Posted On: 02/12/2011 20:02:52

MEDIA RELEASE

For Immediate Release:  Feb 13, 2011

Contact:  Duane Martin Sr.             &am p;nb sp;     605-517-1547 or 605-454-0449

 

ELDERS UNDER THREAT: SERIES OF ABUSES, ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES UNCOVERED IN LAKOTA RESERVATION ELDERLY MEALS PROGRAM

Conspiracy of Threats, Physical Intimidation, Tribal Council Corruption Stops Investigations

Elders Fear Retaliation After Coming Forward with Revelations

 

Porcupine Community, Pine Ridge Reservation, SD – The crisis of elder abuse on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation has hit a shocking new low as revelations are emerging about a series of abuses and illegal activities uncovered at the Porcupine Elder Center and the Elderly Meals Program.

 

On Tuesday February 7th, a group of elders contacted the Lakota Strong Heart Warrior Society with concerns for their safety after being threatened by self-appointed Elder Center leader Winifred Janis.  Janis, and several family members including daughter Geneva Quiver, appear to hold an iron fisted grip over the Elder Center and have threatened elders with violence and assaulted at least one employee to conceal revelations about abuse and illegal activities being conducted out of the center.

 

Earlier this week, Janis directly threatened a group of Elders, including 91 year old Cecilia Martin, shouting, “If any of you elders talk about me or my daughter, I’m gonna’ hit you in the mouth!”

 

When the elders asked whom she meant, Janis replied, “Any damn one of you!”

 

Efforts to get relief from the abusive conditions of the center’s meal program have been obstructed by corrupt officials.  Elder Lorraine White Face said that she had tried to address the lack of nutritional meals and strong arm tactics used by Janis.  She has previously used the center along with her 88 year-old mother, Ester White Face, for meals.

 

After physically intervening to stop an elder from getting hit in the head by a center employee, White Face was slapped with a restraining order to keep her away from the center.

 

“She [Winifred Janis] uses her position to go against the real elderly, said White Face, who has been an outspoken advocate for traditional Lakota language and culture. “I mean elders who are 88, 89 and 91 years old – she made them worry every day.  And I am elderly too.”

 

The elders who use the Porcupine center now fear retaliation as details of the abuses and corruption emerge. Wilson Coleman Jr., an employee of the center, was physically beaten by three members of the Janis/Quiver family after he spoke out about illegal activities including alcohol bootlegging and the selling of drugs out of the back of the Elder Center.

 

“Elder abuse is against the law,” noted Duane Martin Sr., headsman of the Strong Heart Warrior Society.  He emphasized that in addition to traditional Lakota Customary Law, the Oglala Law and Order Code, the 1948 Older Citizens Act and other laws make elder abuse a crime.  

 

Martin also detailed how the Porcupine District Elderly bylaws are being violated to prevent Elders from speaking out.  He emphasized, “Immediate action must be taken to remove Winifred Janis and her family or the Warrior Society will act to impose justice through customary law.”

 

Both elders and activists say the corruption in the Elderly Meals Program is not just confined to Porcupine, but is present through the entire reservation-wide system. For four years Elders have appealed to the Oglala Tribal Court for investigations into Elder Center and Meals Program activities but have been stalled by responses that the investigation is “ongoing.”

 

“This is going on in all the elderly buildings on the reservation,” said White Face.  “Everyone thinks we are crazy, but we know what’s going on.”

 

The quality and nutrition of the food being given to the Elders is also a concern.  Elders at the Porcupine Center have been served undercooked meals that have made them sick and served meals that contain only carbohydrates, without protein.  Pictures have been taken to document the poor quality of the food served there.

 

According to a 2009 Lakota Country Times article entitled Elder Meals in Porcupine, the tribe receives money for Elderly Meals through Federal Title VI grants, South Dakota Title III monies, and National Relief Charities AIRC Food service.  The article noted that meals are cooked at “assembly line speed”.

 

Enoch Brings Plenty, 67, who was voted by a consensus of elders to be president at the Porcupine Center before Janis assumed control explained, “The elderly should be the number one priority of each reservation. They should be uplifted and treated like an angel.”

 

Brings Plenty, who served 20 years as head cook for a Rosebud Reservation elementary school, voiced concern the problems at the Porcupine Elder Center have been “going on for some time” and that Winifred Janis has “caused a lot of chaos for the elderly there.”

 

He added, “The elderly have an awful life here, I have to do something about this.” 

 

Brings Plenty also shared how is wife Della, who is 67 and handicapped by seizures, was denied meals by Janis while at the same time members of Janis’ family including her children and grand children were fed regularly.

