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1:22

Hi it's Phoebe. This

1:25

month we're bringing you two of our favorite

1:27

episodes. Two stories about

1:29

the same family of wolves in Yellowstone.

1:33

One is a crime story, and the other is a

1:35

love story. For

1:37

the love story, check out next week's episode

1:39

of our other show, This is Love. Here's

1:42

the crime story.

1:46

In April of 1995, a

1:49

man named Mike Phillips was in a

1:51

small airplane flying over Yellowstone

1:53

National Park. He was the

1:56

leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Project,

1:59

and he was looking for two boys to wolves that

2:01

had decided to head north.

2:03

They were identified by numbers 9 and 10.

2:08

Wolf 9 was big, with

2:10

black fur that people said looked

2:13

gray in certain light.

2:15

Ten was her mate. Ten

2:18

was absolutely enormous, 122 pounds,

2:21

white with gigantic paws.

2:26

Senator Thomas McNamee says wolf 10

2:29

was the very definition

2:31

of an alpha male.

2:32

When you go into a gift shop and

2:35

you buy a stuffed wolf, he

2:37

looked like one of those. Nine

2:40

and ten were research collars that transmitted

2:42

signals. Wildlife biologists

2:45

used these to track the wolves when

2:47

they started heading north.

2:49

They tracked them the first day and

2:52

they find them up on the Beartooth

2:54

Plateau. And for five days

2:56

they just don't move, they just sit there. And

2:59

then these storms start to blow in.

3:02

Day after day after day these

3:04

howling snowstorms and they

3:06

can't fly, so they can't track 9 and 10.

3:10

And finally there's a break in the storms

3:13

and they find them at a place called Francie's Meadow,

3:16

which is way far north. The

3:19

wolves had left the park. The

3:21

wildlife biologists were terrified.

3:25

They were only two months into their first

3:27

attempt to reestablish the wolf

3:29

population in Yellowstone. And

3:32

the success of the plan depended not

3:34

only on the wolves staying in the park,

3:37

but also reproducing. Nine

3:41

was pregnant and her pups

3:44

would be the first wolves born in Yellowstone

3:46

in more than sixty years. Nine

3:49

and ten were gone and still heading

3:52

north through an area with very

3:54

little prey.

3:54

And if they got through that

3:56

alive, the biologists knew

3:59

that the wolves would then be surrounded

4:01

by cattle ranches. In 1995,

4:03

it was illegal to shoot a wolf in Montana,

4:08

but a rancher could shoot

4:10

a wolf that was attacking their livestock.

4:14

There is nothing the biologists could

4:16

do. They felt helpless just

4:18

watching the wolves move

4:19

north. They can't land and try

4:21

to chase them back south. They just hope

4:24

that they're gonna figure out that they're in a bad

4:26

place and go back south. But no,

4:29

April 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th,

4:32

17th, storms and they can't fly.

4:34

And so they don't know where

4:36

the wolves are.

4:38

One of the Yellowstone wolf biologists,

4:40

Doug Smith, got into a small

4:42

plane on April 20th and

4:44

went searching for nine and ten.

4:47

He can't find the wolves. They're

4:49

just gone. And that's implausible

4:52

because wolves don't just disappear.

4:54

The

4:55

next day, an agent

4:58

from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife

5:00

and Parks called wolf tracks

5:03

had been spotted outside a town called

5:05

Red Lodge.

5:05

So they think, okay,

5:08

we've got to get two planes and we're

5:10

gonna fly a much wider area

5:12

and see where the hell they've gone. But

5:15

they get storms. These spring storms are just horrendous

5:17

and they can't fly, can't fly, can't fly.

5:20

On April 26th, Doug

5:22

Smith is in the air and detects a

5:24

clear signal from nine's collar.

5:27

He hears nine quite clearly, but

5:30

ten's signal is faint and indistinct

5:33

and he can't figure out where it is. And

5:36

then just for a minute he gets it quite clearly

5:39

and it's going beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

5:42

beep. Which, when an animal doesn't

5:45

move for a long time, it's

5:48

a bad sign because even, you know, if they're asleep

5:50

they move around a little bit and so the regular

5:53

signal is sort of beep beep beep.

