Wayne Brewster - September 21, 2004
by Brian Coggan

     We met with Wayne Brewster on a hillside across from the Mammoth hot springs on the 21st of September. It was our first full day in Yellowstone and also our first rainless day in ten. Scattered clouds frequently obscured the sun and gave the cold wind a bite, but when it shone, our backs baked in the unfamiliar heat. Wayne was a wildlife biologist for Yellowstone National Park and wore the ubiquitous olive green uniform and the seemingly requisite park ranger mustache. Wayne had a Bachelors and Masters in wildlife and fisheries out of South Dakota. He worked with endangered species in Wyoming from 1979 until he came to Yellowstone in 1991 to participate in the wolf reintroduction.

     After handing out information on the wolf and bison populations in Yellowstone (including five sets of the 1600 page Bison Management plan), Wayne introduced the concept of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Even thought the Park contains 2.2 million acres, it is too small to encompass all ecological interactions of its organisms. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is an 18 million acre area of public lands that more accurately represent the full range of ecological interactions. It includes the public lands of three states and several national parks. Although this area represents a nearly contiguous ecosystem, arbitrary political boundaries complicate the management of Greater Yellowstone. The Park Service is committed to a natural management policy, where natural processes are allowed to take place (history has proved some inconsistencies in this policy). Wayne pointed out that this philosophy often conflicts with the utilitarian and agrarian American mentality of active management, where humans physically intervene in nature. For example, the Park allows the harsh Yellowstone winters to naturally limit bison and elk populations, but others may view the starvation of animals as a waste of resources. Another case in point is the presence of the bacteria brucellosis in Yellowstone bison. Brucellosis was eliminated from cattle and there is the very real fear that bison are a reservoir of brucellosis that could make the jump back to cattle. The Park Service, however, is unwilling to capture, test, and kill infected bison in part because of their commitment to natural management.

     Our voluble meeting with Wayne Brewster supported a common trend in the West: arbitrary political regulations and boundaries always play a large role in land management. The mix of scientific facts, political realities, and social sentiments always make issues more complicated than they appear.