It takes so long to plan that we couldn't really not come. Keep in mind that Yellowstone has had firestorms over 10,000 years and has survived most of those without any help from man. About 270 elk died, but all of them in one spot, trapped by fire at a steep-walled canyon. Rangers say that loss, while not insignificant, was, nevertheless, small, considering the 30,000 animals that live on the park's 2.2 million acres. The moose-calf crop has declined since 1988, and the shy animals may require a regrown, older forest before their numbers return.
Rangers bet on the moose's return.
I know it looks thin in many areas, but this place will be again as it once was 40 years from now. The greater threat, he said, produces no smoke. This threat, found now in Yellowstone's lakes, along its hillsides and in its plant communities, are the non-native species brought in by fishermen or carried in by muddy shoes and boots. Lake trout, dumped illegally in Yellowstone Lake years ago, are eating the cutthroat trout, which for thousands of years provided food for park osprey, eagle, otters and bear. The face of the West is being changed by these exotics, Seibert said.