5:56

And when he goes beep beep beep beep beep,

5:58

that means they're not moving at all.

5:59

and it's called mortality mode. So

6:03

he knows immediately that 10 is

6:05

dead. As

6:07

Thomas McNamee puts it,

6:09

all hell broke loose.

6:11

Federal agents from all over converged,

6:15

not only to find Wolf 10, but

6:18

also to find the person who

6:20

killed him. I'm

6:22

Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

6:34

Number 10

6:34

was one of 14 wolves

6:37

brought from Alberta, Canada, down to Yellowstone

6:39

in January of 1995. The

6:42

wolves were brought into the park in

6:45

what was called the Wolf Reintroduction

6:47

Project.

6:48

It was intended to correct a decision

6:51

made at the beginning of the 20th century, not

6:54

long after Yellowstone was set aside

6:56

as the country's first national park.

6:58

Wolves

7:00

had been naturally present when the

7:02

Yellowstone National Park Protection

7:05

Act

7:05

was passed. The act

7:08

said that the land is, quote, set

7:11

apart as a pleasuring ground for

7:13

the benefit and enjoyment of

7:15

the people. And

7:17

back in the early 1900s, the

7:20

people, as the story goes, didn't

7:22

like wolves. They were

7:25

considered to be good and bad animals. I've

7:28

never quite understood it, but

7:30

you can easily imagine that, for example, a rattlesnake

7:32

is a bad animal. A lot of

7:34

people still think so. Most

7:37

predators were considered bad because

7:39

of the big, beautiful elk with its

7:42

magnificent antlers or the moose or

7:45

the delicate little deer. Those

7:47

were good animals. And then there were the fuzzy

7:50

little ones that you looked like you could

7:52

put them on your lap like a possum

7:55

or a

7:56

raccoon. Those were

7:58

good animals.

7:59

Elk were good, wolves were

8:02

bad. There was, you know,

8:04

centuries-old animus against

8:06

the wolf as a representation

8:09

of evil. And so they

8:11

were killed and killed and killed.

8:12

Yellowstone's park rangers

8:15

were given rifles and instructed

8:17

to kill wolves. Non-rangers

8:20

were offered bounties for killing them. In

8:24

Montana, in 1907, the

8:26

government would pay you $10 per wolf. This

8:30

wasn't just happening in Yellowstone.

8:33

In 1907 alone, 1,800 wolves

8:36

were killed in national forests and parks

8:38

across the country.

8:40

According to the National Park Service, by

8:42

the mid-1900s, wolves

8:45

had been almost entirely eliminated from

8:47

the 48 states.

8:50

The impact to the ecosystem was

8:52

immediate. Thomas McNamee

8:54

says that in Yellowstone, the elk population

8:57

exploded.

8:59

The vegetation they needed to survive couldn't

9:01

keep up.

9:02

And so you were having starving elk, and

9:06

vegetation

9:07

beat down and beat down. The grasses

9:10

beat the pieces. And in 1947, the

9:12

famous naturalist, Aldo

9:16

Leopold, recognized that

9:18

the Yellowstone ecosystem was missing its

9:21

keystone predator. And he

9:23

began to write and talk about

9:25

the need for restoration of the Yellowstone

9:27

wolf.

9:29

Aldo Leopold wrote, I

9:31

myself cooperated in

9:33

the extermination of the wolf, because

9:36

I then believed it was a benefit. I

9:39

do not propose to repeat my error.

9:42

Over the next few decades, the discussion

9:44

of bringing wolves back to Yellowstone

9:47

went through a lot of twists and turns.

9:50

In 1973, the Endangered

9:52

Species Act was passed, and the following

9:55

year, gray wolves were listed

9:57

as endangered.

9:59

The Endangered Species Act was passed. Nations Act mandated

10:01

that gray wolves be restored to their

10:03

native habitats, including

10:06

Yellowstone. Well,

10:08

of course, Yellowstone is surrounded by

10:10

ranch lands, and the ranchers

10:13

went bananas. All

10:16

they could picture was wolves roaring

10:19

into their herds and laying

10:22

waste

10:23

to their living, even though

10:25

it

10:26

had been shown in

10:28

other parts of the world that

10:31

wolves greatly prefer wild prey and

10:34

really like to stay away from people. They

10:37

just didn't believe that.

