Yellowstones Northern Range PDF Download

Humans have continuously inhabited the Northern Yellowstone Range (hereafter referred to as the Northern Range1) inside and outside Yellowstone National Park (YNP) for at least 11,000 years.2-5 Across these many years, humans have actively used, abused, and conserved the natural resources of the Northern Range. Human actions helped shape the vegetation and wildlife present on the Northern Range from prehistoric times to present day. Many contemporary Americans have misunderstood the Northern Range, especially the portion inside YNP, to have been an untouched wilderness when YNP was created in 1872. However, the land and wildlife of the Northern Range have been actively and purposely affected by Native Americans for thousands of years. Euro-American expansion in the late 1800s displaced Native Americans from the Northern Range and limited their ability to continue predating wild ungulates and burning the forests and rangelands. Since 1872, land managers inside and outside YNP have discounted or misunderstood the ecological importance of Native American actions. Because Native Americans actively shaped their environment, and because their actions have been largely ignored, minimized, or eliminated during the past 146 years, the ecological health of the Northern Range today differs dramatically from the primeval Northern Range. In this paper, we explore the prehistoric and historical role of humans in the ecology of the Northern Range. We begin with a historical examination of Native American impacts to better understand how the ecosystem has changed through time and how minimizing the role of burning and hunting by Native Americans has created unintended and undesirable outcomes. We then explore historical impacts by Euro-American fur trappers, miners, ranchers, and tourists. Next, we examine the history of management inside YNP and how implementation of modern-day management has had unintended consequences for the people and natural resources of the Northern Range. We conclude with several recommendations for future actions to improve natural resource stewardship of the Northern Range.