He said he was surprised by how few studies show evidence of wolves, bears, and cougars having an effect on elk, moose, and deer populations. Instead, the biggest driver of changing elk population numbers across the West is humanity.
“In most mainland systems, it’s only when you combine wolves with grizzly bears and you take away human hunting as a substantial component that you see them suppressing prey numbers,” Wilmers said. “Outside of that, they’re mostly background noise against how humans are managing their prey populations.”
In some studies, ungulate populations actually increased slightly in the presence of wolves and grizzlies, Wilmers said, likely because human wildlife managers overestimated
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