10:39

The battle between ranchers and conservationists

10:41

was incredibly heated. There

10:43

were countless hearings. More

10:45

than 700 people testified, and 160,000

10:47

written comments were submitted.

10:52

In the end, the conservationists

10:54

won. Wolves would

10:56

be brought back to Yellowstone. In 1995,

11:01

14 wolves were trapped in Alberta, Canada and

11:03

transported by plane.

11:06

They were initially placed in large outdoor

11:08

acclimation pens.

11:10

Here's wildlife biologist, Joe Fontaine.

11:13

I've been a wildlife

11:15

biologist for the federal government for 33 years, and 18

11:20

of those years I spent as a deputy wolf

11:22

recovery coordinator for the

11:24

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

11:26

When the wolves were first brought

11:28

to Yellowstone and were

11:30

in their acclimation pens, weren't

11:33

there armed guards?

11:35

Oh, yeah. There

11:37

were guards that were stationed in different

11:39

places. They were in what they

11:41

call hides, where they could get

11:44

in and not be seen. And because

11:47

the thought was that there might be somebody

11:49

crazy enough to go in and try to kill the wolves

11:51

while they were in the pen. And

11:53

people had access to the park. That was just people driving

11:56

through or

11:59

whatever. But you never know what

12:01

somebody's going to do. And

12:04

so there was a lot of temerity

12:06

about what the heck to

12:08

do with that. So we had law enforcement

12:10

guys up there all the time.

12:12

Why was there such a great fear?

12:15

Well,

12:16

you know, during a lot of the public meetings, we

12:18

would get people saying, we're going to kill every one of

12:20

them, we're going to do them all in, we'll poison

12:22

them. There was a

12:24

real rhetoric from the anti-wolf people that

12:27

was coming out that the only

12:29

wolf is a dead wolf and I'll shoot everyone.

12:31

And then he'd shoot shovel and shut up mentality,

12:35

if you will. And so being

12:37

that this was something new and different that had never,

12:40

ever been done before, you

12:42

don't want to take chances. You want

12:44

to make sure that everything is

12:46

safe and ready to go.

12:48

People have very strong feelings

12:51

about wolves. This is true. That's

12:53

kind of an understatement, actually. So

12:57

the wolves are unique

12:59

in the fact that they travel as a pack,

13:01

a family unit, aunts and uncles.

13:04

They take care of each other very well. They're very

13:06

good parents. They're

13:09

actually out there to do a job, which

13:12

they become, in my mind, like

13:14

shepherd to the flocks that are out there,

13:17

whether it be elk or deer, moose, whatever.

13:20

And their job is solely as a predator

13:23

to remove part of the animal

13:25

population that's out there so

13:27

that what they feed on is

13:30

more abundant because the more animals

13:32

you have, the more it's grazed down. It

13:35

affects everything in that ecosystem.

13:37

So even though wolves

13:39

may kill an elk, there are a lot

13:41

of things that come in and feed on the carcass

13:44

that are all intertwined

13:47

with the connection of that one dead elk. And

13:49

when you don't have that, it's like

13:52

there's a brick wall

13:54

there, but it's missing a key brick. And

13:57

so they're very much part of our.

13:59

our world, and they need to be

14:02

out there.

14:05

Joe Fontaine and his colleagues hoped

14:07

that the wolves brought from Canada would

14:09

stay in the park, stay safe

14:12

from people and acclimate, so

14:14

Yellowstone could slowly be repopulated

14:17

to its natural state.

14:19

The fear was that because wolves

14:21

have a homing instinct, they would just

14:24

head north, back to Alberta,

14:27

which appeared to be exactly what nine and ten

14:29

were trying to do when ten's tracking

14:32

collar began to emit the mortality

14:34

signal. Federal

14:36

agents and local law enforcement searched

14:39

for wolf ten until almost midnight. When

14:41

they lost ten's signal, they called it a

14:43

night and went home.

