The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone

"It has been sixty years, thirty wolf generations, since the last wolf pups were poisoned in the Yellowstone," writes McNamee. With the passage of time, the world is a safer place for the beleaguered wolf, so that, when the Interior Department conducted hearings on whether the wolf should be reintroduced to Yellowstone, some 160,000 letters came pouring in to Washington from across the country--the largest official citizen response to any federal action in history. Even so, the reintroduction effort was not without its divisive politics, and environmentalists squared off against so-called Wise Use movement activists in court and on the streets. Those political debates heated up even further when fewer than a dozen wolf individuals were finally released in Yellowstone National Park two years ago. McNamee tells this story knowingly--and very well.