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Study: Climate threat to park
 By Sven Berg
Post Register
sberg@postregister.com
A study released Tuesday on the fate of Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding area doesn't mince words.
"Human disruption of the climate is the top threat to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem," the study's opening sentence declares.
Produced by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and Greater
Yellowstone Coalition, the study lists a wide range of negative results that could occur if its projections on continued rising temperatures come true. Among those results are devastated populations of plant and animal species, economic fallout for the region and a dire prediction that, unchecked, climate change could lead to a nearly 10-degree temperature increase during the next 90 years.
Already, some damage has been done to the Yellowstone ecosystem, according to the study. Between 2000 and 2010, the region's temperature increase of 1.4 degrees outstripped the global average of 1 degree.
One result of this warming, the study asserts, has been the decline of whitebark pine, a high-elevation tree common to Yellowstone.
Traditionally, cold winters have kept the whitebark's enemy, the mountain pine beetle, at bay. But as Yellowstone's weather has warmed, more beetles have been able to survive the winters and attack the whitebark stands, leading to severe declines in populations of the tree.
Some analysts and environmentalist groups have suggested that the loss of whitebark pine has led to an increase in conflicts between humans and grizzly bears, an animal known to feast on the whitebark's nuts.
As whitebark pine nuts grow harder to find, the theory goes, grizzlies wander out of the high elevations in search of new food sources. That behavior gives them greater odds of encountering humans, who tend to congregate at lower elevations.
"As the trees have died and the cones and their seeds have become more scarce, I think it stands to reason that (bears) are down in lower elevations searching for food," said Scott Christensen, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition's climate change program director. "That needs to be studied more, I think, but it does stand to reason."
Gregg Losinski, a grizzly bear information and education specialist based in Idaho, agreed that the theory linking the whitebark decline to bear-human conflicts needs to be studied more before it can be considered valid. No hard evidence, only speculation, makes that correlation, he said.
"That's the part that is purely speculation. The way it works for bears is they're opportunistic, so if there is something there, they're going to eat it," Losinski said. "Bears are incredible omnivores, and that jump between whitebark pine being in trouble and bears getting in trouble is not as clear-cut as some of these groups are making it."
If there is a rising incidence of human-bear conflict, Losinski said, it likely has as much to do with successful efforts to revive grizzly bear populations. More bears means more contact with hikers, hunters and other humans, he said.
Besides working to reverse the warming trend in Yellowstone and globally, Christensen said, efforts should be made to ease climate change's effect on the park's plant and animal species. They include restoration of degraded habitat and ensuring ample opportunity for wildlife to move around the region and adapt to changing conditions.
Given the future's unpredictability, Christensen said, neither the Greater Yellowstone Coalition nor the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization is "married" to the study's findings. He said he hopes that climate change's already realized damage in Yellowstone will highlight the need to address the issue.
"There's an incredible opportunity here to make climate change real for people," he said. "Yellowstone, for that reason, is a really, really important place."
Comment on this story at Post Talk, www.postregister.com/posttalk.
Extra insight
Aug. 30: "Yellowstone Park revisits bear safety efforts"
tinyurl.com/bear-safety.
See it for yourself
Check out the study produced by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization by visiting the website www.greateryellowstone.org/climatechange.
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Sven Berg
Post Register
(208) 317-6711
Twitter: @svenerikberg
Post Register: More than 70,000 daily readers.
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