14:46

Very early the next morning,

14:49

everyone convened again to continue

14:51

the search, on foot, by

14:54

car and by airplane. They

14:57

were able to track wolf nine from the air and

14:59

see that she was staying in the same place.

15:02

Everyone assumed that she had dug a den

15:04

to prepare to give birth.

15:07

Wolf ten's mortality signal was

15:09

going in and out, and they tracked

15:12

it to a valley called Bear Creek.

15:14

They communicated this to a team

15:17

searching on the ground, and they were able

15:19

to tune into a very strong signal

15:21

near an abandoned coal mine. They

15:24

realized the signal was coming

15:26

from a culvert, one of those big

15:29

drain pipes, and they could see

15:31

footprints around the culvert.

15:35

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent

15:37

Tim Iker put on waders and

15:39

started feeling around below the surface of

15:42

the water.

15:43

And comes out on the other side with the collar,

15:46

and it's been unbolted.

15:47

That's something a wolf couldn't do, so they

15:50

know that ten

15:52

didn't just die of natural causes. Somebody

15:55

unbolted his collar.

16:00

The Russian Wildlife Service put up a $1,000 reward

16:03

for any information leading to the arrest

16:05

and conviction of the person who killed

16:07

Wolf 10.

16:09

Other wildlife groups contributed, bringing

16:11

the total reward to $13,000. Tim

16:15

Eicher thought such a big reward would

16:18

make a terrible situation a

16:19

lot worse. It's

16:22

too much money, he said. Any jury

16:24

here is going to know people will lie

16:26

for $13,000.

16:38

We'll be right back.

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18:11

Park Rangers, biologists, special

18:13

agents, and local law enforcement were

18:16

all working together to investigate the

18:18

killing of Wolf 10.

18:21

But they also knew that Wolf 9

18:23

was still somewhere outside the park, having

18:26

just given birth or about

18:28

to.

18:30

Without her mate, she and the pups would

18:32

be in a lot of danger. A mother

18:34

wolf can't leave her pups to go hunt.

18:37

They'd freeze to death.

18:39

And without hunting, she can't produce

18:41

milk, and they'd starve to death. Joe

18:45

Fontaine says they typically don't micromanage

18:47

the animals.

18:49

But this seemed like a case where

18:51

they'd need to make an exception and help

18:53

Wolf 9.

19:10

He watched over Wolf 9 from

19:12

airplanes and from the ground. He

19:15

said he would sit in the Super 8 motel and

19:17

pick up her signal so he knew everything

19:19

was going alright. After

19:22

several weeks, he and his colleagues decided

19:25

that the safest thing was to pick her up with

19:28

her pups

19:29

and bring them back to Yellowstone.

19:31

And so my job was to go in and find

19:33

the den. And so I was left

19:36

up by the geological station up there and

19:39

started walking down. And I walked

19:41

down the

19:43

side of the mountain. I was, you know,

19:46

I'm a hunter. And I was

19:48

very, very painstakingly

19:50

going down. And I could hear a little bit of a noise.

19:54

And I was walking really soft. And

19:56

I even took all the antenna and everything off

19:58

the ready receiver because...

19:59

because she was so

20:02

close. And

20:04

then I heard some noises, and it sounded

20:07

like some whimpering. And I took

20:09

one more step, and then I saw the wolf. She

20:12

just bolted out of there. And I thought,

20:14

damn. But

20:16

I went over there to see exactly where

20:18

the den was. And she never dug a

20:20

den. She scooped out a kind

20:23

of a basin below

20:26

the spruce tree. And

20:28

they were pups were underneath that spruce tree. And

20:31

I was just walking through the tree, and I saw

20:33

the tree boughs and everything. And so I raised

20:35

the bough, and I could see them. And I

20:37

counted them. And I better count again. And

20:39

I counted all of them. And

20:41

then I let the bough back down again. And

20:44

then I got the hell out of there because

20:46

I didn't want a speaker. And so

20:48

it went back up, got up on the fire

20:50

road, and left it and reported what we had.

20:53

Eight

20:55

healthy wolf pups, an unusually large litter.

20:59

Collected her pups from the den and

21:01

transported them back to the park. Nine

21:04

was underweight, and they gave her penicillin

21:07

and vitamin injections.

