Gray wolves feed the masses while hunters feed the few
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) and human hunters both provide resource
subsidies to scavengers in Yellowstone National Park, USA, by provisioning
them with the remains of their kills. Carrion from wolf versus hunter
kills is much more dispersed in both time and space.
In the November issue
of Ecology Letters, scientists from Berkeley and Yellowstone estimated the
total amount of carrion consumed over a four year period by scavengers at
both wolf and hunter kills.
Highly mobile individuals such as bald eagles and ravens dominated
consumption at hunter kills while competitively dominant but less mobile
coyotes dominated at wolf kills. More importantly, a great diversity of
species were found at wolf than hunter kills implying that wolves much
more than hunters promote ecosystem diversity and, ultimately, the overall
health of the Yellowstone ecosystem.