Description:
The behavior of carnivores in ecosystems can reveal a great deal of information about not only animals and their prey, but also the habitats themselves. When carnivores begin to disappear, biologists have observed, ecosystems tend to deteriorate, the victims of a natural imbalance. Such was the case in the Yellowstone ecosystem of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, where a federal program of predator control resulted in the extermination of the wolf, lynx, grizzly bear, and other mammals; with their disappearance came a rise in ungulate populations, which in turn taxed the resources of the area beyond their capacity. Soon after the reintroduction of the wolf and grizzly bear in Yellowstone, a conference of biologists and wildlife managers met to study the ecosystemic effects of these predators. The results of that conference are published in this volume, a collection of scholarly papers that address the essential role of predators to a well-functioning environment. The reintroduction, the contributors note, was not without controversy: local ranchers opposed the presence of predators whose populations their forebears had fought hard to remove. The contributors acknowledge that the reintroduction increases the odds of predation on livestock--and of encounters between humans and potentially dangerous animals in the heavily visited national park area. Even so, they add, the park is indisputably healthier for the presence of the carnivores. Students of conservation biology and natural-resource management will find much of use in these clearly written, thoughtful essays. --Gregory McNamee
| 
