Wolves Might Have Saved Yellowstone’s Aspen From Elk, But Now Bison Are Eating It

Wolves played a key role in helping aspen trees recover in Yellowstone National Park after decades of heavy browsing by elk, researchers say. Now bison might be pushing back on the aspen recovery.

Like the elk before them, bison like to gobble aspen saplings. The lumbering bison also sometimes knock over aspen trees, Luke Painter, an ecologist at Oregon State University, told Cowboy State Daily.

Painter is the lead author of a recently-published study crediting wolves with a notable comeback of aspen trees in northern Yellowstone.

Even so, he doesn’t think that bison pose an existential threat to aspen on the scale that pre-wolf elk herds did.

While some Yellowstone wolves are getting better at hunting bison , Painter doesn’t think they’re capable of putting a serious dent in th