21:09

The family was put back in a wolf

21:12

acclimation pen to stay only

21:14

until the pups got a little bit older

21:16

and stronger.

21:19

Meanwhile, there is a lot of

21:21

pressure on the law enforcement officers from

21:23

the US Fish and Wildlife Service to

21:25

find Wolf 10's killer and close

21:27

the case.

21:29

Because there was so much reward money on the table,

21:31

tips were pouring in, but

21:34

nothing was panning out as credible.

21:36

Special

21:36

Agent Tim Eicher had spoken

21:39

with a man who lived near the Colvard, where

21:41

Wolf 10's collar was found.

21:44

The

21:44

man's name was Dusty Steinmazel,

21:47

and he said that he hadn't noticed anything out of

21:49

the ordinary or seen another person around

21:52

except for his neighbor.

21:55

But when Tim Eicher went to see that neighbor,

21:57

he got a different story.

21:59

A neighbor said he'd seen Dusty Steinmazel

22:02

driving around with someone, a man

22:05

named Chad McKittrick.

22:07

Tim Heicher thought it was odd that

22:09

Dusty Steinmazel would leave that out.

22:13

And so he sort of pokes around in the bars and tries to

22:15

see if there were rumors. He

22:17

doesn't get much, but he's kind of thinking

22:19

that Dusty Steinmazel's

22:21

going to call him on the phone.

22:24

But he doesn't. And

22:27

so he finally calls this guy named Leo Grasshopper

22:30

Suizo, who's an expert interrogator

22:33

for the Fish and Wildlife Service out of Denver. And

22:36

Grasshopper flies up to Red Lodge, and

22:38

they go pay a call on Dusty. And

22:41

they really grill him.

22:42

Were you up here with Chad McKittrick? And

22:45

they say, we know who killed

22:47

that wolf, Dusty. They don't.

22:50

But they tell him that they do.

22:53

Tim says to Dusty, listen. Perhaps

22:56

you decide that you want to tell the

22:58

true story. You call me.

23:01

And then they leave. There

23:04

was only one witness, and that was

23:06

Dusty. And

23:08

so once Tim

23:10

had pretty well fixed it in his mind

23:13

that it was Dusty, he

23:15

just had to wait and work

23:17

his way. And another policeman

23:21

might have

23:22

used high pressure tactics

23:25

and tried to break him down, tough guy

23:27

kind of thing. We're going to keep

23:30

you up all night until you break type

23:33

of deal. And Tim is

23:35

just a take it easy kind

23:37

of guy. He leans back in his chair, puts his cowboy

23:39

boots up on the desk, and says, well, I

23:42

think Dusty's going to call me.

23:44

Three days later,

23:46

Dusty Steinmazell did call

23:48

Tim Iker.

23:50

He said he was ready to talk and

23:52

that he'd seen everything.

23:55

Dusty Steinmazell said it all started

23:57

when his friend, 41-year-old Chad McKittrick,

24:00

got his truck stuck in the mud and

24:02

asked Dusty to help him get it out. And

24:05

so they go up there and they try to get the truck

24:07

out and then it gets dark and they can't. So

24:10

Dusty drives Chad to his house and they

24:13

say they'll get together in the morning, try again. They

24:15

go back in the morning,

24:17

drink a few beers. It's

24:19

early morning they're drinking beer. And

24:22

so they haul and they, you know, they've

24:25

got Dusty's truck and they're

24:28

trying to get the truck out of the mud

24:31

and

24:32

Dusty says, hey, look up there. There's

24:35

something on the ridge. And

24:38

Chad says, that's a wolf, Dusty.

24:41

I'm going to shoot it. And

24:43

he jumps out of the truck, shoulders his rifle,

24:46

takes aim, blam. Ten

24:50

falls to the ground, shot through

24:52

the lungs, dead. They

24:54

go up to the wolf

24:57

and they see

24:59

this guy wearing a radio collar. This

25:02

is National Park Service and Dusty

25:05

is totally freaked out. And Chad

25:08

says, hey, man, let's let's take

25:10

this thing down and hang it up and skin

25:13

it. And I also I want the head.

