Original subtitles

(upbeat music)

Even today, pristine landscapes

and untamed wilderness can still be found in national parks

which preserve and protect the beauty of nature.

The world's first national park

was established in 1872 at Yellowstone

in the West of the United States.

We'll meet people who gave up everything to live here.

There is only one place in the world for me,

Yellowstone Park, I love it.

And that's why I'm here.

(gentle music)

And experience their everyday lives,

which visitors never see.

When you look at the diversity of habitats,

the intactness of the ecosystem,

it truly makes this place unique across the entire globe.

One year spent in a place

which imparts a totally new awareness

of life on our planet. (inspirational music)

The park is sleeping the locals say

when in winter, by and large,

Yellowstone closes its gates.

At temperatures of up to 20 below

for six months frost has the national park

firmly in its grip. (gentle music)

The few people who are out and about

at this time of year wear uniform.

We're with a team of rangers who look

after one of North America's very special inhabitants.

Why is she by herself?

(mumbles) Yeah.

A female bison, alone in this icy world,

we could almost reach out and touch her thick warming coat.

It's a unique encounter right at the start of our visit.

Huge herds of bison characterized

the West of North America for centuries.

The buffalo provided the Indians

with everything they needed until white settlers arrived

and all but wiped out the species.

Yellowstone has managed to breed 5,000 buffalo

from a mere 21 animals that survived.

Rick Wallen, from Montana,

heads the park's bison project.

Experts have been studying

the animal's behavior for many years.

To obtain data on their movements

they have fitted some 40 bison with GPS collars.

Today, a young buffalo will be given a new collar.

I think what we're gonna do now is send those two in

to see if we have a target.

And then we'll go up in here and find some cover,

watch from out back here.

And that way we won't have too many people

making it look like a wolfpack coming in to chase him.

(tense music)

Two of the rangers are looking for a suitable animal

to sedate with a tranquilizer gum.

The calmer they are when we get to 35 meters,

the better capture will go.

The rangers want to dart a cow bison

about two years old,

and now they've only got one shot.

(soft music) A landscape of fire and ice

and a unique fauna have made Yellowstone

one of Earth's most famous natural wonders.

(bear splooshes in water)

(coyote howls)

The park lies in the northwest of the United States

in the middle of the Rocky mountains,

the biggest range in North America.

Covering an area of almost 9,000 square kilometers

Yellowstone is the eighth largest

of a total of 59 national parks in the US.

No other place on our planet

has more hot springs, iridescent pools and geysers.

The biggest mountain lake in North America

lies in the heart of the national park.

This 2,500 meter high plateau is surrounded

by the soaring peaks of the Rockies.

(light music) In 1978,

UNESCO declared the Yellowstone National Park

to be part of the world's natural heritage.

It is one of the biggest natural ecosystems

still found on our planet.

Susanne Sinay from Hamburg

has made this unique wilderness her home.

The magic of the park is its wild nature.

And there is no season in which it is wilder than in winter.

You feel small and you feel part of the whole.

You feel the soul of Yellowstone and you are part of it.

Living in nature changes you

and I think you assume a kind of protector role,

because you see how nature

is being suppressed all over the world,

and how wrong that is.

Susanne Sinay gave up everything

to realize her dream.

Together with her husband, Ken,

she shows visitors the parks hinterland.

The two enjoy the winter silence.

Occasionally, even they find something that surprises them.

Like this stash of antlers.

Oh my God, look at that.

That's quite the pile.

Look around for more. There may be others.

Oh, look at that. Somebody's

stashed these here.

This is- What a pile.

Somebody's- Yeah, this is somebody's

Somebody's gonna come back for this.

This is definitely somebody

stashing them to steal them. I know, yes.

Down at the bottom

there's some big ones. Wow.

There's some big ones.

I don't know- It's a moose.

Yeah. Yeah, that's unusual.

(soft music)

Deer shed their antlers every year.

With a herd of around 4,000 animals

that amounts to quite a pile

and good business for trophy hunters.

(tense music) Rick Wallen's team

has been successful.

