When the Wolves Returned: Restoring Nature's Balance in Yellowstone (review)

This carefully crafted natural history documents the important role of the wolf in the Yellowstone National Park ecosystem. Veteran biology writer Patent concisely chronicles the history of Yellowstone and the myriad effects caused by the eradication of its wolf population in the early twentieth century. The elk population then expanded and caused stress on the local flora, with resultant reduction of birds and animals dependent on the trees; coyotes, no longer having to compete with wolves, began to overfeed on the pronghorn population and shoulder out smaller predators like foxes. The book then describes the beneficial effects of the return of the wolves, including the movement of the elk away from the most vulnerable foliage and the tendency of wolves to leave scraps of their kills that then feed desirable scavenger species. Though a couple of questions are left unanswered, the argument is clearly and convincingly compiled, with simplified single-sentence distillations of the larger text helpfully offering even briefer summations for the paragraph-intimidated. The pictures don't have the clarity of portraiture found in the photographs of William Muñoz, Patent's best-known partner, but they offer an impressive gallery of Yellowstone inhabitants, providing silent testimony to the diversity of the population there. Add this to an ecology unit for a comprehensible, focused picture of the delicate interworkings of Mother Nature. An index and a list of kid-accessible resources are appended, as is a brief photo quiz about the material covered in the text.