Imagine the world without a lot of animals. The elk almost died out, but fortunately, Great Smoky Mountains National Park saved it. In this essay, we will be talking about why people are bringing elk back to national parks.
The national parks have been doing well, especially the wolves and elks. However, years ago, the elk and the wolves were endangered. Elk were endangered because of human activities. There are so many human activities that there is no place for the elk to live. The people tried to solve the problem. They are bringing the elks back to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Right now, they are doing well, because they canceled a lot of human activities. The elk’s population has grown.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park would not be as good as before if there were no animals. If there were no elk in the Great Smoky Mountains, the food chain would not be balanced. Predators of the elk would not have any food to eat. Animals will just eat each other. The animals in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park would be gone. The return of the elk saved the animals in the Great Smoky Mountains.
How would it be like if the trees were all dead? What would Great Smoky Mountains be like if the ecosystem was not balanced? Would it be good if the food chain is not balanced? People are bringing back the animals to make the ecosystem balanced. If there is no elk, the trees would be dead. This is because the elk could munch on the trees and bushes which allow sunlight to reach the smaller trees. The small creatures would have shelter and a place to hide. The return of the elk is very important to the ecosystem.
Researchers tracked the elk’s growth. The results were very impressive. In the first year, there were eleven elk calves. Eight elk calves survived. The other three calves were eaten by the bear. That causes the food chain to be balanced. In Yellowstone National Park, the gray wolves completely disappeared in the 1970s. That causes too many coyotes and elks. Twenty-five years later, when people brought back the wolves, the ecosystem became balanced. Bringing a new species to a new place may be very risky. The new species may be invasive to other plants and animals. However, bringing elk to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and bringing wolves back to the Yellowstone National Park had proved no problem.
If there was no elk, the ecosystem and the food chain would not be balanced. Another example of how the return of an animal could help the ecosystem is that the gray wolves were also endangered, and they brought it to the Yellowstone National Park. The gray wolves also helped the food chain to be balanced.
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