Ten Years Of Wolves (The Kudzu Files)

Howling At A Waning Moon has the remarks of Rodger Schlickeisen, President of the Defenders Of Wildlife, at the National Press Club on December 14, 2004. Here's an excerpt, but I recommend you go read the entire article, regardless of where you stand on the issue of species reintroduction.

"On January 12, 1995, at approximately 8:30am, the gray wolf returned to Yellowstone after a forced absence of some 70 years. I was there and I remember the absolute joy and awe that we all felt as we embarked on this monumental undertaking. After years of legal wrangling and delays, the wolves were finally back and we, the same humans who had driven them from these lands decades ago, had made it happen. Ten years later, the skies of Yellowstone echo once again with the howl of wolves, a stirring reminder of what is perhaps this country's greatest wildlife conservation success story...

By the 1970s, after three centuries of extermination, the wolf was essentially eliminated from the wild everywhere in the contiguous United States except northeastern Minnesota.

Happily, today, wolves are making a comeback in the lower 48 states. Wolves are thriving in the Yellowstone ecosystem and Central Idaho following reintroduction, wolf populations have increased substantially in Minnesota, and wolves have recolonized parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Montana. Meanwhile, Fish and Wildlife Service reintroductions have also returned the Mexican gray wolf to Arizona and red wolves to North Carolina..."