For the mini this week, I'm going with the first
article I pulled up. It's a German article, so
I'm reading this from the Google Translate. I
was really hoping you were gonna do it in German.
Yep. And it's from bootjespleen .ml. Maybe it's
from the Netherlands. Maybe it's Dane, what did,
oh no, what do they speak there? Dutch. Dutch.
I think that's Netherlands. It could be Newfoundland,
who knows? I understand them about the same anyway.
This article is titled Yellowstone's Aspen trees
are blooming again thanks to the reintroduction
of wolves. And this is by editorial team. October
25th 2025 5 11 p .m. In case you're wondering
what time. We're always so worried about the
time. I know. It is missing on most articles
I would say. When the wolves returned everything
changed. Today the slime Under white trunks rise
again along streams and meadows. There leaves
a symbol of recovery. What changed wasn't the
number of elk, but the way the entire ecosystem
moves. Again, this is Google Translate. That
morning, the fog hung slowly over the Lamar Valley,
like a curtain that refuses to leave the scene.
Elk lurked in the sagebrush, alert, listening.
A faint howl rolled from the hills. I hope this
isn't an AI trick again. Just wait until the
whales show up when the changes do. Then faded
again, like a memory you can't hold on to. Near
the river I brushed past a stand of young aspens.
Their bark was still marked with old bite marks,
but their crowns already reached above my shoulder.
A ranger whispered that five years earlier another...
Why did he whisper? I don't know! It seems rather
intimate. This is like Dear Man from Central
Alberta all over again. He took off his hat to
show off his beautiful rack. My pigs! A ranger
whispered, five years earlier, nothing had survived
the snow line here. Now the light looked different.
dappled, layered alive. The river even sounded
different, softer under the new canopy. The wolves
were nowhere to be seen, but their presence was
palpable everywhere. Oh, this is a sex scene.
What I do on the internet is what I wonder. Walk
along a Yellowstone stream today and you'll clearly
see the boundary between past and present. The
ancient Aspens stand pale and scared, their lower
branches stripped bare by decades of hungry elk.
Behind them, young growth grows in dense clusters,
taller than a man and filled with life where
emptiness once reigned. The elk still graze,
but they no longer linger on the open plains.
Fear is a silent architect. horses' herds to
move, seeking shelter and leaving space for young
trees to grow above the feeding zone. One afternoon
at Slough Creek, a conservationist showed me
a marked out grassland. In 2010, nearly every
aspen shoot here had been nibbled down to knee
high. Do you understand what's happening? The
wolves are scaring off the elk so they don't
eat the saplings so new trees are coming up.
Okay, is this how they talk in the Netherlands?
That's how they whisper to each other, yes. Okay.
This summer, saplings towered more than six feet
above the ground. Beaver dams returned, muddy
piles that hold water well into August. And with
the shade came sound, songbirds filling the air,
woodpeckers tapping like tiny carpenters, swallows
carving graceful curves. In some areas, the number
of aspen trunks growing tall enough to escape
grazing has increased several times since the
return of the wolves in the 1990s. See, I was
thinking that it was was because the wolves were
biting the trees. Yeah, they kind of let that
on initially. But yours makes more sense. I know
the story of the wolves being reintroduced to
Yellowstone. It's like a very famous reintroduction
success story. So I kind of assumed that's where
they were going. Was it scaring off the elk?
Maybe we're losing some stuff in translation.
Ecologists? Oh, we're not. Okay. Ecologists call
this a trophic cascade, but it feels more human.
cause and effect, action and echo. Wolves changed
the moose's behavior. That changed the plants.
The plants reshaped the water. The water attracted
beavers, and beavers reshaped the valleys. Wolves
weren't the only cause. Harsh winters, drought,
and human hunting outside the park also played
a role, but the reintroduction restored a missing
link, and the system found its equilibrium. Stand
in the wet grass, watch a moose hesitate at the
edge of the willows. That's how trees seize off
opportunities. I was gonna end it there, but
I think this might be an important part for everybody
listening. How to recognize Aspen recovery yourself.
Start with height. If Aspen leaves grow above
your chest, out of reach of a moose, you're seeing
recovery. I think moose are a little bigger than
that. Follow the steam banks in the early morning
or evening light. The stream banks, sorry, that
makes more sense than steam paints. where moose
decide where to stay. Look for pale trunks among
willows and alders. Step back and observe. If
the lower branches are bare, but the tops are
full and green, that's progress. Note how many
trunks reach above shoulder height. That's how
rangers do it, only without the clipboard. Everyone
knows that feeling when a wild landscape seems
too vast to grasp. Slowing down helps. Let small
signals speak for themselves. Keep your distance
from animals. Use binoculars. Wind direction
is important. If moose smell you, they'll disappear.
Light also changes the story. Bright midday sun
obscures feeding marks that become visible in
the evening light. Try it, and the landscape
will begin to reveal its secrets. Okay. Yeah,
I guess that is a good spot to end it. I would
also like to weirdly point out, I feel like our
last Christmas episode. Oh right, this was Christmas.
We let in with a fringy mini about the whale
that dropped itself down Mountains in Colorado,
too. Right. And you know what? I feel like this
is a real missed opportunity because nobody's
been picking my category of feeling like a Christmas
Minnie. I feel like someone would have picked
it. Yet here we are. I picked one for us. Maybe
another day. Hey, maybe in 48 hours we pick it.
You never know. I mean, I have this full script
right in front of me ready to go, but we never
know. You never know. There's a whole 48 hours
between now and then. Stay on that edge of your
seat until then and we'll find out. Okay, bye.
Bye.