Wildlife and People

A History of the Failed “Natural Regulation” Theory Re Wolves and Ungulates

In our last post we preened about publishing at W.I.S.E. Parks Canada extraordinary manager Dr. Cliff White’s review of Utah State extraordinary wildlife biologist Dr. Fred Wagner’s ground-breaking and award-winning book, Yellowstone’s Destabilized Effects, Science, and Policy Conflict.

In that book Dr. Wagner de-mythologizes the failed ecological theory of “Natural Regulation.” Today we posted at the W.I.S.E. Colloquium: Wildlife Sciences [here] another nail in the Natural Regulation coffin, an expert history by George Dovel, publisher of the Outdoorsman, entitled, The Truth about Our Wildlife Managers’ Plan to Restore “Native” Ecosystems.

In his essay Mr. Dovel explores the sad history of Natural Regulation as applied to wolves, moose, deer, and elk. The theory arose in the dreamily fatuous early days of ecological science and was adopted by managers at Yellowstone National Park, with disastrous consequences. The Preface to Mr. Dovel’s excellent history:

In 1935 when Cambridge University botanist Arthur Tansley invented the term “ecosystem” in a paper he authored, he was attempting to define the system that is formed from the relationship between each unique environment and all the living organisms it contains.

Ecologists concluded that these individual systems evolved naturally to produce an optimum balance of plants, herbivores that ate the plants, and carnivores that ate the herbivores. Many accepted this “food chain” theory as a permanent state of natural regulation and a theory was advanced that certain “key” species of plants and animals were largely responsible for maintaining these “healthy” ecosystems.

But subsequent archaeological excavations or core samples of the buried layers of periods in time revealed that these “perfected” ecosystems were actually in a continuing state of change which could be caused by changes in weather, climate or various organisms. They concluded that parasites or other organisms that were not included in their food chain charts often caused radical population changes in one or more of the keystone species.

This essay is a must-read for those interested in wildlife. We cannot depend on Mother Nature to equilibrate wildlife populations, or vegetation types (like forests) either, for that matter. Mother Nature doesn’t work that way.

Instead, history teaches us, it has been the keystone predator and torch-bearing species, Homo sapiens, that has been responsible for wildlife populations and vegetative conditions across North America during the entire Holocene.

And we still are. We cannot defer that responsibility to a mythical Balance of Nature because it doesn’t exist and has never existed. We are the Caretakers of Nature, like it or not. Human beings determine the rise and fall of wildlife populations, either actively or passively, and passive management often results in extreme fluctuations, environmental damage, and local extirpation of animal species and vegetation types.

It would be nice if Mother Nature was a self-regulating equilibrium machine, but She isn’t. Chaotic change is natural, not balance. It’s a jungle out there. The hands-off approach fails in theory and practice. Intelligent human stewardship is best for all lifeforms.

This is an age-old lesson, learned again and again by humanity. Sadly, in some circles, the lesson has to be learned again for the umpteenth time. Happily for us, our best experts are up to the task and gently (or not so gently) are reminding us, again, of what’s what in the world we live in.

Kudos to those experts. Please read George Dovel’s lovely essay [here]. And, if you wish to be Part of the Solution, consider subscribing to the Outdoorsman.

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