Wikipedia
Around the Grand Loop Road loom the vistas, the sights and sounds and smells that bring the world flocking to Yellowstone: Mammoth Hot Springs’ amazing mineral formations; Roaring Mountain’s steaming fumaroles; Fountain Paint Pot’s bubbling cauldron of reddish mud; the delicate, brightly colored terraces of Grand Prismatic Spring; and the all-time favorites— the waterspouts of the Upper Geyser Basin, capped by Old Faithful. These features, together with the spectacular beauty of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the abundant wildlife, supported the area’s designation in 1872 as the world’s first national park. Since then, it has developed into an important wildlife haven.
Beyond the Grand Loop, off in the northeast corner of the park, the landscape mellows. Here in the Lamar Valley, long celebrated for its mountainous beauty, a new excitement stirs. In the winter of 1994-95, gray wolves howled in the valley, a milestone in the long campaign to restore a natural balance to Yellowstone’s web of life.
The valley has witnessed other efforts in that campaign. Early in the century, after a historic slaughter had all but doomed the nation’s bison, the park established Buffalo Ranch here to preserve a remnant herd. In the 1960s, faced with swelling elk herds, rangers corralled elk in the Lamar and trucked them off to distant ranges, or gunned them down. Part of the elk problem was that the park had achieved its goal of eliminating all wolves by the 1930s.
A half century later, Yellowstone was struggling to reverse that goal. America now cherished its imperiled species, the wolf among them. Wildlife advocates lamented this major blank spot in the assemblage of the nation’s first national park. Mountain lions roam Yellowstone. Grizzlies, with a troubled history, total 250 or more. Bison number about 3,500. Some 38,000 elk, in nine herds, seek summer graze in Yellowstone.
“We have waited 60 years for this,” said a park official, as 14 wolves in three packs, imported from Canada, settled into the wintry Lamar. If the recovery goes as planned, the wolf population may grow to 150 or 175 animals in ten or twelve packs. This could produce a significant impact on prey animals. Ranchers, concerned that Yellowstone wolves might leave the park and prey on livestock, remain opposed to the program.
As this effort progressed, Yellowstone confronted a new wildlife threat from an unexpected quarter. In 1994 a ten-year-old girl caught a 16-inch fish on Yellowstone Lake. Her guide took one look and quickly called for a lake ranger. The youngster had landed a lake trout, an exotic. Later four others turned up. Lakers dwell in park lakes just a few miles away—but across the Continental Divide from Yellowstone Lake. A natural migration seemed impossible; a mischievous transplanting seemed likely. Experts warn that an uncontrolled lake trout population could eventually eliminate 90 percent of the native cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake—a reverberating disaster.
Grizzlies gorge on spawning cutthroats. Mink and otters eat cutthroats. Nesting eagles and ospreys and white pelicans consume tons of fish. Lake trout spawn deep, swim deep; they cannot provide a viable option. Strong measures to eliminate or suppress the invaders may give the natives a fighting chance to maintain their numbers and thus stave off a severe ecological upheaval.
