Because it is so dammed hard to put all the "cogs and wheels" back into our natural landscapes, when William Ripple and John Laundre came out with their theory titled: A LANDSCAPE OF FEAR, many of us concerned about rewilding our Continent took heart in the "fact" that large carnivores have a "top down" trophic impact on all prey species which helps to keep the balance of nature functioning in an optimum way...............We have also learned well the fact that "bottom up" trophic influences(weather, plant assemblages, etc) have a very real impact in sustaining the balance of natural systems.............There are competing theories now about how much direct impact any one creature(the wolf in this case) has in optimizing ecosystem equilibrium..........Whether Dr. Middleton of Yale's School of Forestry is absolutely correct in his analysis of wolf impact on plant systems in Yellowstone or not, I think that we can all agree that reinserting the "cogs" that we removed from our great land over the past 500 years can only benefit all of natures design(including man) over the millenia ahead.............The larger and more diverse the natural gene pool, the higher the probability that we can benefit(medicine, technology, air, water, food, tranquility, art, restoration) from the never ending possibilities that the natural world has to offer

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Is the Wolf a Real American Hero? BY ARTHUR MIDDLETON How an ecological myth obscures the story of Yellowstone.

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES (PEER REVIEWED) REGARDING WOLVES AND THEIR IMPACTS
ON  PREY AND PLANT SPECIES

http://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/callan_ramana_201012_phd.pdf

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/09-1949.1#.Ux4o5tVXchs.email