Why scientists want grey wolves and beavers to be reintroduced in these places

By Pol Allingham via SWNS

Grey wolves and beavers could be reintroduced in 11 North American states as part of an ambitious rewilding plan to cut down on grazing and help wildlife.

Oregon State University researchers advocated livestock grazing should stop and grey wolves and North American beavers restored in the Western Rewilding Network plan.

The study determined livestock grazing was the most common cause of the US' s environmental devastation, despite only two percent of the nation’s meat production coming from federal grazing permits.

The paper published in the journal BioScience found 500,000 square kilometers of prime wolf habitat that is federally managed, with each area bordering another, ideal for the WRN.

Each bit of land will be at least 5,000 square kilometers and together they will range from Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The team plan to eradicate grazing in over half of this federal land.

Author William Ripple, Professor of Ecology at OSU College of Forestry, said: “It’s an ambitious idea, but the American West is going through an unprecedented period of converging crises including extended drought and water scarcity, extreme heat waves, massive fires and loss of biodiversity.”

They said livestock grazing can cause stream and wetland degradation, affect fire regimes and make it harder for woody species to regenerate.

According to researchers, grey wolves are apex predators capable of triggering powerful and widespread ecological effects by helping control native hoofed animals that graze the land.

Prof Ripple said: "[Wolves] could assist in the natural control of overabundant native ungulates."

In doing so the wolves allow vegetation species to grow again and support the dwindling diversity of animal and plant life in the West.

Beavers produce similar effects in areas surrounding rivers.

Prof Ripple continued: “By felling trees and shrubs and building dams, beavers enrich fish habitat, increase water and sediment retention, maintain water flows during drought, provide wet fire breaks, improve water quality, initiate recovery of incised channels, increase carbon sequestration, and generally enhance habitat for many riparian plant and animal species.”

Co-author Robert Beschta, Professor Emeritus in the OSU College of Forestry, said: “Beaver restoration is a cost-effective way to repair degraded riparian areas.

“Riparian areas occupy less than two per cent of the land in the West but provide habitat for up to 70 percent of wildlife species.”

The study catalogued nearly one hundred species threatened by human activity in the proposed WRN.

They found 92 threatened and endangered species across nine taxonomic groups: five amphibians, five birds, two crustaceans, 22 fishes, 39 flowering plants, five insects, 11 mammals, one reptile, and two snail species.

The topic of ecosystem restoration in the U.S has attracted attention after President Joe Biden launched his America the Beautiful plan to conserve 30 per cent of US land and water by 2030.

North American beavers and grey wolves, WRN's potential wildlife saviours, were nearly destroyed by the American West.

Grey wolves were hunted to near extinction and once-robust beaver populations declined around 90 percent after settler colonialism.

Despite the 1990s' reintroduction of grey wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains and Southwest, co-lead author Christopher Wolf, postdoctoral scholar in the College of Forestry, said: “Still, the grey wolf’s current range in those 11 states is only about 14 percent of its historical range.

“They probably once numbered in the tens of thousands, but today there might only be 3,500 wolves across the entire West.”

In order to pull off the plan the rewilding program will have to source compensation for the people giving up their land.

Prof Beschta said: “We suggest the removal of grazing on federal allotments from approximately 285,000 square kilometers within the rewilding network, representing 29 per cent of the total 985,000 square kilometers of federal lands in the 11 western states that are annually grazed.

“That means we need an economically and socially just federal compensation program for those who give up their grazing permits.

“Rewilding will be most effective when participation concerns for all stakeholders are considered, including Indigenous people and their governments.”