According to the US National Park Service, Yellowstone is considered the largest concentration of mammals of any state in the US.
So, in the national park at one time or another, there are a huge number of predators, such as bears, coyotes, wolves and mountain lions. The life of these animals obeys certain cycles of migration, which are established by deer and elk living in the national park - the main source of food for predators. However, this year the cycle is broken for some reason and animals leave the volcano in thousands.
The Yellowstone elks leave the volcano in huge herds each year to find higher ground around Yellowstone National Park. This annual mass migration gives the wild inhabitants of Yellowstone the opportunity to kind of extend the spring and enjoy the fresh grass.
However, scientists have found that these centuries-old migration patterns have changed.
Gregory Rickbeil, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, says that biologists have all the data they need to track the movements of animals, such as signals from GPS sensors implanted in some individuals and satellite images.
In general, scientists track the migration of about 400 species inhabiting Yellowstone, but the most important of these species is the elk. Each spring, moose ascend to higher areas and return to the valleys and plains of Yellowstone by early fall.
However, this year, the animals began their migration much later, which scientists explain by climate change. A new study on the wildlife of the Yellowstone volcano to explain this phenomenon has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.
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Arthur Middleton, professor of wildlife management at Berkeley, said: "The decisions these animals make about when to migrate are absolutely dependent on changes in the landscape, that is, changes that are ultimately regulated by the climate."
“Now, based on these data and in the future, due to climate change, we should expect a change in the timing of the mass migrations of elk and deer, which, in turn, will affect other wild animals and even people who depend on them: predators, scavengers and hunters throughout the ecosystem."
Although elk migrate at different times of the year to better adapt to changing climates, migration can have a negative impact on Yellowstone as a whole.
Yellowstone moose are one of the most numerous populations - their number reaches about 20,000 individuals. These animals are responsible for the consumption of large amounts of native vegetation, but they are also the main food source for the Yellowstone predators. For example, the Yellowstone grizzly bears feed on young moose in the spring.
Professor Middleton says: “These moose eat a lot of things that grow in the park, but they themselves are also eaten by many people. Therefore, wherever these masses of hundreds or thousands of moose are located, they determine who will eat this season and who will not."
“Typically, this moose decision concerns the most sensitive populations of carnivores, such as grizzly bears or wolves. However, many people also earn money by hunting moose, so the changed time of migration has an impact on them as well.