The tranquilizing dart has sedated a young cow bison.

The rangers have half an hour

in which to carry out numerous tests.

Blood samples and ultrasound measurements

of the animal's fat layer will tell them more

about the young buffalo's health.

How are we doing on all of the things we need to get done?

We've got a- I've got all the

collar information written down,

and we're working on ultrasound for body condition.

All right.

So the only thing we have left is the body condition score,

And the collar. Deploy the radio collar,

and reverse? Yep.

This is a GPS collar we're about to put on this bison.

It's a takes a point about every two hours

gives you UTMs, lat-long position, and temperature.

and some other information,

and all logs it in this box here.

And that's where it will be until we catch her again.

(gentle music)

The high-tech collar

the young buffalo will soon wake up with

weighs around two kilograms.

Officially the buffalo will now be known L2,

the number on her collar.

Not exactly a nice name for a lady

so we're gonna call her Bonnie, Bonnie the Bison.

Still groggy, Bonnie sets off again.

Later, data from the collar

will enable the rangers to follow her movements.

It's not only conservationists

who focus on deer, bears and elk.

So do hunters.

More people own a handgun or a rifle in the United States

than in any other country in the world.

This firearm, (slides back bolt)

is used for small varmints.

Anything from ground squirrels, rabbits,

all the way up through coyotes and wolves.

This is a Ruger American.

This is a very good deer and antelope cartridge,

they're big enough they could knock down an elk.

Here is a Remington.

These are centerfire rifles.

This would be used for anything from

deer, elk as I said, moose or bison.

The hunting season runs

from October through to March,

then hunters can shoot anything

that leaves the confines of the park.

(gentle music) Had a group in yesterday

from Texas, you know.

They came up to this area,

they were hunting just outside of Yellowstone Park

and got three nice big bulls, they said.

So we get a lot of people

from different parts of the country

that come here in this area for hunting.

The founders of the park

along with geologist, Ferdinand Hayden,

undoubtedly had something different in mind.

The story of the Yellowstone National Park

began in 1871 with an expedition

commissioned by the government.

Washington was being assailed by conservationists

and railway magnates who wanted travelers

to be able to enjoy the magnificent scenery in the West.

In the end, the president himself was also impressed

by the landscape photographs taken by William Henry Jackson.

On March the 1st, 1872, Ulysses S Grant

signed a law making the Yellowstone area

the world's first national park.

"For the benefit and enjoyment of the people,"

as the inscription on the Roosevelt arch

of the North Entrance to the park still says.

(gentle orchestral music)

When the snows finally melt in the park

the waters of the Yellowstone River swell 10 times over

within the space of a few days.

And for the park's animals

the supply of food is again more plentiful.

(car hums along)

Go ahead, 44.

This is a radio check.

You are coming in loud and crisp.

What we're doing here now

is going out on patrol on the highways in the early morning

to see whether there are any bison on them.

(speaks in foreign language)

We put up signs to protect the animals as well as people

because road accidents occur time and again.

The start of a day's work for Andreas Hofer.

The young Austrian has joined

the buffalo field campaign as a volunteer.

So has Stephanie Seay from Montana.

The park is now open so there's a lot of

tourists coming through.

There's a lot of semi, 18-Wheeler,

big truck traffic moving through here constantly.

This road connects to Idaho

so there's a lot of interstate traffic that comes through

and some people aren't used to seeing

wild bison along the highways.

So it's really important that we warn people.

We're doing the best that we can but

sometimes bison's get killed on the road.

We're trying to prevent that.

(gentle music) (truck brakes squeal)

Time and again,

animals come out of the nearby park,

and time and again, where humans and bison cross paths,

dangerous situations arise.

A tent to sleep in and wild animals as neighbors,

ideal study conditions for Karsten Heuer and Harvey Locke.

Heuer is a wildlife biologist and filmmaker,

Locke is a lawyer and an internationally respected

expert on national parks.

Both men come from Canada. (soft music)

The really exciting thing for me about wild nature

and particularly places where all the pieces

of wild nature in the landscape

is that it has a powerful feeling.

