New Predator in Yellowstone Reshapes Park’s Entire Ecosystem (washingtonpost.com)

Nine years have elapsed since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imported 15 gray wolves from Canada to colonize Yellowstone, wolfless since 1926, when hunters finished exterminating them as unwelcome pests and dangerous predators.

Today, the park has 250 to 300 wolves, too many to track them all with radio collars. They are no longer classified as an endangered species, but are now “threatened,” and, if a dispute between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Wyoming is resolved, they may soon be “delisted” altogether, allowing carefully controlled hunting.

But, for scientists, this triumph is only the beginning. Wolves, it turns out, constitute a “keystone species” that is reshaping an entire ecosystem in ways not foreseen when researchers began a crossed-fingers experiment in wildlife preservation.

Compare the successful reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone with the difficulties near the Gila Wilderness, where local obstructionist hoodlums kill the Mexican gray wolves (los lobos). mjh

ABQjournal: Two Female Wolves Found Dead

Thirteen wolves have been found dead in Arizona and New Mexico since March 2003, some from gunshot wounds and auto collisions and others from still unknown causes.