 

Janis’ name also appears as a contact for the collection of clothes and other support in the name of the Porcupine Elder’s center but the elders have not seen this assistance.  An October 18, 2010 entry for the “Ashley’s Closet” Facebook page reads, “We at Heart Bridge are glad to welcome Ms. Winifred Janis as contact for Ashley’s Closet. You may send items to her at… c/o Porcupine Senior Center 1 Main St. Porcupine, SD 57772.”

 

Lorraine White Face explained she has twice appealed for help from the Oglala Tribal Council, contacted the Oglala Courts twice, and the Treaty Council three times without any resolution.

 

Virgil Bush, Porcupine District President, confided that the previous Oglala Tribal Council administration couldn’t deal with the abuses in the Elderly Meals Program because they were not fluent Lakota speakers like many of the elders.  Bush’s admission highlights the large cultural divide between many members of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) tribal government and the traditional Lakota people.

 

Activists detail how a wall of corruption conspires between families to sideline investigations and create a culture of retaliation for people who try to fight for justice.  For decades this corruption has marginalized native Lakota speakers, traditional people, and others who have tried to stand against those who are exploiting the BIA system of Lakota government for their own gain. 

 

In December, Strong Heart headsman Duane Martin Sr.’s dog was poisoned and killed for his activism against bootleggers and drug dealers, many of whom are protected by members of the tribal council and tribal law enforcement.  In January, a group of Lakota Elders were pushed and threatened with a gun by Oglala District representative Deborah Rooks-Cook outside of a secret council meeting.  Rooks-Cook has gone unpunished.

 

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Cante Tenza Okolakiciye also known as the Strong Heart Warrior Society of the Lakota Nation is an ancient Lakota warrior society as well as a broad-based civil rights movement that works to protect, enforce and restore treaty rights, civil rights, and sovereignty of Native people and their communities across Turtle Island. In addition to activist efforts to protect the land and people, each year Cante Tenza collects and freely distributes shoes, winter coats, school supplies, food, and other support to Oglala Lakota elders, children and families.

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By JOHN MILLER, Associated Press Writer Wed Jan 4, 8:22 PM ET

BOISE, Idaho - Idaho wants federal permission to land helicopters in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness this winter to put radio collars on wolves that have roamed the remote mountain region since their 1995 reintroduction.

The request to the U.S. Forest Service to allow motorized transport into a federally protected wilderness other than at established airstrips coincides with the state taking over management of the endangered predators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The state was to formally take over management at a Thursday ceremony in Boise with Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.

Foes of the helicopters are threatening to sue if the Forest Service acquiesces, saying such flights are banned by rules governing the 2.4-million-acre wilderness. They also fear state game managers will use information from the radio collars to eventually track and kill wolves, which now number 500 in Idaho.

Wolf managers with the state Department of Fish and Game said using helicopters to collar wolves — the aircraft have been flying since December to count elk — is vastly more effective than trapping them on foot.

Information gathered from the collars will underpin the state's effort to lift Endangered Species Act protections from wolves by providing information on packs and their behavior, they said.

The collars will help biologists "learn where the wolves are denning, where their rendezvous sites are, so we can go in at a later date and count them," Steve Nadeau, Fish and Game's top wolf manager, said in a Wednesday interview. "This proposal is to improve our knowledge of wolves in the wilderness."

Idaho game managers want to use helicopters to collar as many as 16 gray wolves that are members of about six packs.

State biologists, already flying on helicopters on big-game counts that occur every three to five years, would shoot tranquilizer darts from the air. The helicopters would hover over the stunned animals, while the biologist springs to the ground to collar the wolf, then administer a tranquilizer antidote before climbing back aboard the aircraft.

"We may not land once, if we don't see a wolf," Nadeau said. Still the plan said each wolf collaring could require three landings.

Curt Mack, a wildlife biologist with the Nez Perce Indian tribe that has a hand in Idaho's wolf oversight, said managers have struggled for years to keep collars on wolves in the Frank Church Wilderness. As a result, information on the predators there is scarce. Using helicopters could help remedy that, Mack said.

And because the choppers are already flying on game-counting missions, "the impacts on the wilderness will be fairly minimal," he added.

Still, conservation groups, including the Western Watersheds Project, based in Hailey, and Defenders of Wildlife, which oversees a $200,000 fund to pay ranchers whose livestock falls prey to wolves, say they're dubious.

In a letter to the Forest Service, Western Watersheds director Jon Marvel, who currently has at least seven environment-related lawsuits against federal agencies, threatened more litigation if the agency allows the helicopters.

Marvel argues the federal legislation that created the Frank Church area in 1980 included compromises such as allowing outfitter camps, boats on the Salmon River and existing wilderness airstrips. But it barred helicopter landings elsewhere except when needed to save human life.