And it also makes me realize

that I'm one species among many on planet Earth,

as opposed to the dominant one.

I'm one of many.

Heuer and Locke launched

the Y2Y initiative, as it's known.

Y2Y is a concept for interlinking protected areas

and national parks in the United States and Canada.

(gentle music)

The plan is to create a huge corridor

from Yellowstone Park in the South

to the Yukon in Canada, in the North.

With the help of eco bridges and underpasses

the Y2Y visionaries want to enable wild animals

to roam unimpeded.

A network of reserves is all born out of the realization

that if we don't do that,

if we just think about parks alone,

things are gonna go extinct.

These wild animals that we're

so lucky to have in Yellowstone,

lucky to have in places like Banff,

they actually need to remain connected one to another.

Every spring, Heuer and Locke

wander through the region and study the behavior

of animals outside the park.

It's now in particular that elk, deer and pronghorn antelope

leave the protection of Yellowstone time and again,

to look for food in low-lying areas

where the snow has already thawed.

The juicy grassland also attracts bison

much to the dismay of farmers who are worried

that the buffalo will transmit

the brucellosis virus to their livestock.

The disease can result in miscarriages and stillbirths.

(gentle music) Hey guys, how are ya?

Good. What's going on here?

We're in a piece of private property

just outside the boundary of Yellowstone National Park.

And some of these animals are allowed

to naturally migrate out of the park

into winter wildlife range which is this area,

lower elevation, less snow, more availability for grass.

However, some of society is not particularly happy

about these animals being on their private property.

Therefore, the state of Montana

will assist private landowners

with moving the animals off of their property

and back towards the park boundary,

as you can see is happening right now.

(gentle music)

The wilderness needs protection,

but it knows no limits.

It would be wonderful if nature could be left

to control herself

but bison roaming wherever they like are too threatened.

They need to go home.

(stirring orchestral music)

For 20 years now, the forests of Yellowstone

have again been the habitat for an animal

which stirs emotions more than any other

inhabitant in the park.

70 years ago, the wolf had been wiped out here.

It was not until 1995 that scientists managed to introduce

a small pack of wolves from Canada.

The animals thrived and reproduced quickly.

And not only that,

they changed the entire ecosystem of the park.

A phenomenon known to scientists as a trophic cascade.

(elk calls out) Before the wolves came

the park was overpopulated with deer and elk.

They had no enemies

and were destroying stocks of young trees.

When the wolves were introduced

and began to prey on deer and elk,

the parks vegetation was able to recover.

Birds returned, (wings beat loudly)

and since there were no trees to be felled

so did the beaver.

Biospheres were formed for otters and fish.

The wolves also killed coyotes.

As a result the number of hares and mice increased.

This in turn attracted hawks, martens and raccoons.

Most astonishingly of all though,

the wolves also changed the course of the parks rivers

because the trees along their banks stabilize the earth.

So there was less erosion.

Thus, the wolves not only changed the parks ecosystem,

they even changed its face.

(gentle guitar music) Post Office is the name

of the camp where the

buffalo field campaign's volunteers live.

Young people who come from all over the world,

working round the clock on a fixed shift system,

they look after the bison every day.

Since it was launched in 1997,

the conservation campaign has attracted some 30,000 helpers

who support it either actively or in the form of donations.

(low chattering)

They document on film,

how bison are driven off time and again.

The material is put on the internet

to publicize what is happening.

We have seen terrible things.

I mean, a lot of days on hazing operations,

we come home in tears.

We've seen bison run into barbed wire fence,

caught up in barbed wire fence.

We've seen bison run through swollen rivers,

little tiny calves, trying to keep up with their moms,

that can't sustain themselves in that current

but they're not strong enough.

And you know, we've seen them being run

for hours and hours, and miles and miles,

up to 20 miles in one day.

(helicopter rotor clatters)

So there's a lot of really bad stuff that goes on

and it's all federally funded.

US taxpayers are paying for this iconic animal to be abused

and people don't want it.

