In the 1920s, a once-familiar face in the northwestern United States all but disappeared. The majestic gray wolf, a top predator in the Rocky Mountain ecosystem, gave way to the pressures of habitat loss and human hunting. By the 1930s, a previously healthy breeding population of wolves was extinct in Montana. While the decimation of any species is tragic, the loss of top predators can have an even more profound effect on an ecosystem.
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