"You open the door to aircraft in the wilderness anywhere you see a wolf, you open it when you see an elk or anything else," Marvel said Wednesday.

The debate underscores the mistrust between wolf advocates and Idaho.

Marvel and Suzanne Stone, a spokeswoman for Defenders of Wildlife in Boise, believe information from radio-collar tracking eventually will be used by Idaho game managers to track and kill wolves that prey on elk, which are prized by hunters.

Idaho currently has about 40 wolf packs; according to the state's federally approved management plan, it must maintain a minimum of 15.

"We would be very concerned if this action led to increased lethal control of wolves within the wilderness, based on the elk populations there," Stone said.

Forest Service Region 4 Forester Jack Troyer, responsible for an area that includes wilderness in Idaho, Nevada and part of Wyoming, Utah and California, will decide soon, officials said. Since Dec. 4, the agency has received some 700 public comments on Idaho's helicopter proposal.

"Our first concern is to protect the wilderness," Liz Close, the Forest Service's regional director for recreation, heritage and wilderness resources in Ogden, Utah, told The Associated Press. "Our responsibility does not change. It's a question: Can we find a way to accommodate what the state needs to do while still meeting our mandate to protect the wilderness?"

Bigot
One who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.
-- from Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary

In the summer of 2004, several students from one of the wolf research classes followed a trail out of our base camp, and within a 100 yards or so they discovered the decomposed body of a coyote.  Although most of the flesh was gone, the skeleton was halfway intact.  Even the foot pads, which were mummified, were easily distinguishable.  The skull, however, had three small holes indicating that this animal had been shot three times in the head.

In the state of Montana, it is legal to kill coyotes whenever you wish so the students' discovery was not an uncommon one.  But I was struck by the fact that three bullets to the head seemed excessive in killing a medium sized animal.  In fact why kill it at all?  We were no where near a ranch, town, or private residence of any kind.  Our camp was located many miles deep into the woods.  Our base camp, however, was located at the crossroads of several major logging roads that allowed access through this area.  In the summer time everyone uses them.  The dead coyote was only 50 yards from one of these roads.  Perhaps the coyote was already injured in some way and a local Samaritan was doing the coyote a favor - but I doubt it.  Having spent fourteen years either traveling to Montana for extended visits or living here, it has been my experience that not many people consider coyotes their "favorite" animal.  They are shot for fun, protection of livestock, or just "because."  I suspect someone saw the coyote, shot it through the body, then found it in the woods and dispatched the animal with three shots to the head. 

I am not writing this article to complain about hunting or Montanians' right to kill what can be legally killed.  Instead, I am questioning why exercise that right even if you have it?  Hunting for subsistence makes practical sense and as my Montana friends put it, "It is just part of the food chain."  To remove an animal from existence just because you have the legal or God-given right to do so seems more like a human power trip than anything logical.  Why kill it if you don't have too?  I have another friend who sits outside in a chair or on a stump with his rifle waiting for coyotes to come by so he can shoot them.  His family members do not necessarily like this practice but he does.  I suppose it is relaxing and allows one to commune with nature.

Such disregard for life seems to be fostered, at least in northwest Montana, by the local culture, religious beliefs, and flat-out ignorance.  People who act in this way seem to conveniently forget what science already knows to be true and is quite provable.  In other words, they ignore reality and pretty much say and do as they wish.  They're bigots.  I will use two examples to make my point.  I want to stress that it is a minority of people who display such outrageous behavior but they can have a huge effect by killing wildlife and suppressing peoples' right to explore new ideas or their exposure to knowledge.
 

Ignorance
First, here is an example of sheer ignorance.  A local resident wrote an editorial about wolves which was published in the August 28, 2002 edition of The Montanian, one of our local newspapers here in Libby, Montana:

Wolves Are A Menace

Editor:

I believe an arousing review of some apprising history may be in order.  What's with all these new restrictions being imposed upon us; the American citizens.  I'm making reference to the reintroduction of the wolf and grizzly into the wilderness.

Interesting word:  "Reintroduction," meaning something was here, but has been, for various reasons, eliminated.  So now, for various reasons, must be brought back.  To what result?

The point I wish to make is by reference to Poland in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

During World War II the wolves were forgotten and the packs grew and grew.  Some packs it was reported reached 1,000 strong and were extremely dangerous.

Livestock had to be kept in special fences and barns that the wolf could not claw his way into.  Even some cases were reported of wolves clawing though the roofs of houses. 

When the citizens of Poland were once again allowed to purchase ammunition for their guns they staged massive wolf hunts.

