The River That Remembered How to Sing

In 1995, fourteen gray wolves were released into Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year absence. What happened next stunned even the biologists. The elk, no longer free to overgraze unchecked, moved away from the riverbanks. Willows and aspens surged back. Songbirds returned to nest in the new growth. Beavers built dams that created ponds for otters and trout. The root systems of recovering trees stabilized the soil, and the Lamar River — which had wandered wide and shallow for decades — actually changed course, narrowing its banks and deepening its channels.…