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• https://www.npr.org/2022/04/13/1092366933/a-record-number-of-yellowstone-wolves-have-been-killed-conservationists-are-worr

April 13, 20229:03 AM ET

NICK MOTT

FROMLISTEN·6:05

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A pack of wolves in Yellowstone National Park are spotted from a wildlife tracking plane

Courtesy of Yellowstone National Park

This winter saw the most wolves from Yellowstone National Park killed in about a century. That’s because states neighboring the park changed hunting rules in an effort to reduce the animals’ numbers. At the same time, wolf biologists inside the park are finding out what losing the animals means.

“This was the winter of my discontent,” Yellowstone National Park senior wolf biologist Doug Smith says while driving over a washboarded dirt road near the park’s northern border.

“The park line’s right over here, and that’s where a lot of the controversy occurred,” he says, gesturing to the unmarked edge of the park just in front of us.

There’s no wolf hunting…