Large groups of 20 or more sleighs, with three men per sleigh, would drive out to the hunting site.  They took with them as many guns as they could carry because the action became so intense they had no time to reload.

One man per sleigh had the responsibility of not letting the horse be killed.  Slowly they headed back to the village. Small piglets were pinched to make them squeal and this brought the wolves out of hiding. 

Soon a hundred or more wolves would be approaching the sleighs, and bam!!  The leader of the hunt would shoot the first wolf.  A signal for the others.  A wolf would drop and those close to it smelled blood and they would stop to eat, but then they resumed the chase.

The same was happening on all sides as the men shot the wolves.  They ran out of bullets and switched to shotguns.  Not as effective as the rifle, but still, they managed to kill some more wolves.  When they ran out of shogun shells they switched to pistols.  The main pack was close now.  The horses were really frightened.  Soon the pistols were empty so the men grabbed up sabers.

Slash, slash; they chopped the wolves to make them bleed so the other wolves would tear them apart and feed on them.

The horses never moved faster than a trot.  These men wanted to kill the wolves, not run away from them.  Also, they kept the wolves baited to keep them close.  The more wolves killed, the less damage to the village and to their livestock. 

Our college educated yahoos who are taught by college educated morons who are running our wilderness programs need to expand their learning by taking a few courses in logic. 

Let's hope they will soon realize that it is "they" who are creating the problems, not us!!

Marvin Lewis, Marion

I must say, as a college educated moron, I am much obliged to Marvin for opening my eyes about wolves.  It's a good thing that I have never seen the horrible things that he described in his editorial because I know I would pee my pants.  I am thankful the wolves around here do not do such things.  Think of the horror that would be created, the calamity, the humanity!  Of course Marvin was describing European wolves.  I bet they don't even shave their legs.  Marvin was toot'in on some bad weed when he wrote this one.  Thanks for the tip, dude.

Marvin is a pastor who travels into the wilds of northwest Montana to bring spiritual advice and comfort to those people living deep in the woods - a nice humanitarian gesture.  As far as I know, he even does this for free.  I first met Marvin two years ago when he came to my cabin to introduce himself.  Since then, I interact with him occasionally.  Once was when I was on my daily run down the road on which I live.  He drove by me then stopped and we had a short chat.  He told me that I was a brave person for running down the road by myself through the woods without any weapons.  He said that he wouldn't go 20 feet into the woods on either side of his car because it was too dangerous due to the wild animals.  I always thought that his comments were odd since the danger of being attacked by a wild animal around here is slim and none (provided of course you don't act like an idiot).  I've seen plenty of bears, moose, deer, elk, and even cougars on my runs and feel safer in their presence than walking through town at night!  I certainly have a gun with me on longer excursions into the woods but still, one just needs to know about their surroundings to interact with the environment successfully and safely.  I am, therefore, not surprised at Marvin's editorial comments given how little he apparently knows about the woods.

My point is that the information Marvin provided in his editorial completely contradicted what science knows to be true about wolves. To me, Marvin epitomizes what it is to be human.  We are walking contradictions.  On one hand he does wonderful things for people by sacrificing his time and money to provide them with a spiritual service, yet promotes the killing of wildlife due to his own apparent fear and ignorance.  A trip to the library would provide him with a wealth of information about wolves but only if he is open to new ideas and new ways of perceiving his surroundings.  It seems like the path of least resistance is to remain hateful and ignorant - no proof required.  Becoming educated requires that you do the opposite. 

Students all over the world and at every level must undergo the process of letting go of personal agendas to be enlightened by what is known to be true.  It is called education and it is not an easy process.  Ask pretty much any student.  It can be, however, extremely rewarding, but again only if you are open to it.  At the college where I teach there are a minority of students who not only resist their own personal growth (which makes it unfathomable as to why they are in college in the first place) but go to great lengths to stifle the education of others.  This is a much more serious problem than an editorial written by someone who chooses to be ignorant.  The process of bigotry is counterproductive and acts to diminish the accomplishments of humanity and suppress what is known to be true about the world.  A great example is in the classroom.
 

Bigotry In The Classroom
Hatred and bigotry have been displayed by a minority of students in my science classes at the college in northwest Montana, where I teach a number of science classes ranging from physical sciences to natural sciences.  Over the years, I have taught at several community colleges and for two major universities.  I have never seen such displays of arrogance and self-righteousness, even to the point of continuous classroom disruption and attempts to prevent basic science subjects from being taught.  At this campus there seems to be a growing number of students who fit the definition of a bigot as stated above.

