Still farther down the road, a magnificent bull elk, his antlers in velvet, serenely crops tender new four-inch grass shoots, severing them with a soft ripping sound. These questions lie at the heart of a contentious debate over how to manage Yellowstone, and, more broadly, over how people should relate to nature. The debate has crystallized around a policy known here as natural regulation. This is the 30th anniversary of its inception, and natural regulation has grown to encompass a broader reach than in 1968, when it was applied more narrowly to management of the park's famous elk population.
Natural regulation means different things to different people.
As applied to the elk herds, it means letting the size of the herds fluctuate naturally according to changes in climate, food supply and pressure from predators rather than trying to manage the herds' size by culling elk or propagating them artificially. Not even magnificent Yellowstone has escaped major effects of human impact. Civilization's inroads on Yellowstone come in many varieties. First, the park's boundaries have never enclosed the entire ecosystem. In making Yellowstone the world's first national park in 1872, Congress used the supposed boundaries of the park's famous geothermal features as a guide.