Well most ecosystems are best when they're balanced.
And I think it's safe to say that Yellowstone
without wolves and other carnivores...
Now keep in mind cougars were also eliminated
and they came back on their own.
And bear numbers declined,
and that affected the balance of the ecosystem.
And so ecologists refer to this as biodiversity.
But emphasize the word diverse.
Having a lot of different kinds of things
at moderate numbers
is better than having a lot of any one thing.
And prior to wolf recovery, we had a lot of elk.
We had a lot of coyotes, and we had very little things
like Willow and Aspen and songbirds and beavers.
And so the entry of wolves, and other carnivores,
'cause bears have increased and cougars have come back too,
so now we're a carnivore-rich system,
and we've restored that top layer of the system.
So really the simplest way to look at it is
all the parts of the system now are in place,
and they're interacting differently.
And I hesitate to use a value-judgement-laden word,
but it's healthier this way than we had
certain parts of the system before that were absent.
So all those things functioning together
has made nature look like it used to.
Before we started managing it.
And those management intentions were good.
We just didn't know enough about it.
And so we have this makeover in Yellowstone now.
We've brought carnivores back.
Wolves being the most high profile,
and it's changed the way Yellowstone looks.