When it comes to science, evolution seems to be the subject that sparks the most controversy for some students. They often unleash nasty behavior directed at myself, the administration, and their fellow students.  It is of no concern to me what anyone thinks of this subject or any other scientific concept.  They can think whatever they want.  School, however, is a business and everyone in the classroom has bought the right, via their tuition fees, to hear the information in an organized, timely, and enjoyable fashion.  The classroom is where information is disseminated and is not the place to vocalize and insist on ones personal views, whether you are a student or an instructor.  For discussion purposes, however, ideas are exchanged, but clearly there are some students who cannot control themselves and are intolerant of my input, the views of other students, and even the view of their textbook. 

I am concerned because the problem of bigotry in the classroom seems to be getting worse, and it reached a pinnacle in my Physical Science class.  From the first day of class, several students interrupted others when answering questions and would insist upon their viewpoint. They also verbally attacked others in class who disagreed, and in general wasted our time with their juvenile and self-serving behavior.  Acquaintances or friends of these people approached me and said not to take it personally because these people acted like that all the time.  In my opinion, that kind of compliance and acceptance of this attitude is what perpetuates it in the first place. However, I tended not to take it personally since these nasty students displayed such behavior in most or all of their classes and towards other instructors as well. 

Being politically correct for two months on my part did not help the situation, nor were personal talks effective with these students outside of the classroom.  So one day I put the definition of bigotry on the board and told the class that some of them acted in this manner.  The bottom line was that I told the bigots to get out of my class.  By the next day I was told by some students that the student government had prepared a petition to have me fired from my job. This wasn't the first time bigoted students had tried to get me into trouble. 

In the past I had a chemistry class that went ballistic at even the mention of evolution which we needed to briefly discuss and which was also in their textbook.  This class was divided in half with those who kept quiet and those who made sure they didn't via their strong opinions. They wasted our time with their demands that I prove evolution to them on the spot.  Some of these people even cheated during exams so I had to separate the class during tests as if they were in grammar school.  I found this curious because some of the best students in the school at that time were in this class.  They were so blinded by their beliefs that they acted like bigots and tried to censor what I said in class. And if that didn't work they went to the administration to try and stop me from teaching science.  They were very nasty. 

In doing my "homework" I found that the "problem students" at my college have been disruptive in most or all of their college classes, and the instructors were quite frustrated with their behavior.  There has often been some level of this behavior in most classes, but I was surprised at the aggressiveness of these people.  The lies they told and the in-your-face attitudes were quite astonishing.  For example, in the Physical Science class I showed a video about chimpanzee behavior which was concluded with an interview involving Jane Goodall and Alan Alda.  They were reviewing the research that indicated that some human behaviors may have evolved (there's that word again - evolution) from chimpanzee behavior since chimps are our closest genetic cousins.  Afterwards, one of these "problem" students blurted out that, "They should not be allowed to talk like that!!"  After class, several students approached me, clearly aggravated by the other student's response, and expressed their concern that they did not feel comfortable expressing their own views under these circumstances.

In the same class, another student constantly shook their head back and forth whenever they disagreed with something, or let out a big sigh to express their disapproval with what I said or comments from the students.  During my talks with this person, who had not been doing well on their tests or understanding basic scientific concepts, they revealed to me their lack of interaction with the world. They didn't watch TV.  They didn't read the paper.  They didn't listen to the radio.  They didn't read books.  They didn't use the internet or email.  I knew house plants that are more interactive with their surroundings than this person.  Despite their self-proclaimed ignorance, they certainly knew that evolution was wrong and disrupted class whenever the subject came up or was alluded too.  At the beginning of the semester, this same person would answer their cell phone during class and proceed to have a discussion while I was lecturing.  Most children are better behaved than this and we were in college!

Bigotry is like a disease and can spread and infect an entire town, even nations.  It is a force that cannot be reasoned with.  It feels no remorse, no pity and no compassion.  Gee, I wonder why wolves get shot by the public?  In my opinion, bigotry is the most destructive force on earth.  A bigot, of course, cannot see any of this.  Bigots.  They're like a broken pencil - always missing the point.

A good deal of wolf behavior and pack behavior deals with the hunting and catching of prey.  These wolf activities often evoke emotional responses in the surrounding community, from hunters and ranchers to those people who just have strong opinions on just about everything.  A common response is that the wolves are killing all the ungulates such as deer, elk, and moose.  A variety of concerns then stems from these notions.  They range from a lack of hunting opportunities because ungulate populations have supposedly been reduced by the wolves, to government agencies regulating access to the national forests in their attempt to control the number of ungulates killed by hunters.

The notion that wolves and other predators are killing and drastically reducing ungulate populations is not supported by the scientific data.  Several studies have been conducted demonstrating that ungulate populations are doing extremely well, even in the presence of wolves and other predators.  The references for some papers that have been published from northwest Montana are provided below: 

Kunkel, K. E., D. H. Pletscher.  1999.  Species-specific population dynamics of cervids in a multipredator ecosystem.  Journal of Wildlife Management 63:1082-1093.

