|
When the wolf is at the door (continued)
The MSU/Yellowstone connection
Even after nearly two decades within the 2 million wild acres that compose Yellowstone, Garrott remains in awe of the landscape, and the species and organisms that still exist as they did before European settlement.
That Garrott feels this way is not insignificant. He has traveled the world studying mammals in extreme environments -- feral horses in the western U.S., the ecology of arctic foxes in northern Alaska, mule deer spatial dynamics in Colorado and Weddell seals in Antarctica.
It is from this perspective that Garrott emphasizes the importance of MSU's location in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem to the project's success.
"One of the things that universities can really do well is contribute to understanding the ecology with long-term studies," Garrott said. "One of the things that MSU can really do well is contributing to the understanding of ecology in the Greater Yellowstone, because it's out our back door."
Garrott believes MSU's long, careful work in Yellowstone will have big implications in helping science understand eco-relationships universally.
"The ecological processes that we study in a place like Yellowstone are operating everywhere," Garrott said. "All of this Yellowstone science, this large case study, contributes to understanding basic ecological processes across the globe."
 |
| Shana Dunkley and Johnathan Felis cross Yellowstone's Gibbon River to conduct a necropsy on an elk carcass on the far bank. Members of MSU's Yellowstone team hike 500 miles in one winter season. |
See the Web Exclusive: Winter of Wolves: A Photographer's Journal
> Spring 2008 Contents
|
Email this article
