The disappearance of wolves from Olympic National Park in the 1920s has led to a significant decrease in vegetation and increase in soil erosion, a study done by Oregon State University researchers says.
Robert Beschta, forest hydrology professor, and William Ripple, forestry professor, began researching in 2005 the effect that the absence of wolves has had on the park.
In a report released on Wednesday, they concluded that the loss of the park’s primary predator has left the elk’s feeding patterns unchecked for 80 years.
“It does make a difference, and it’s huge,” Beschta said.
Without the threat of predation, Bresctha said elk, the primary prey of wolves, will graze in a single area for a longer period of time than if they were more threatened — therefore decreasing the amount of vegetation in the park to a greater extent, and permitting erosion of stream banks.
“It just poses a threat to the basic ecology (of the park),” he said.
“If you want species that are sustainable other than elk, we have some big problems ahead of us.”
Breschta said possible solutions to the problem could be removing some elk out of the park or reintroducing wolves.
The researchers will not recommend any action, he said.
Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman, said that a feasibility study on reintroducing wolves into the park was done many years ago.
In 1999, public outcry quashed plans to reintroduce wolves into Olympic National Park.
There are no plans to reintroduce wolves into the park, Maynes said.
“We appreciate all the research and all the data collected, so this is one more study that we will look at and consider, but we have no plans to take any action on this,” she said.
In August 2007, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, at a scoping meeting in Sequim, said that neither the state nor the federal government had any plans whatsoever to reintroduce wolves anywhere in the state.
But they are coming anyway, moving into the northeast corner of the state from British Columbia and Idaho, Harriet Allen, Fish and Wildlife’s threatened and endangered species manager, told the group.
The meeting was one of several in the state on the drafting of a gray wolf management plan for Washington state that is expected to be completed in 2009.