Kunkel, K. E., T. K. Ruth, D. H. Pletscher, and M. G. Hornocker.  1999.  Winter prey selection by wolves and cougars in and near Glacier National Park, Montana.   Journal of Wildlife Management 63:901-910.

Kunkel, K. and D. H. Pletscher.  2000. Habitat factors affecting vulnerability of moose to predation by wolves in southeastern British Columbia.  Canadian Journal of Zoology 78: 150-157.

Kunkel, K. and D. H. Pletscher.  2001 Winter hunting patterns and success of wolves in Glacier National Park, Montana.  Journal of Wildlife Management 65: 520-530.

Kunkel, K.E., D. H. Pletscher, D. K. Boyd, R.R. Ream, and M. W. Fairchild.  2003.  Factors affecting foraging behavior of wolves in and near Glacier National Park, Montana.  Accepted by Journal of Wildlife Management.

I received these references from Tom Meier, the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist in charge of overseeing the progress of wolf packs in northwest Montana.  He has since moved on to Denali National Park in Alaska.  Here are some of his thoughts regarding the local ungulate populations in northwest Montana:

I think that the conclusion of much of Kyran Kunkel's work is that multiple predators can in fact depress populations of prey. But winter severity is probably the biggest factor in prey numbers. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, after a series of mild winters, deer are so numerous that both states have had to steadily liberalize deer hunting regulations in order to kill more deer. With 3000 or so wolves, Minnesota last year, for the first time, made it possible for deer hunters to kill as many as 5 deer in the season. Wisconsin deer regulations are even more liberal. Here in NW Montana, I don't think anyone could dispute that deer have come back dramatically since the last severe winter, even as wolf numbers increased.

During the 2004 hunting season, northwest Montana reached record levels of harvest for many of the hunted ungulate species, which helps support the conclusions of scientific studies.  Despite the evidence, however, some people will continually insist that wolves are killing all the game animals. Where these attitudes come from is explored in the section on bigotry. In addition, the article Local Issues looks at how the Fishtrap pack has been blamed for killing all the deer locally. During my surveys for the wolves, I collect data on the number of deer and other animals present in the wolves' territory. The data demonstrates there is currently a great number of deer in the woods, as well as elk and moose, despite the presence of the Fishtrap pack.

 

By Jim Robbins, Scientific American Magazine, June 2004.

Several scrawny cottonwood trees do not usually generate much excitement in the world of ecology. But on a wind-whipped August afternoon in Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley, William J. Ripple, a professor of botany at Oregon State University, stands next to a 12-foot-high cottonwood tree and is quietly ecstatic. "You can see the terminal bud scars," the bespectacled Ripple says, bending the limber tree over to show lines that mark a year's growth of a foot or more on the broom-handle-size trunk. "You can see that elk haven't browsed it this year, didn't browse it last year and, in fact, haven't browsed it since 1998."

Ripple gestures at the sprawling mountain valley around us and points out that although numerous other cottonwoods dot the landscape, this knot of saplings comprises the only young ones--the rest of this part of the Lamar is a geriatric ward for trees. The stately specimens that grow in the valley bottom are 70 to 100 years old, and not a newcomer is in sight to take their place. On the hillside, aspen trees present a similar picture. Groves of elderly aspen tremble in the wind, but no sprouts push up in the understory.

These trees could have died out entirely, some experts believe, if wolves hadn't shown up in Yellowstone. And therein lies a fascinating tale of how ecosystems work, and how making one change can produce all sorts of surprises.

In the dead of winter in 1995 the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service brought 14 wolves into Yellowstone by truck and sleigh. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) from Canada, these were the first to call Yellowstone home since the creatures were hunted out of existence there early in the 20th century. A year later 17 more Canadian wolves were added.

Biologists hoped that the reintroduction would return the mix of animals to its more natural state. They expected, for instance, that the wolves would cull many of the elk that lived in the park. When the wolves--once the region's top predator--were gone, the elk population had burgeoned. And the new generation of Canis behaved as predicted. Sixteen packs of wolves, each composed of about 10 animals, now roam the park, and each pack kills an average of one elk a day. The elk population, which had swollen to 20,000 by the 1990s, is now less than 10,000.

The wolf introduction has had numerous unexpected effects as well. The animals' impact on the flora and fauna in the park has been profound. Indeed, the breadth of change has been so far-reaching that researchers from around the country have come to study the alterations. "Wolves are shaping what you see here," says Douglas W. Smith, leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Project. "In 30 years, when you drive through the park, it will look very different."

