The Cost of the Wild: Restoring an Ecosystem to Primitive Grandeur Is No Simple Matter in a Complex World
It was a National Geographic day that I never thought I’d experience. I was in Yellowstone National Park on a course run jointly by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Yellowstone Association looking at controversies surrounding the park. I expected it would be great, but I never expected what happened on our fourth day.
Some of us diehard naturalists decided to abandon our “day off” to go back to Lamar Valley in the northeast corner of Yellowstone hoping to see the grizzlies and wolves that had so far been elusive. With only about 100 wolves in the park, seeing one was a matter of good luck and knowledge. One of our excellent instructors, Brad Bulin, knew that a bison had been killed in the valley the day before and hoped we would find wolves at the carcass.
When we arrived, the wolf researchers who were already there told us that the Lamar Canyon Pack was on the carcass near dawn. They had chased off a grizzly and then killed a wolf from another pack that dared to eat from their carcass. The wolf’s body was out of sight from the road but not far away. The pack was back on the carcass, strutting and gorging, and generally feeling their power and their full bellies.
The wolves were beautiful—some gray with black and bits of brown, a few pure black, one nearly white. Brad told us it was a strong pack formed a few years earlier by the alpha female and a pair of brothers she had teamed up with. Now they were eight strong, with at least four pups in a nearby den. The two- and three-year-old youngsters were already good hunters. They were a powerful group.