**See footnote
Yellowstone 2140
When I finished college back East, I wasn’t sure what direction I’d be headed but I knew for sure that I wanted to help make an impact on the natural world. In my mind, environmental journalism was the best of both worlds: protecting our world and using my writing skills to do it. Working in a lab just wasn’t for me, I found out my freshman year and made the switch. My love for science and nature, but from a different angle. Working on my Master’s degree led me to the best assignment I could have possibly asked for, the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative, where I have stayed on for the long haul. After living in Bozeman, Montana for a few years, I realized this is my home. Being a nature lover and outdoors woman, I was thrilled to realize there were 9 National Parks all within short driving distance. The views are amazing, with the mountains, rivers and lakes all around you, it’s easy to see why people come here to get ‘lost’.
At its inception, I don’t think anyone could have realized how important the Y2Y would be for the health of not only Yellowstone NP, but all of the natural and wild areas here, to the Yukon and beyond. I like to think of it as a ‘ripple effect’, the good changes and the sense of community it has have been very impactful.
I’m part of an investigative team, put together to check the stability of the system, what is working, what is not? Part of the National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF), I get called in to check out people’s stories, are we all on the same page? Communication is key, when you have an area of 502K square miles, we need to keep everyone ‘in the know’. After the reintroduction of wolves in 1995, the numbers (in Yellowstone National Park alone) grew dramatically from a pack of 8 in 1995 to a staggering 528 in just 10 years! Unfortunately, after that the numbers started to decline again as the wolves main source of food, the elk, started to become more sparse also.
After the ‘Caldera collapse’ of 2078, it took a long time for the whole area to recover. The Sour Creek dome, which collapsed like a pancake, caused some major devastation, but was just a minor collapse; nowhere near as catastrophic as if all three caldera’s had collapsed. Thankfully, being the smallest of the three, this collapse basically displaced the lava into the nearest cavity, being Yellowstone Lake and Hayden Valley. It has taken decades for these changes to settle, as the landscape has changed quite a bit due to the water levels in Yellowstone Lake becoming more shallow and created a smaller lake just to the north, which they now call Hayden Lake. This used to be Hayden Marsh, but after the collapse, it became another huge depression in the earth which has filled in with water draining from Yellowstone Lake.
Forest fires have really become a problem here in Yellowstone, and scientists are trying to get a better handle on them. Of course, where there are trees, you will always have the chance of some fires, but around the turn of the century, they have become quite a problem. Now, instead of the occasional fire due to lightning strikes, we have the devastation from the pine beetles. In 2010, Diana Six, entomologist started noticing significant changes in the pine beetle’s life cycles and habits. Due to warmer temperatures, the beetles are maturing faster, their life cycle going from two years to one, enabling them to reproduce quicker and their numbers having increased. Forests started having massive die offs due to these and other tree killing insects. Our forests protected so many species, the large mammals have no protection now from hunters, and as their numbers are reduced it affects everyone underneath them in the food chain. The elk are now a protected species especially due to the loss of the moose in 2120. The numbers of gray wolves are hurting also, but Yellowstone still has several packs that stay primarily in the park. Much of the landscape has become grasslands where there used to be trees, the growth rate of the trees just can’t keep up with the megafire devastation.
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I was assigned a group of team members to interview: a scientist, a veterinarian and a firefighter. The results were not surprising, Yellowstone is in trouble. As humans, we continue to evolve, but what hasn’t evolved enough, is our care for our environment. We need to make a collaborative effort and quickly, if we want to not only stop but reverse some of the damage that has been done to our planet. Thanks to the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative, these effects are noticed and monitored closely. Collaboratively, the Y2Y and NDRF have been able to protect this large area of park lands and natural areas with as much caretaking for the land and wildlife as possible. Wildlife knows no boundaries of nationalities, and thankfully the inhabitants of our two countries have been able to remain allies in our efforts to be good stewards of the land in which we reside.
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Forty, fifty, even a hundred years ago, we should have seen some of these things coming, but of course when it comes to people and making changes, everything is good until all of the sudden, it isn’t. Travel & Tourism want to draw people here, increase the revenue, but at what cost? Is it not enough to come see the beautiful scenery, the mountains, lakes, trails? Man always has to push the envelope, it’s not enough to use the legs they were provided, they want to bring recreation vehicles here and tear up the land, disturbing everything in their wake or being careless with their fires. Of course, this has resulted in extremely tight security at all of the National Park campgrounds; park rangers have become quite important and in demand. We are starting to see the forests turn around as fire barriers have helped protect sapling forests and off road vehicles are now restricted, just to name a few.
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I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors, “One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.”
Wallace Stegner
The Sound of Mountain Water
Interviews
What is your occupation? I am a veterinarian.
In what area of veterinary science do you focus? I focus on large and wildlife animal medicine.
How long have you been working in the Y2Y conservation area? I have been working on the Y2Y conservation area for 12 years.
What are some specific things you have noticed about the wildlife in Yellowstone that concerns you? I have noticed that the wildlife in the Yellowstone area seem to be dying off quicker than in the past. It is concerning because some of these species are necessary for other wildlife survival and even human survival.