The Ecology of Fear
~ Ripple, for one, is hoping for more trees. "I like aspen trees," he remarks over coffee in a cozy log restaurant near a cabin just outside Yellowstone where he stays during field research. "I am

passionate about them." Among other things, he explains, they are biodiversity hot spots in the West, home to a variety of songbirds. When he heard in 1997 that aspen trees were on the decline in Yellowstone and no one knew why, he was drawn to the park to try to solve the mystery.

Ripple points to some black-and-white photographs taken of the same spot in the Lamar Valley more than 50 years apart. "You can see that young aspen and willow were abundant in the early 1900s. By the 1930s the trees had stopped regenerating, and there are no young ones.

"I had a lightbulb," he continues. He took core samples from 98 aspen trees and discovered that only two had begun to grow after the 1920s--around the time the last substantial populations of wolves were killed or driven off. And these two were in places that elk would be hesitant to frequent for fear of being attacked by predators. Ripple found big trees and tiny trees but nothing in between, because nothing new grew from the 1930s to the 1990s. It was the first concrete evidence of a "wolf effect."

The wolf-effect theory holds that wolves kept elk numbers at a level that prevented them from gobbling up every tree or willow that poked its head aboveground. When the wolves were extirpated in the park as a menace, elk numbers soared, and the hordes consumed the vegetation, denuding the Lamar Valley and driving out many other species. Without young trees on the range, beavers, for example, had little or no food, and indeed they had been absent since at least the 1950s. Without beaver dams and the ponds they create, fewer succulents could survive, and these plants are a critical food for grizzly bears when they emerge from hibernation.

After the wolves' reintroduction in 1995 and 1996, they began to increase their numbers fairly rapidly, and researchers began to see not only a drop in the population of elk but a change in elk behavior. The tall, elegant mahogany-colored animals spent less time in river bottoms and more time in places where they could keep an eye out for predatory wolves. If the wolf-effect hypothesis is correct, and wolves are greatly reducing elk numbers, the vegetation should be coming back for the first time in seven decades.

Hiking along the purling Lamar River, not far from a den of one of the wolf packs, Ripple walks by a small rise and parts a dense green curtain of booth willows to make a point. There on the ground lie the bleached skull, ribs and spine of an elk. And all around, the willows are much taller than Ripple, some more than three meters high. Ripple and his colleague Robert L. Beschta, a forester at Oregon State University, have indeed found trees and willows rebounding in Yellowstone as wolf numbers have climbed--but that is only part of the change occurring in the park.

Trees are coming back most dramatically in places where a browsing elk doesn't have a 360-degree view; these willows, for example, sit below a rise that blocks the animals' view. A look at the plants shows they have not been browsed at all in several years. Elk don't feel safe here, Ripple contends, because they can't see what is going on all around and are nervous about spending time in this vicinity. Just 50 meters away, however, where the terrain is level and wide open and the elk enjoy a panoramic view, the willows are less than a meter tall and have been browsed much more heavily over the past three years. "It's the ecology of fear," Ripple says.

The Long Reach of the Wolf
~ Other changes accompany the regrowth of vegetation taking place along the Lamar. Just upstream is a small beaver dam, one of three--the first dams documented on the river in 50 years. Slough Creek, a tributary of the Lamar, has six dams. Both Ripple and Smith believe that because of the regrowth, beavers have something to eat again. "Their food caches are full of willow," Smith says. And other changes are in the offing. As more woody vegetation grows along the Lamar, it will stabilize the banks and stop some erosion. More vegetation, Ripple predicts, will also shade and cool the stream. It means, too, more woody debris in the Lamar, which will slow the river, cause water to pool, and improve the trout habitat, leading to more and bigger fish.

Although the scientific focus so far has been on vegetation, the wolf seems to have an incredibly long reach into other parts of the Yellowstone food web as well. One of its most dramatic effects has been on coyotes. For three years before the reintroduction of wolves, Robert Crabtree, now chief scientist at the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, a nonprofit organization based in Bozeman, Mont., and his wife, Jennifer Sheldon, who are both canid biologists, gathered baseline data on the park. Coyotes, they have found, have sacrificed a great deal to make room for the much larger wolves.

The number of coyotes in the park is down 50 percent and in core wolf areas has dropped 90 percent. Male coyotes are smaller than they were before the wolves arrived, perhaps, Crabtree says, because "the larger ones were more aggressive and challenged the wolves and lost." With fewer coyotes, their prey--voles, mice and other rodents--have exploded in number. That has benefited red fox and raptors. But red fox prey on songbirds as well, and more foxes could mean a greater toll on birds.

