Funny...my uncle from TX asked me what I thought about this very clip. Here is how I answered him in an email....
Good photography. Although I respect the narrators viewpoints (David Attenborough, I think), much of which may be true, there is a lot of underlying facts not told. The "deer" he refers to, mainly consist of elk.
Yellowstone was one of two of the last herds of elk left in the country at the turn of the century. It contained the only real herd of buffalo, as well. Virtually ALL the elk and buffalo that now exist in the lower 48, can be traced genetically to these herds. To save and grow these herds, the govt. eradicated wolves from the park.....it took the governments best trappers, at a time when they could use poisons on carcasses...40 years to do it. By mid-century, wolves were gone from Yellowstone. The herds rebounded. And, consequently, America's elk herds were replenished via transplants from these herds. Buffalo too, but their fate was more controlled by ranching, private property, etc. Buffalo are just mostly unmanageable, without killing them.
The Park's northern herd of elk, near Gardiner, where I live, hovered somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand animals.....surviving drought, harsh winters, and all the predators that existed already in the area (including some of the native Timberwolves, that were already coming back on their own...I saw one personally in the Park about 1980). Moose, mule deer, and antelope were plentiful as well. Grizzlies were also making a comeback of sorts.
The Federal Government, despite the concerns of locals that live around the Park, re-introduced Grey Wolves....a non-native species to the ecosystem here. It costs taxpayers millions of dollars.....and still does. By doing so, they also violated their own rules on many counts....that's another whole discussion. Now don't get me wrong, I like wolves. I just don't like how THESE wolves were shoved down our throats. Fast forward to today....not twenty years after the first wolves were brought to us from Canada.
The northern elk herd in Yellowstone has plummeted from 30 thousand to less than 5 thousand. Moose are very rare to see anymore, and largely non-existent....and by the way, this is not just happening in the park, but 60 miles north of it where I live, and a big chunk of Southwest MT, and also ID. Mule deer numbers are very low right now....to the point that hunting for does has been stopped pretty much statewide. There are still lots of coyotes. Lots.
I'm not saying that wolves are doing the killing firsthand...but they certainly are the straw that has broken the back of one of the key strongholds of ungulates in the country and surrounding areas. Lots of questions and cherry picking of facts...on both sides of this issue.....going on here. Here are a few more for you. Grizzly bear numbers have skyrocketed. They easily take over a wolf kill. Many don't even hibernate anymore....there is plenty of food for them all winter. Mt. Lions, which kill one deer/elk each week per cat....suffer the fate of having their kills taken by the wolves....and so they must kill even more. Wolves themselves have to kill more to make up for the bear takeovers. If one cat has to kill a deer or elk a week to survive, imagine what a pack of 20 wolves will kill, and then add in more to make up for the ones the bears take. I'm not sure about this number, but I think there are well over 70 or 80 packs of wolves. And by the way, hunters are no longer killing anything around the park...since numbers have plummeted so drastically. Whole economies built up around hunting elk on their yearly migrations are gone. Many of these are family businesses passed down for generations. Of course the "wolf watchers" are supplementing that somewhat....but the cost is greater than most of the country knows. Again....these are not even native wolves, but a much bigger, more aggressive species.
You can buy 5 wolf hunting tags in Montana. You can shoot them, or trap them. Pretty much the same thing in Idaho.....but we are not even putting a dent in the number of wolves. They just keep expanding their territories, way beyond what was ever envisioned. Initially the Feds wanted to establish 10 viable packs of wolves, and then de-list them. Again.....there are about 70 plus packs in the Yellowstone and surrounding areas.
There is a lot more to this issue. Personally, I think it's cool to hear a wolf howl. I also think they are one of the most amazing animals out there, and via their social nature, also at the top of the food chain. But putting wolves back into an ecosystem that was no longer "right" for it, was probably a mistake. We have squandered successful management that took decades...nearly a century really, and lost a whole lot for "wolf" sake. Sure there is a few more aspen trees....whoopee! Not enough to change a rivers course. The Yellowstone river this spring washed away an acre and a half of my property that we have been paying taxes on for nearly 40 years here....add that the 2 or 3 other acres we've lost since wolf re-introduction.....giant cottonwood trees, vegetation of any kind....anything in it's path, and all. There is no stopping a big river....so I'm not buying the premise of the film quite yet. Not enough time has passed, even at the rivers headwaters, where it is somewhat smaller.
Sorry for the diatribe....but be careful what you hear about this topic...either side of the issue. The truths lie somewhere in between. We will now have to deal with wolves on a big playing field for years to come, so that some New York or California yuppie can drive his family into Yellowstone and see a pack of them devouring an elk. Oh yeah.....too bad wolves don't kill and eat buffalo, much. The Park service will now be forced to kill about a thousand of them this winter, as
they have exceeded their carrying capacity. Be prepared to hear the eco's yell about that one soon!