Yellowstone Wolves provides a unique perspective on what is one of the most visible and contentious wildlife management experiments taking place in the American West today. It is a review of the discovery, persecution, and possible survival of the native wolves of the northern Rocky Mountains of the United States; it is a detailed chronicle of the debate over the legality and propriety of introducing wolves from Canada into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho during the mid-1990s; and it is an account of the spread of the released Canadian wolves from Yellowstone and central Idaho into surrounding areas and the tensions created by these movements. Most of all, Yellowstone Wolves is a passionate and fact-filled illustration of the raging interplay that can develop among the many diverse interests that vest in experiments of this type. Insights gained from Yellowstone Wolves will be of value for dealing with innumerable other issues, environmental and beyond, where multiple perspectives converge, conflict, and demand and deserve sober, intelligent, and candid resolution.
Cat Urbigkit, an advocate for the conservation of what were presumed to be remaining populations of wolves native to the Yellowstone area, a newspaper reporter who covered the debate over wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone and central Idaho during and after the mid-1990s, and one of the litigants who sued the US Fish and Wildlife Service to prevent the introduction of Canadian wolves into the region, is uniquely qualified to provide an intensely personal perspective on, and detailed record about, the debate over the Canadian wolf release and the circumstances that subsequently developed.
The Foreword by Ronald M. Nowak provides authoritative context for understanding the broader significance of endangered species management and the record, and trends, of the United States in managing the nation s biological diversity and adhering to the mandates of the Endangered Species Act.