But the livestock industry is very powerful

and they're still in charge.

(gentle guitar music) After all in 2019

the US meat industry had a turnover of around $140 billion.

(foreign language radio)

News from home on the radio

and the Yellowstone River on the doorstep.

(country guitar music) Patrick Ondrus

lives in Gardiner, a small town of 800 inhabitants

close to the North Entrance to the park.

A qualified industrial mechanic

he earns a living by taking visitors

on rafting tours on the Yellowstone.

In springtime he gets his boats ready

with an enthusiasm that is infectious.

The Yellowstone is the longest

undammed river outside Alaska.

For the first five miles of its length

the river flows next to the park.

So when you travel down it,

you can look across into the park and see animals,

buffalo, deer and antelope right next to the water.

(speaks in foreign language)

when we sail down the river,

we see Bald Eagles soaring above us.

It's just spectacular.

Fantastic.

In spring, Gardiner too, slowly comes to life.

Many of its inhabitants earn a living

from the three million or so tourists

who visit the park every year.

(gentle music)

Harvey and Karsten have come to Gardiner

to meet Austin Stonall,

a student who posted a short film on YouTube,

which has already registered several million hits.

What's going on? Did you travel this road again?

Yeah, I come this way every day, coming from work,

and I saw this big herd of elk

and I always have my camera

so I went to grab it, started filming.

(tense music)

A huge herd of deer

crosses the highway and moves on,

but one young animal gets stuck

And this is barbed wire. It's just so painful to watch.

Yeah, she's not (indistinct)

just crashing into it.

This is really compelling to us

because it shows both the fact that

the animals need to cross the road

and it also shows how a fence can be a barrier

to them crossing the road.

And there are areas in the region already where

there are wildlife overpasses or underpasses,

essentially these eco bridges, if you will,

and fencing that actually funnels the animals to them.

Wherever they've been built

they've been highly, highly successful.

It's a happy end to a sticky situation.

And the entire herd has actually waited for the youngster.

(upbeat music)

As long as no obstacles present themselves

the animals settle where they feel most at ease.

In this case, in the garden of a family of four

who've moved here from Chicago.

(bison growl)

So this kind of peaceful coexistence really is possible.

The man of the house explains the rules to us.

Well, they're wild animals, so, we try to be careful.

That's about as close as I'm comfortable, you know?

It's a constant dance, you know?

If they're close we go inside

and maybe we wait for them to pass

or open and close the garage door

and let them run away a little bit.

But you have to treat them with respect.

You know, there's grizzly bears in the trees here

and bison in your yard,

that's part of living here.

(bright music)

At the park's headquarters.

Rick Wallen is evaluating the data

on the small herd of bison,

which he has collected since the winter.

The results of the blood tests

have come back from the laboratory.

Bonnie the Bison's blood sample was also analyzed

and Rick is surprised by what he reads.

We just got the results back

and it turns out that this young female

that we put the collar on was a three-year-old

and she's pregnant, likely for the first time,

and so if all goes well

she will have her first calf in late April or early May.

(uplifting orchestral music)

Summer is a long time in coming in Yellowstone.

It doesn't get warm until June.

On average, the maximum temperature

is no more than 27 degrees,

but the sun shines so permanently

that the Yellowstone River loses its power.

Incidentally, the park is named after the river

which the Hidatsa Indians called Yellow Stone

because of the color of the rock it cuts through.

(lighthearted music)

There have been tracking tours in Yellowstone

ever since it was founded.

Susanne Sinay organizes sustainable hikes.

Together with her colleague Linda, she looks for new routes.

Susanne uses llamas as pack animals for provisions and tents

because their toes have no negative impact on the trails.

On her tours this German conservationist

passes through one of the few remaining wildernesses

on our planet,

and she must expect at any moment

to come face to face with an animal that might be dangerous.

Here we have a good example.

A bear came down this way and rolled this rock to one side

to get at the ants and the other insects living under it.

As you can see, it is quite a hefty rock.

So I reckon that it was a fairly big bear.

