the northern range, questions that have been
asked and re-asked by generations of researchers.