Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?
APEX PREDATOR A gray wolf watches biologists in Yellowstone National Park, shortly after they fitted it with a tracking collar. The photo dates to 2003, 9 years after wolves were first re-introduced to the U.S. Northern Rockies. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service The story goes something like this: Once upon a time, we exterminated the wolves from the Rocky Mountain West, including the part that would become Yellowstone National Park. We thought this was a good idea because wolves frightened us, and also because they ate the domestic livestock we liked a lot more. But then interest in environmental conservation took hold. Scientists discovered that without wolves present in Yellowstone to hunt and kill prey, the elk population grew so large it ate up all the young willow trees until there were none. This affected the habitat of many other animals and plants in harmful ways and the ecosystem became unbalanced. Or, as science puts it, we caused a harmful “top-down trophic cascade...