(speaks in foreign language)

(llama calls out)

Something seems to be bothering Domingo the llama.

It was a black bear.

Not very big, but not very small either.

Like any good bear he did the right thing and moved off.

Scared?

Me, no, maybe Domingo was a bit.

No, everything's fine.

Summertime is ideal

for experiencing the park from a very special perspective.

Jack Hart is a keen amateur pilot.

Now and again, he takes on transport jobs,

which see him flying his Cessna over the Yellowstone.

Traffic, Cessna 2873 Charlie

on the 45, runway one nine.

Full-stop Yellowstone.

Okay Charlie, 2422 on the 45 then-

Jack is flying over

the biggest time bomb on our planet.

A super-volcano which has erupted three times

over the last two million years.

The last eruption occurred 630,000 years ago.

When this volcano blew in this area

it left a hole, which became the park.

And it is surrounded by mountains on 2/3 of it

and that is called the caldera.

The winds come into this area and then go down

and then it affects flying, it makes,

it can make it very dangerous.

But with the heat of the earth,

the crust is about two to five miles thick here,

we have a lot of heat rising

which causes the air to be turbulent

and that affects our flying,

it also affects our weather.

And you have to take that into consideration

every time that you fly.

(gentle music) The gigantic magma chamber

provides the energy for more than 300 geysers

and 10,000 hot springs.

They are the research field

of renowned geologist Kenneth Sims,

from the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

He regularly takes samples.

There's a lot of work that's done in this area

to understand how life can live

in extreme environments like this.

Real hot temperatures, real acidic conditions,

lots of acid in the pools and such.

So we use these, this understanding,

to understand life here on Earth.

Some people call Yellowstone the Earth's hot heart.

It's a giant cauldron,

which emits steam in a thousand places

and seismologists register between

one and 3,000 minor earthquakes every year.

The Earth's crust in the park is particularly thin.

Lying a mere five to 15 kilometers beneath the surface

is a massive magma chamber with an estimated volume

of 4,000 cubic kilometers.

Bubbling in it are up to

400 cubic kilometers of molten rock.

This makes the reservoir

the biggest magma chamber ever discovered.

The Grand Prismatic Spring is probably the most

scintillating sign of volcanic activity.

Scientists believe that life

once originated in springs like this.

Different types of microorganism and bacterium

make themselves visible in bands of various colors.

It's such a large volcano

and it hosts this diverse variety

of geology and life that you just don't see

in any place in the world a collection like this.

50% of the world's geysers are here

because of all the water that comes

from the Gallatin Mountains.

When you look back in there

you see these fantastic mountains all around

and they provide a lot of the water

that ends up here in the Yellowstone system.

And then on top of it, you get to look at life

in the most, one of the most, extreme environments,

and understand how life has evolved.

(bright guitar music)

It's late August and Rick Wallen

is on his way to Lamar Valley

where the herds of bison like to congregate,

especially in the mating season.

You can see many of these young calves

are no longer that reddish color.

At about four months of age

they begin to have their hair turn to a darker brown

much like all of the adults.

They blend in more and they're less vulnerable

to the predators that way.

Using a special antenna

Rick is searching for Bonnie the Bison.

If she's within a radius of one kilometer

he can locate her easily.

(traffic whooshes past)

Data collected so far

shows that the young mother has roamed a great deal

over the last eight months,

but she has never left her territory,

the northeast of the park,

and has usually stayed around Lamar Valley.

In the summer months,

the bison find ideal conditions here.

There's plenty to eat,

and lots of prospective mating partners.

Bison like to find a new partner every year.

I think I've spotted her.

She's over across the river,

but it looks like there's an adult male

following her around,

so she must be getting close to breeding time.

At the same time, however,

Bonnie the Bison is caring for her firstborn.

She will wean the calf for a year

and defend it ferociously against all enemies.

At the age of two or three

the youngster will reach maturity

and be able to become a mother herself.

Bonnie is going around trying to put on fat reserves

eating as much as possible,

taking care of the young calf that she just produced,

you know, and had a couple of months ago.