25:15

So they hang it up, take it, drag it down

25:18

the mountain and hang it up with some

25:20

string and Dusty unbolts

25:22

the radio collar. And so as they head

25:24

back down the mountain, there's

25:26

a little creek there with a culvert

25:29

under the road. And Dusty throws

25:31

the radio collar in there and they head for Chaz

25:33

with the skin and the skull.

25:36

Dusty wrote all of this out on a signed affidavit

25:39

for special agent Tim Eicher. And

25:41

the next morning, Tim Eicher went to

25:43

federal court in Billings

25:44

and got a search warrant for Chad

25:46

McKittrick's house. And so they

25:48

assembled this SWAT

25:50

team, Fish and Wildlife Service Investigators,

25:54

and they swarm over Chad's house.

26:04

We'll be right back.

26:21

Tim Eicher, along with two other Fish

26:23

and Wildlife Special Agents, met

26:25

the sheriff of Carbon County at the

26:27

foot of Chad McKittrick's road.

26:30

Chad McKittrick greeted them.

26:32

He and Tim Eicher went for a walk

26:35

while officers searched the house.

26:40

Chad McKittrick admitted to Tim

26:42

Eicher

26:43

that he had shot an

26:45

animal.

26:47

An animal that he believed was

26:49

a feral dog.

26:50

He didn't deny it.

26:53

The officers, searching his home, found

26:56

a Ruger M77 rifle

26:58

under the couch and three rounds of

27:00

ammunition.

27:02

In his garage, they found Ten's

27:04

head

27:05

and pelt.

27:08

Chad McKittrick was arrested and

27:10

charged with the killing of Wolf Ten.

27:13

His crimes were violating the

27:15

Endangered Species Act and the Lacey

27:18

Act, which prohibits transporting

27:20

wildlife that's been obtained illegally.

27:24

Chad McKittrick was released without bail.

27:27

His trial wouldn't begin for five months.

27:31

He didn't appear to be embarrassed or

27:33

sorry in any way.

27:36

On the 4th of July, he showed up to the

27:38

town's parade wearing a t-shirt

27:40

that said, Northern Rockies Wolf

27:43

Reduction Project. To

27:46

some of his fellow Red Lodge residents,

27:49

he was a hero. One rancher

27:51

told CBS News that McKittrick should

27:54

be given a medal.

27:56

In October of 1995, Chad McKittrick's trial

27:59

was made. trial began in Billings.

28:01

And Dusty is the star witness. And

28:05

he's been given immunity. Dusty

28:08

Steinmaisel testified that Chad McKittrick

28:11

knew exactly what he was doing when he shot Wolf 10.

28:14

He said that he tried to talk Chad out of it by

28:17

saying that it could be somebody's dog. According

28:20

to Dusty, Chad replied, that's

28:22

a wolf, Dusty. I'm going to shoot it.

28:26

Chad McKittrick's attorney argued the

28:28

opposite.

28:29

That Chad believed he was shooting a wild

28:31

dog. His attorney said

28:34

the shooting was admittedly stupid, but

28:36

not criminal. In

28:38

Montana, it's pretty well considered

28:42

just what you do, that you don't

28:44

shoot an animal if you don't know what

28:47

it is. You know,

28:49

if you're elk hunting, you want to be sure it's an elk

28:51

before you shoot. You don't

28:53

shoot a cow and say, oh,

28:55

I thought it was an elk. And

28:58

so it takes the jury

29:00

a very short time to

29:03

convict Chad.

29:04

One of the jurors said afterward, hunting

29:07

ethics was the key. We all agreed,

29:10

you must know your target before you pull the

29:12

trigger.

29:14

Joe Fontaine says he wasn't

29:16

surprised by the verdict. It

29:18

was totally a criminal act. And it's

29:20

the same thing with people that drive around and

29:23

shoot deer and elk and leave them lay. Why?

29:27

Why do I do people do those things? I

29:30

don't know. But to me,

29:32

the folks that I

29:34

know that hunt and fish think

29:37

it's a tragedy. And

29:40

it is just nothing but a crime.

