Mary Ellen Hannibal's Why The Beaver Should Thank The Wolf

When it comes to the ecosystems that makes up our world today, many believe that the predators are the issue. The balance between the predators and the prey is more than defiantly unbalanced in the human eye, with the predators at the high end and the prey at the low. But, what would happen if someone changes the view of the people and make them realize that the unbalance is balanced? That we need the predators as much as we need the prey? In the essay “Why the Beaver Should Thank the Wolf” by Mary Ellen Hannibal, readers get to realize just how unjustified this unbalance is. A major point within “Why the Beaver Should Thank the Wolf” is that the predators are not always the big problem, but instead a big help, and that they are withering down to a non-existent state. The animal that Hannibal uses as an example is the wolf in Wyoming. I believe whole heartedly with Hannibal in saying that if it was not for the wolves, many ecosystems and the prey would not thrive as much as they do.

Sadly, many Americans believe that losing the wolves would not be a bad thing for the prey’s sake, but in all reality losing the wolves would be devastating. One major thing that is present in all ecosystems, the place in which animals live, is a trophic cascade. A trophic cascade is explained in the essay as a “sequence of impacts down the food chain” (578). Hannibal gives the reader this example: “…In Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park … wolves were virtually wiped out in the 1920’s and reintroduced in the ‘90s. Since the wolves have come back, scientists have noted an unexpected improvement in many of the park’s degraded stream areas”