So she's got to watch out for that calf

and now find a mate for the summer,

for this breeding season,

and get pregnant once again

so that she can produce another calf.

(country guitar)

Patrick Ondrus too,

has to provide for the winter.

It's in the summer that he earns most of his income.

I'm gonna have two leaders sitting up front in a boat

and you guys can be sitting up front

and you kind of be in sync.

So the whole key is to be in sync.

One dinghy can take up to eight passengers.

It all happens at once.

People want to be taken on the river

so I'm working every day.

The summer is so short it's like living in a trance.

(speaks in foreign language)

Summer comes, and then it's gone again.

I don't get a day's rest.

It's a really intensive time.

(upbeat music)

All right now dig in guys

otherwise we're gonna miss our turn.

(people cheering)

Turn hard now.

Hold on up there, little girl. Let's go!

The sun's setting.

It's warm. The water is nice and it's fun.

This is the life!

(speaks in foreign language)

(gentle music)

The Yellowstone National Park

extends over three US states.

Most of the park lies in Wyoming.

Small areas of it are located in Montana and Idaho.

That's where Jack Hart has to pick up a consignment.

Because the weather conditions are constantly changing

pilots like Jack fly either in the morning or the evening.

(plane roars off)

In all the years that I've done this

to see hundreds of buffalo or thousands of elk

move through a meadow is a pretty unique experience.

(thundering hooves)

You can see a grizzly bear

or you could see a lot of animals

moving in their own environment.

It's a beautiful experience

to see that in its original form.

Yellowstone Lake

lies 2,357 meters above sea level.

Fed by five rivers,

it's the park's most important water reservoir.

(motor hums) (gentle music)

The lake is the scene of a dramatic fight for survival.

David Hallac, the park's Head Ranger

has to make regular checks

on the progress of an arduous rescue operation.

Good morning guys.

Good morning. Morning.

How's the fishing? Doing well.

For some 30 years now

lake trout have been a problem in the park.

Probably introduced by tourists,

lake trout breed rapidly

and feed on the young of the indigenous cutthroat trout.

So fishermen now catch lake trout

to protect the stocks of the local breed.

This is a Yellowstone cutthroat trout,

one that was accidentally captured in the net,

and you can see it looks very different

than the lake trout.

These lake trout can become huge.

They can be 30 pounds or more.

And this is a pretty big Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

The alien trout is killed

and the local species thrown back into the water.

In this way, the rangers want to ensure

that a delicate balance is re-established.

We had a large number of bears that were feeding

on the Yellowstone cutthroat trout

as they swim upstream to spawn, just like a salmon does.

And now we see very few,

we see almost no grizzly bears feeding in those streams.

As the grizzly bears have fewer fish to capture and eat

in the streams surrounding the lake

they have switched their prey items

to elk calves around the area.

The dead trout are thrown back into the lake

as food for its other inhabitants.

(gulls screeching)

(uplifting orchestral music)

It's mid-September

and the days are getting noticeably shorter.

Aspens, maples and poplars are preparing for the winter,

transporting precious chlorophyll

into their trunks and branches where it is safe from frost.

The Indian summer has arrived.

In the park, Susanne Sinay and a friend

are trying to focus their telescopes on some wolves.

At this time of year,

we keep a particularly close eye out for the wolves.

Outside of the park the hunting season has begun,

and we wanna make sure that the wolves we know

here in the north of the Yellowstone Park

are still present and haven't been shot.

That's really important.

23 to 17?

Come to Nature Trail, there's a wolf.

Copy. Thank you.

Susanne nd her companion

know only too well what they are fighting for

because just two years ago

one wolf, 06 Female, was shot by a hunter

the moment she left the park.

Tragically, she was an alpha animal.

After her death the pack fell apart.

(gentle music) For wolves,

animals which always live and hunt as a community,

this was a disaster, one which must not be repeated.

After a few minutes,

the two women reach the location

where other wolf spotters have seen an animal.

A lovely big bear

sitting right on some carrion

making sure no one steals it.