Wolves have also thrown the doors to the Yellowstone meat market wide open. Rarely do grizzly bears or cougars attack full-grown elk, although they eat calves or feed on the winter-killed carcasses. Wolves, on the other hand, pull down big ones all the time. After they eat their fill, they wander away, meat drunk, to sleep it off, or they get pushed off the kill by a grizzly. The presence of wolves has meant that much more meat is available on the ground. All manner of scavengers make a living on these carcasses, and an increase in numbers of everything from grizzly bears to magpies reflects these newfound riches. The largest number of ravens on a wolf kill ever recorded (135) was here. "We see bald eagles, golden eagles, coyotes, ravens and magpies on every kill that's made," Smith says. "I don't know what they did before wolves showed up."

But are wolves really the engine driving these changes? Most scientists think so. Smith says that "wolves are to Yellowstone what water is to the Everglades"--the primary force shaping the ecosystem. In Banff National Park in Canada, scientists have documented changes brought by wolves that returned on their own in the 1980s: willows reappeared, the diversity and abundance of songbirds doubled. Now researchers are coming to Yellowstone to tease out some of the first evidence of the impact that wolves are having on areas near the riverbanks; at least six projects are gathering data.

Some researchers, however, are agnostic about the effects of the wolf. Crabtree, for example, says that yes, willows are rebounding and imaging data show the regrowth dramatically. But a strong correlation between the return of wolves and the new growth is far from demonstrated. "Claiming wolves are responsible verges on bad science," he states. "The ecosystem in Yellowstone is a multicausal interactive system, and there's never a single cause. Even a predominant cause is rare. At the same time the wolf numbers were coming back, there was flooding along the river, and the climate is a lot warmer. Wolves probably have a role, but it is confounded by those factors. It will take 20 years or more before we know definitively."

Duncan Patten is a research ecologist who served on a National Academy of Sciences study of Yellowstone published in 2002. Yellowstone has not had a hard winter since wolves reached high levels, he observes, and elk may not have needed to resort to trees for food: "When winters are hard, elk take a lot of chances to put something in their belly. Give me two hard winters in a row, and I'll buy the argument."

The debate over the wolves' influence on the elk is fanning a long-standing argument over the proper way to manage Yellowstone's elk. At one time the park service also believed elk were too numerous and in the 1960s sent rangers to trap and shoot them by the thousands in a program called "direct reduction." By the end of the decade the total number of elk was down to an estimated 4,000. Public outcry ended the shooting, and in the 1970s the park service adopted a policy of natural regulation in wilderness parks such as Yellowstone, a management philosophy that would lift the heavy hand of humans and manage the parks as "vignettes of primitive America." Ever since, the elk numbers have climbed.

For decades now, critics, including the state of Montana, have denounced the National Park Service for allowing so many elk to crowd the vast stretch of native grasses. Letting nature take its course in what is a decidedly unnatural situation is folly, the critics argue. Few elk would spend the winter at such a high altitude, they add, if the animals could migrate onto the plains. Instead hunting pressure in the surrounding area compresses them into the park.

Some researchers assert that the return of vegetation along the riverbanks--brought on by a reduction in the number of elk--undermines the long-running contention of the park service that Yellowstone's elk population is within natural limits. But Smith defends the park's view and suggests that there are other ways to look at the situation. Elk numbers are going to fluctuate wildly over time, he says, and although numbers might have been, and still are, high, "they're within natural limits over the long term."

Countering this defense, Alston Chase, author of the 1986 book Playing God in Yellowstone, which was harshly critical of the policy of natural regulation, says for the park service to make such an argument is absurd. He found little evidence of large elk populations on the Yellowstone Plateau in the past. Between 1872 and 1920, he points out, the park was established, poaching was stamped out, the Native Americans were evicted, and the U.S. Biological Survey was killing wolves. That is when elk numbers started to soar--and it was a wholly unnatural irruption.

Unwitting Restoration Biologists
Although the jury is still deliberating the effects of wolves, early evidence strongly suggests that the canids are unwitting restoration biologists. By simply doing what they do--mainly preying on elk--they are visiting great changes on the Yellowstone ecosystem. Many of the changes are positive for those things humans value, and for experts to accomplish some of these same goals would be hugely expensive.

Wolves have brought other lessons with them. They dramatically illustrate the balance that top-of-the-food-chain predators maintain, underscoring what is missing in much of the country where predators have been eliminated. They are a parable for the unintended and unknown effects of how one action surges through an ecosystem. More important, the Yellowstone wolves are bringing into focus hazy ideas of how ecosystems work in a way that has never been so meticulously documented. Just as the actions of the wolf echo through Yellowstone, they will reverberate into the future as they help to increase the understanding of natural systems.

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