A Delicate Balance

The word 'ecology' is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as 'the complex of relations between a specific organism and its environment."  Because so many species are dependent on other species for their survival or cooperate with each other you never know what will happen when you remove one species from the equation. You can go to my 'Mutual Admiration Society' post for some examples of inter-species cooperation.  There has been a lot of discussion about whether wolves should be on the endangered list or not.  After they were introduced in a couple of areas research showed an interesting result - the relationship between wolves, pronghorns, and coyotes.

Wolf  Source:  Wikipedia

Pronghorn antelope  Source:  Wikipedia

Coyote  Source:  Wikipedia

As it turns out, coyotes are major predators of pronghorn fawns, but when wolves are present, more fawns survive!  Pronghorn fawns are just too small for the wolves to bother with, but coyotes avoid areas where there are wolves.  Since wolves have been introduced to both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, the number of pronghorns in the parks, which was on the decline and feared to become almost nonexistent, has nearly doubled.  This result is probably the opposite of what might be expected.  Even though they are cousins, the larger wolves help keep the number of coyotes in check.

Good news for the pronghorns in these areas!  Protecting wolves also helps protect the pronghorn.