Now and again it looks up to see if anything's approaching.

Then it lies on the carcass again.

Bears slightly bury carrion they have found

and then lie on it and go to sleep.

The wolf nearby is waiting.

On its own it stands no chance.

It's a she-wolf and the pack has left.

They don't see any way they can get at the bear's food,

but she's sitting there and waiting,

and thinking that maybe she will get a chance after all.

But I think the bear will win.

He's sleeping this one through.

Great, very nice.

(gentle music) Right on the border

of the park, we meet one of the hunters.

Bill Hoppe's family have lived on this site

for seven generations.

Bill earns a living as a farmer and as a hunting guide.

Now in his 60s, Bill Hoppe doesn't like wolves.

He makes short work of them

especially when they attack his animals.

(bells jangling)

The wolf just came in the middle of the night.

I went down that morning at daylight to feed the sheep

and there was 18 of them dead.

They'd grab 'em right here.

They'd grab 'em right there under the throat

and they just rip their throat out.

And the baby lambs, they bite 'em

right over the back right there

and crush their ribs and their lungs.

The state Fish and Game Department

issued me some kill on sight permits

and they gave me the right to kill two wolves

on that piece of property.

But it took about a month to get one of 'em

'cause they just, you don't see 'em.

They come in in the nights, you know,

and I just happened to catch him down there

right at daylight one morning and I killed one of 'em.

And the other one got on the other side of our fence,

out of our property, so I couldn't shoot it.

In the park,

The she-wolf has given up and moved on.

A natural spectacle view to close range

a moment which brings to mind the question

of whether we experience and treat animals, and plants,

as fellow creatures?

The grizzly, it seems feel safe again

and reckons he can move away for a bit

but he didn't expect two other robbers

to be lurking nearby just waiting for a chance like this.

(light music)

Susanne Sinay has decided that she needs to have a word

with Bill Hoppe who is a dyed-in-the-wool hunter.

(both chatting)

Is there any chance of the two coming to an understanding?

My question is how is that right

that they can come in and have no control

on the number of a predator

that depleted, that ruined my business?

I mean, I still outfit, I still take hunters,

but I had to move 150 miles north of here

and rent a place to hunt.

Isn't there something that's more

non-lethal maybe to live with them?

Is it, do we have to shoot them in order to control them?

Is there, isn't there another way?

What is the other way?

Well, there are other ways, you know,

there are people who,

a lot of ranchers have adopted other ways

to patrol their cattle, you know,

to just, to just try. I've done this, done that.

I've done that, we've tried that. I've done that.

I think that Yellowstone is a natural place

where predator has its place, where prey has its place

and the wolves and the elk and the other prey animals

are in the process right now to find a balance.

I think nature will balance its way out,

but I believe man has just as big a part of nature

as the wolves or the elk or the buffalo or anything else.

Man is just as big a...

And as long as man can keep the thought that...

That we're not here to eliminate wolves

we can live with wolves,

but it has to be a reasonable number.

Mm-hmm.

It has to be a reasonable number.

And in your view that number

has to be controlled by killing?

You know, I guess I, if there's any other way

I'd like to hear it and I'm gonna continue to do

what I wanna do on my property.

Mm-hmm.

And that's just, that's the way it is.

The wilderness needs protecting

and it knows no limits.

It's not about demonizing its opponents,

but of revealing how the wilderness enables us

to experience our own existence anew.

Yellowstone, the world's national parks,

and visions like Y2Y show time and again

how the balance in nature can be attained

for all creatures that live in it,

despite the challenges to be met.

(stirring orchestral music) One of, I feel one of

the more serious threats to our park

is coming into the park and taking away

the natural resources, whether it be a mineral,

or whether it be actual energy in geothermic heat.

We've had a dramatic increase

in the number of days in the park

that the temperatures are hotter.

We see far few days where the temperatures

are very cold during the winter time.

And I have no doubt that this change in the climate

will dramatically affect the resources of the park.

My wish is for Yellowstone

to be protected forever because we need the park.

We all need it.

(intense orchestral music)