Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Alcock, Frank

Area of Concentration

Environmental Studies

Abstract

This paper examines the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park by breaking the topic into several sections. It begins with an introduction and a history and timeline section, which provide background on wolf eradication and the events leading up to their reintroduction in 1995–1996. The paper then moves into legal sections, including discussions of the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Impact Statement, and key court cases, explaining how policy and law made the reintroduction possible and continue to shape wolf management. Ecological impacts are explored in sections focused on animal populations and behavior, waterways, and plant communities, highlighting how wolves have influenced the ecosystem in multiple ways, bringing up topics like the trophic cascade. Additional sections address livestock and human safety concerns, showing the social and economic challenges tied to wolf recovery. Together, these sections demonstrate that the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction is not just an ecological story, but a complex issue shaped by history, law, science, and human perspectives. This paper was not written to discover new information, but to rather put many different types and perspectives of information into one area so that information is more readily available.

Rights

The author has granted New College of Florida the nonexclusive right to archive, make accessible, and distribute for educational purposes this work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The copyright of this work remains with the author.

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