Wolves: Bloodthirsty Menaces or Stewards of the Land?
Directed by Lachlan Gebhart
Middle School
Located in Wyoming, USA.
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” (John Muir, naturalist and conservationist)
What happens when a government and rancher-led campaign to eradicate wolves from Yellowstone National Park disrupts the park’s vast ecosystem? Starting in 1926 and for much of the 20th century, the absence of wolves caused Yellowstone’s natural environment to become increasingly unbalanced with animal overpopulation, forest overgrazing, and riverbank erosion. To reverse this destructive trend, wolves were carefully reintroduced to Yellowstone in the mid-1990s. Almost 30 years later, the wolf restoration project demonstrated that all Yellowstone species are critical for a balanced ecosystem and that humans must make thoughtful decisions surrounding nature.