July 17, 2019
Living with Wolves brings Douglas W. Smith, Senior Wildlife Biologist with Yellowstone National Park, to tell the entire Yellowstone wolf story from reintroduction to the present. This recovery effort has been one of the highest profile wildlife conservation projects in the world and is now considered one of the most visible wolf populations and programs in the world. Told on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the reintroduction, he will talk about how wolves were reintroduced, how they have impacted elk and bison, the ecosystem, and how the human controversy continues to be the wolf’s biggest challenge.
Doug Smith supervises the wolf, bird and elk programs in Yellowstone National Park. His original job which he helped establish, was the Project Leader for the Yellowstone Wolf Project which involved the reintroduction and restoration of wolves to Yellowstone.
Doug received a B.S. degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Idaho in 1985. While working toward this degree he became involved with studies of wolves and moose on Isle Royale with Rolf Peterson, which led to long-term involvement (1979-1994) with this study as well as a M.S. degree in Biology at Michigan Technological University in 1988. He then moved to the University of Nevada, Reno where he received his PhD in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology in 1997 under Stephen H. Jenkins.
He has published a wide variety of journal articles and book chapters on beavers, wolves, and birds and co-authored three popular books on wolves (The Wolves of Yellowstone & Decade of the Wolf which won the 2005 Montana book award for best book published in Montana) as well as publishing numerous popular articles. His third book, Wolves on the Hunt, came out in May 2016 and his fourth book summarizing wolf restoration in Yellowstone is due out in a year. He has participated in numerous documentaries about wolves for National Geographic and British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and was recently featured on CBS 60 Minutes. He has done more than 2000 media interviews and speaks often about wolves to audiences all over the world and recently gave a TEDx talk on wolves. He is a member of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Team, the Re-Introduction Specialist Group, and Canid Specialist Group for the IUCN. Besides wolves, birds, elk, and beavers, he is an avid canoeist preferring to travel mostly in the remote regions of northern Canada with his wife Christine and their two sons Sawyer and Hawken.
