Three years ago, a group of Gray Wolves was transported to Yellowstone National Park in an attempt to restore their dwindling populations and establish a balance in the Park’s ecosystem. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
“When the explorers Lewis and Clark first came across the country, nearly two hundred years ago, they found wolves tremendously abundant on the Great Plains.”
Dr. John Weaver is a research associate with the Wildlife Conservation Society.
“And over the course of time, with settlement and with the livestock industry out west, the wolves were systematically exterminated by trapping, shooting, poisoning. And in recent years, there’s been a change in our conservation conscience. People realize the role of predators in nature.”
In 1995, Government agencies launched a program to transport wolves from Canada to Yellowstone.
“And they released about thirty one wolves in Yellowstone Park and thirty five in Central Idaho. Those wolves have done incredibly well. There’s eight packs of wolves in Yellowstone Park and once again they’ve restored the missing link to that whole ecosystem.”
Wolves help control elk herds, which in turn aids in restoring species of plants that the elk graze upon. They also keep the numbers of coyotes down which helps restore populations of small mammals and the birds of prey which feed upon them. But not everyone has celebrated the return of the wolves to Yellowstone Park, and they’ve been the subject of a legal battle which continues to this day. On one side are groups wishing to see the species flourish in Yellowstone; on another are those who fear that an increased wolf population could prey upon herds of domestic cattle. A December 1997 ruling in favor of removing the wolves is still being appealed.
Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.