LESSONS FROM THE WILD LAB

摘要

Just before dawn on an icy January morning, Doug Smith skied off a main trail and headed toward a branch of Blacktail Deer Creek, pushing into thickets of willow, aspen, and wild rose. I followed, picking my way through the bare branches. They arched above our heads, and we didn't see the female moose until she burst from cover on the far side of the stream. She trotted smartly up a hill, then looked back to study us. "That's a first," said Smith, a park wildlife biologist and the leader of its wolf, elk, and beaver projects. "I've never seen moose here. It used to be all elk." He stopped to show me where a nibbling moose, perhaps the cow we'd startled, had trimmed a few willows. "That kind of browsing is actually good for the willows; it stimulates new growth," he said. "Elk, though, eat willows almost to the ground."