These days, when you lace up your hiking boots to explore Yellowstone National Park, you might be as excited about the possibility of spotting a wolf in the wild as you are about seeing an erupting hot spring.
Wolf reintroduction programs such as those that have taken place in Yellowstone and more recently in Colorado are based on the premise that the eradication of large predators fundamentally imbalances ecosystems – something no one denies. However, they're also predicated on the belief that restoring populations of wolves and grizzly bears will return those ecosystems to a state of harmony, and new research suggests that may not be so easy.
