Dr. Mark Elbroch

Yeah, my pleasure.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Ooh.

That's a great question.

I think one is that sort of reintroducing species that were previously part of ecosystems in the East is quite honestly a core American value.

You know, it's been part of American culture, at least our conservation culture, for more than 100 years.

We have reintroduced hundreds of species.

People don't even realize it.

Like the black bears, white-tailed deer, river otters, beavers.

All of these things were rare at one point in New England or absent in parts of New England and were successfully brought back through reintroduction efforts and protections.

And so I think it's fair to say that, you know, it is a core value of American people to say we did something wrong and we want to right that wrong and bring back and rebuild the ecosystems which we changed.

Yeah.

So, I mean, large carnivores contribute all sorts of things to ecosystems.

And one is that they bolster the ecological health and resilience of an ecosystem, meaning that they are better armed with the

sort of internal mechanisms needed to protect themselves after a fire, a wildlife disease outbreak, a timber harvest.

And the ecosystems can recover from those events more quickly when they have systems that are more complex.

And large carnivores add to that complexity.

And then the other is that they make animals afraid.

And

As strange as that sounds, it's a really important thing.