29:43

We reached Chad McKittrick by phone, and he

29:45

said he doesn't talk about this anymore. He

29:48

was sentenced to three months in jail, three

29:51

months in a halfway house, and

29:53

also ordered to pay the U.S. government $10,000 in restitution

29:57

for the costs associated with finding

29:59

and recreating.

30:00

covering Wolf-10's body.

30:03

He appealed to his conviction and

30:05

lost.

30:06

But

30:07

the Department of Justice issued a memo

30:10

in 1999 announcing

30:12

something called the McKittrick policy.

30:16

The McKittrick policy said that the government

30:19

would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt

30:22

that someone knew exactly what kind

30:24

of animal they were intending to harm and

30:27

that animals endangered species status.

30:31

In other words, if someone claimed

30:33

mistaken identity, like Chad

30:35

McKittrick did with a wild dog,

30:39

the government

30:40

couldn't prosecute. This

30:43

was on the books for almost two decades.

30:46

In 2017, environmental

30:49

groups sued the Department of Justice and

30:51

the policy was thrown out.

30:53

The judge wrote, the

30:56

government does not need to

30:58

prove the defendant knew that killing an

31:00

endangered or threatened species was illegal.

31:03

The responsibility for any mistake

31:05

falls on the defendant.

31:09

As for the Yellowstone Wolf reintroduction

31:11

project, although they lost

31:13

Wolf-10, the project has

31:15

been an unbelievable success.

31:18

And now, of course, the

31:22

Yellowstone ecosystem has been fundamentally changed

31:25

in many ways because

31:27

the keystone

31:30

predator has been restored.

31:34

Vegetation has been changed. The distribution

31:36

of elk has been changed. The

31:40

beavers are returning because the

31:46

willows along the riverbanks

31:49

that had been mowed down by it, and

31:51

very large numbers of elk have started

31:53

to recover.

31:56

Aspen have started to

31:58

grow back.

31:59

groves that had been mowed down by so

32:02

many elk. And in those

32:04

aspens, there are more songbirds nesting.

32:08

It was really

32:11

a triumph. The return

32:13

of the wolves restored balance to the

32:15

park. As Aldo

32:18

Leopold writes, all

32:20

ethics so far evolved rest upon

32:22

a single premise. That

32:24

the individual is a member of a community

32:27

of interdependent parts, soils,

32:30

waters, plants, and animals,

32:32

or collectively, the land.

32:38

As of January, 2023, there are at least 108 wolves in the

32:41

park in 10 packs.

32:45

Among them, the descendants

32:48

of Wolf 9 and Wolf 10. What

32:52

happened to 9 and to her pups is

32:54

a whole other story, a very different

32:57

kind of story,

32:58

a love story with a happy ending.

33:01

We think that at one point

33:03

he came around and turned in the ravine and

33:06

saw something that he had never seen before in

33:08

his life. He saw the first

33:11

two pups that had come out of the den in the process

33:13

of being released. And

33:16

for him, every day of his life, he was

33:18

always the smallest wolf. And so

33:20

he had no conception that

33:22

there were wolves out there that was smaller than he was.

33:26

So he ran over

33:28

and befriended those pups.

33:30

So he played with them, shared some food,

33:33

and whether he realized it or not, he was being

33:35

watched by the mother wolf.

33:38

For

33:38

that story, check out the next episode

33:41

of This Is Love.

34:00

Criminal is created by Lauren Sporre and

34:02

me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.

34:05

Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our

34:08

producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie

34:10

Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison,

34:13

and Megan Kinane. Our technical

34:15

director is Rob Byers, engineering

34:17

by Ross Henry. Julian

34:20

Alexander makes original illustrations

34:22

for each episode of Criminal. You can

34:24

see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're

34:27

on Facebook and Twitter, at Criminal Show,

34:29

and Instagram, at criminal underscore

34:32

podcast. We're also on YouTube,

34:35

at youtube.com slash criminal podcast.

34:38

You can

34:39

read more about Wolf 10 in

34:41

Thomas McNamee's book, The Killing

34:44

of Wolf Number 10. Criminal

34:47

is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public

34:49

Radio, WUNC. We're

34:51

part of the Vox Media Podcast

34:53

Network. Discover more great shows

34:56

at podcast.voxmedia.com.

35:00

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.