What can the wolves of Yellowstone National Park tells us about culture and God?

          In the 1920s and ’30s riverside cottonwoods, willows, and aspens began to disappear from Yellowstone National Park. The Park Service started asking why. The answer would come some seventy years later.

           In the mid-1920s, the National Park Service eliminated all the wolves in and around Yellowstone. It was not until the late 1990s when the Park Service returned the wolves to the park in a restoration project that the magic and mystery of the wolf’s howl was heard there again.

            Strangely enough the willows, cottonwoods, and aspens began growing again. Several study on the wolves of Yellowstone released since 2003 show why. (Here is link to one of the more recent studies).

            With the absence of wolves, elk roamed and grazed where they pleased. They gathered by streams and ate the young trees before they had a chance to grow. When the wolves arrived they no longer let the elk linger by the streams and the trees were able to grow. This is now bringing more trout to the streams, more migratory birds, and even more beavers.

           Yellowstone’s ecosystem is God’s design. It’s complex and the wolf plays an important part. Further studies show that many factors work together for God’s design their to truly work as it should.

            When we pay attention to the things of nature we can learn about our own culture. God’s design for culture is under fire. Today’s culture seeks to remove key elements such as God, morality, traditional marriage, Judeo-Christian ethics and integrity. Instead we see immorality, divorce, alcohol abuse, corruption, greed, and other sins. Metaphorically speaking, the “aspens and willows” of our culture suffer because of these sins. As a result many long-term repercussions will follow.

            Not only is this true on the cultural scale, but on the individual scale as well. Many Christians have lost morality, Judeo-Christian ethics, and integrity in their own lives. Sadly many bring the value collapse of our culture home. The “willows” in the lives of many believers are suffering. In a sense we must each ask ourselves the questions, “How are my willows doing?” “Are there any trout in my streams?” Or in other words, “What is the spiritual fruit in my life?” “How is my life affecting my Spouse, children and the others around me?” We need to live by God’s Word and His ways. Maybe then our “willows” will grow again.

            Let save our culture and learn from the wolves of Yellowstone