A few weeks ago, I visited Yellowstone Park with my videographer friend John. John is working on a documentary film about the gray wolf. Living here in the West and specifically in the Northern Rocky Mountains, the issue of the wolf is extremely controversial. Wolves disappeared (were killed) in the Lower Forty-Eight in the 1920s. In the mid-1990s, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Park and Central Idaho. Today, the wolf is surviving – and some claim thriving.

The controversy is straightforward. Are wolves a good part of nature and the ecology as a whole, or are they a menace threatening livestock, game animals, and even man?

My opinion has been formed from the work John has been doing. The bottom line is it’s complicated. It’s not black and white – good or bad – wolves do well in the wild but need to be managed when their hunting territories overlap with people and civilization.

Here are some of my findings and thoughts about the wolf.

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