Montana State University Books

The National Park Service (NPS) is mandated to preserve these parks for future generations as well as to manage them for the enjoyment of current generations. Sometimes there are trade-offs, and this book examines one: is Yellowstone managing its elk herd for the benefit of the ecosystem, to preserve the nature of the park for future generations, or to satisfy today's tourists with a picture of elk eating the lawn at Mammoth Hot Springs?

Hint: the elk are eating the lawn.

The NPS denies that anything is amiss, despite a long controversy in the literature over its policy of "natural regulation." Briefly put, the NPS maintains that there are not too many elk because they will be naturally limited by their food supply. Critics argue that, even if elk are eventually limited by their food supply, they will inflict serious damage on the ecosystem when they stabilize at a very high number.

In this book, Wagner provides a very thorough reassessment of the NPS position reflected in Douglas Houston's The Northern Yellowstone Elk: Ecology and Management (1982). Wagner acknowledges that elk population reached an equilibrium level, and that it seems to have been limited by its food supply. However, the equilibrium population was much larger than any of the advocates of natural regulation had expected, and it had much more serious ecological effects than advocates have been willing to admit.

Wagner convinced me - - but read both books and make up your own mind.

Unfortunately, Wagner is a hard book to read because it's written poorly. He does not organize material effectively. He leads with reevaluations of small points, builds to a larger conclusion in most chapters - - but some chapters don't really have a conclusion worthy of the name. Some chapters have introductions to the topic and controversy, others jump right in to the science. He really needed the strong hand of an editor here, someone who could force him to give the big picture first in each chapter, and then move to the scientific reasoning and evidence to back up that overall vision. It's a testament to the quality of the underlying science that this book persuades despite the poor presentation.

This custom edition for Montana State Univeristy ISBN 0-536-94302-8 only has about 600 pages, the book skipped UNIT 1,2,3 (missing chapters 2-21 or pages 27-435), also missing UNIT 6,7 (missing chapters 35-49 or pages 706-1071).
In other words, this custom edition (Montana State University version) only got 3 UNITS:
Unit 4 Mechanisms of Evolution (172 pages)
Unit 5 The Evolution History of Biological Diversity (196 pages)
Unit 8 Ecology (160 pages)
Real text only 528 pages, and about 600 pages with introduction and appendix. If you are buying this book for >$40, you are paying too much! (only 3 out of 8 units in this custom edition) So beware.

Not here yet so kinda hard to write a review on something that I do not have yet!