The Enemy of My Enemy

In Yellowstone, where wolves prosper, so do pronghorns

• Hannah Schardt
• Jun 01, 2008

IT’S A SURPRISING twist on the predator-prey relationship: Since wolves were reintroduced to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in 1995, the population of pronghorns has increased by 50 percent. A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society finds that more than one-third of pronghorn fawns survived their first summer in areas where wolves were abundant; only 10 percent survived where there were none. That’s because wolves force out (and sometimes kill) coyotes, which prey far more voraciously on pronghorn fawns than wolves do.