What are some solutions you would like to implement to help these populations make a comeback? I would like to place certain species on the endangered list and possibly try to reintroduce some of the key species in the area in hopes that the populations would be able to grow again.
Do you have a specific occurrence during your experience here at Y2Y that has made your job all that you had hoped for it to be when you joined the initiative? I specifically enjoy the sense of empathy that Y2Y has for nonhuman creatures living in the area. Whether that be plants or animals, Y2Y really cares about the future of these species and wants to protect them at all costs. This is the reason I joined y2y. I want so badly to save all of the creatures and although it won’t happen overnight, I think we can make a difference in the long run.
If you had one thing to ask the general public to do to help make a difference in ‘our world’, what would that be? If I could ask the general public to do anything to help make it a difference in the world it would be to participate in more environmentally friendly activities. Our climate has changed drastically over the past 100 years and that is mostly due to human activity. I wish for the public to ride their bikes instead of drive their cars when possible, recycle when possible, and most importantly try to develop more empathy and care for the world around them because it may not be here forever.
What is your occupation? My occupation is a scientist that works for the federal government.
In what area of science do you focus? I focus on ecology and climate change.
How long have you been working in the Y2Y conservation area? I have been working in the Y2Y conservation area for 5 years.
What are some specific things you have noticed in Yellowstone that concerns you? Certain things in Yellowstone that concern me are the fallen lodgepole pine trees, grizzly bears declining in population size, megafires, increased humidity, and the role of invasive species in the environment, such as the mountain pine beetle.
What are some solutions you would like to implement to help eradicate these problems? Solutions I have to eradicate the problem are using Crispr and Gene Drive to produce gene infertility, which lowers the rate at which a targeted species reproduces over the course of a few generations. I also recommend Americans using wind and solar power over electricity to save themselves money and not release pollution into the environment.
Do you have a specific occurrence during your experience here at Y2Y that has made your job all that you had hoped for it to be when you joined the initiative? One specific occurrence that made my job was witnessing a megafire in action and surviving a helicopter that went down in flames.
If you had one thing to ask the general public to do to help make a difference in ‘our world’, what would that be? I believe that the general public needs to listen to the scientists and not the politicians in Washington, who seem to only serve their best interests.
What is your occupation? My occupation is a firefighter.
In what area of fire science do you focus? The special area of focus is a wildland firefighter and conservation management.
How long have you been working in the Y2Y conservation area? I have been working in the Y2Y conservation area for roughly 5 years.
What are some specific things you have noticed in Yellowstone that concerns you? I have noticed the increase in Pine Trees dying due to the infestation of mountain pine beetles. Specifically the decline of white bark pines even though it was considered an endangered species in 2011. Also of concern are the decreasing sightings of animals that are common to Yellowstone such as: gray wolves, which in 2020 94 lived in the park and in 2019 approximately 728 grizzly bears occupied the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
What are some solutions you would like to implement to help eradicate these problems? Some solutions may include greater government funding and support for national parks and wildlife conservation, in addition to serious changes to our national approach to global warming and climate change. I also recognized that we as humans need to do our part to limit our carbon footprint but we can’t do it alone.
Do you have a specific occurrence during your experience here at Y2Y that has made your job all that you had hoped for it to be when you joined the initiative? This has been a new area for me to contribute to the broader conservation efforts that go beyond my firefighting responsibilities. I am still learning.
If you had one thing to ask the general public to do to help make a difference in ‘our world’, what would that be? If I could ask the public to contribute one thing it would be to donate to your local and state parks and recreations, look for ways to volunteer in these areas and recognize the importance of our true symbiotic relationship with nature and the environment.
**This story was written as a collaborative assignment with 4 of us. Our stories each share the same place and ecological issues but from our different perspectives as a: Journalist, Scientist, Veterinarian and Firefighter. The year is 2140 and the place is Yellowstone National Park.
Resources:
https://www.visitmt.com/places-to-go/national-parks.html
https://www.sierraclub.org/policy/road-use-motorized-vehicles
https://csfs.colostate.edu/media/sites/22/2020/03/CSFS_Forest_Health_Report_2019-web.pdf
https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/49061 (article about conserving connectivity through ecological networks)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biggest-ever-yellowstone-eruption-revealed1/
https://www.yellowstonepark.com/news/supervolcano-magma-chamber-mapped
https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/3-enormous-calderas (Map credit for the Caldera reference)
https://yellowstone.net/geology/lake-area/
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolves.htm#:~:text=An%20estimated%20528%20wolves%20resided,Eight%20packs%20were%20noted. (wolf statistics)
https://www.yellowstonepark.com/park/yellowstone-wolves-reintroduction
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/ecological-consequences-of-fire.htm
https://e360.yale.edu/features/whats_killing_the_great_forests_of_the_american_west
https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon"> www.flaticon.com</a>
Graumlich, L., and W. L. Francis, editors. (2010) Moving Toward Climate Change
Adaptation: The Promise of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative for Addressing the Region’s Vulnerabilities. Prepared for Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. 87p. [LINK]