Mammalian carnivores have captured human attention and imagination for millennia. Some make us their prey, others compete with us for our wild food or livestock, and many inspire awe with their amazing predatory skills and beauty. As a result, different carnivores elicit different human emotions ranging from fear, loathing, and suspicion through greed, deep care, and worship. Whatever the case, our attitude is rarely one of indifference and most often is deeply held.

Such firm human convictions, coupled with the inherent rarity of many species in a world of diminishing wildness, have catapulted carnivores into leading roles in conservation initiatives worldwide. Species such as grizzly bears, tigers, and giant pandas have become the rallying “flagships” for the design and management of protected areas. These conservation initiatives often focus on mountainous regions where many carnivores have their last strongholds. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is one such region. Centered on Yellowstone National Park, the world's oldest national park, it is a large area (nearly 8 million hectares) of mountain ranges and high upland plateaus. Land is predominantly publicly owned, as national parks or national forests. Ecosystem conservation is the primary management regime in the parks and is integrated with natural resource extraction in national forests. These public lands are well enough linked to act as a conservation network. Livestock ranching dominates the extensive private lands.

This book is, in part, a case history of the GYE and its role in conserving many of North America's mammalian carnivores. It is also a synthetic review of the ecologies, throughout North America, of many of the GYE's carnivores and the present state of the science of carnivore ecology and conservation. The result is a fascinating mixture of knowledge about these species and the process of studying them. This is dominated by insights into the animals' lives in the wild and into the interplay of science and management actions in their conservation. There is also frequent mention of what the editors term an overarching theme, “… the role of human attitudes and behavior as the ultimate arbiters of carnivore persistence” (p 8). Yet perhaps the major weakness of the book is the relatively minor effort at a systemic analysis of the sociocultural forces driving human attitudes, legislation, and policy, both locally and nationally, and the value of the GYE as a case history in this regard.

Twenty-five contributors, among the leading North American researchers of carnivore ecology and conservation biology, have collaborated on 12 chapters. The introductory chapter, written by the editors, outlines why the GYE is such a valuable landscape for studying conservation of carnivores in particular and what lessons we might have learned so far. The history of management actions in this ecosystem, and particularly in the national parks, is painted with broad-brush strokes in the stimulating second chapter. Bears, wolves, coyotes, and cougars are then accorded a chapter each, reflecting the detailed knowledge gathered about these larger carnivores over a number of decades. Numerous mesocarnivores such as marten, fisher, wolverine, and river otter are dealt with in 1 chapter. The questionable assumption that their persistence will be ensured under the umbrella of conserving the larger species is here brought into focus. Another 4 chapters are more synthetic in dealing with interspecific ecosystem processes in the GYE. Two of these chapters focus on the vegetation–ungulate–wolf interaction, including the role of wildfire in vegetation production and the possible cascading effect of wolf predation on ungulates and other ecosystem processes. One summarizes the likely roles of smaller prey in the feeding and habitat ecology of various carnivores, and 1 deals with genetic considerations in carnivore ecology. The final chapter is a sweeping, sometimes rambling, synthesis of carnivore research and conservation worldwide. Here, all the strengths and weaknesses of the carnivore research agenda, from technique to experimental design to conceptual models and relevance to ecological theory, are scrutinized.

What lessons have we learned from the GYE? It has been remarkably successful in conserving carnivores. This reflects its large size and the dominance of public lands managed to maintain ecosystem processes and constituent species. Authors highlight the remarkable resilience of this ecosystem in adapting to change, whether anthropogenic (eg, hunting) or not (eg, wildfire). It is large enough to absorb the disturbances while maintaining representation of most species and most ecosystem processes. The studies also reinforce the idea that there is no one natural trajectory that we should be managing for or aiming toward. There are likely a number of paths this ecosystem can take and along which we are consciously, or unconsciously, directing it with our management actions. Our most useful scientific tools are (a) models of sufficient sophistication to allow realistic projections of alternative management regimes; (b) more deliberate focused research, ideally experimental, on the ecosystem processes (most often interspecific interactions) that are needed for model realism; and (c) an approach that considers management as a large-scale experiment with attendant monitoring and evaluation and ideally with controls. Our knowledge will always be incomplete and tentative, and the precautionary principle must be paramount.

And what have we discovered of the role of human attitudes? In their review of the history of policies, Schullery and Whittlesey make it clear that predator control and poisoning, even within the young Yellowstone National Park of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, came close to removing all the larger carnivores except bears. Fortunately, only the wolf was lost. Bears meanwhile were intentionally fed by the Park to draw tourists. Policies reflected attitudes widespread in society, and most importantly in natural resource management agencies, that all large carnivores that might depredate livestock and wild game should be removed to reduce competition and that parks should be managed for the enjoyment of visitors. Such anthropocentric thinking shifted dramatically in the mid- to late 20th century, and policies came to reflect a more biocentric approach espoused by the broader society. This shift included explicit conservation of all species (eg, the Endangered Species Act, the reintroduction of the wolf in the 1990s), explicit management of all carnivores as wild animals (eg, closing of the Park garbage dumps where bears had been encouraged to feed), and integration of a broad range of ecosystem functions into land management on all public lands. Without this broad shift in societal attitudes, the GYE would most likely be relatively depauperate in carnivores today. The facts are clear, but this book provides no analysis of how such a pivotal attitude change happened, how resilient the present circumstances might be, and how characteristic the GYE might be of carnivore conservation scenarios elsewhere.

The global evidence suggests that a similar attitude shift is relatively uncommon elsewhere except in some parts of Europe. Fear of economic losses through livestock and crop depredation and economic opportunity to sell poached carnivore body parts continue to drive a great number of carnivore population declines. Even within North America, carnivores are not held in high esteem by all. Opposition to the reintroduction of wolves, largely from local ranchers within the GYE, almost halted and reversed the process. Livestock depredation was seen as too great a cost to bear, despite compensation programs.

It seems to me that at least 2 conditions are necessary to foster a sympathetic attitude toward carnivore conservation. One is a link between the life of the animal or species and the broad cultural belief system, such that people believe the animal or species has a function to perform or a right to exist. This link may be reinforced through religious or secular sanction (edict or legislation) but would appear to be most robust as an emotive narrative reinforced by personal experience. Second is the removal of any survival cost to the individual human resulting from having carnivores present. In many circumstances, this can be realized through compensation for economic loss and ironically by segregation of the human from the carnivore's life, for example, in an urban lifestyle. As many of the authors in this collection understand, we must be wary of allowing all their wonderful scientific knowledge to become academic by failing to better understand, influence, and perpetuate the relatively positive attitude in which carnivores are held in the GYE at present.