The post office here is now open, and my amazon order arrived.  I’m barely two chapters into Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone and already know that learning as much as I can about the wolves here will be part of my summer.  Their life style and their impact on the ecosystem is amazing.

“To return the animal that was for thousands of years top predator of the Yellowstone landscape is to change nearly everything about the place….many of the park’s elk herds, for example–the primary prey species for these wolves–now face an additional risk of predation.  As a result, in some places, these elk have changed their behavior–moving away from certain feeding areas along park streams and rivers that have poor visibility.  Preliminary research suggests that such movements are allowing willow, cottonwood shoots and other vegatation to be “released” flourishing where they haven’t for decades.  With the return of such plants have come beaver, and , with the construction of beaver dams, a loose toss of back channels and still ponds perfect for muskrat, amphibians, fish, waterfowl and even songbirds like yellow and Wilson’s warblers.”

You come face to face with the idea that there are always unforeseen consequences, and benefits, to any action.  The fires, of course, are the other “big thing” that’s happened here….but more to come about that.

That paragraph made we think of this quote, which hung on my office desk for the past year and now hangs on my refrigerator at home

“When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days of the friends and colleagues I left behind;  I hope they find their open doors in the days ahead.