As predicted, Republicans, many of them Tea Party candidates determined to slash federal spending, retake the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterms. By April, they propose an austere budget bill to avoid a government shutdown. Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid inserts a paragraph in it as a favor to John Tester. The clause overrules Judge Molloy’s judgment on the Northern Rockies wolves, delisting them as an endangered species. A cornered President Obama signs the budget bill, and Reid’s rider passes into law despite desperate last-minute pleas from environmentalists.

Park officials like Rick and Doug must remain sanguine as part of their jobs. But hunters are rubbing their hands with glee, including in Crandall, even if Wyoming’s situation remains stalled for now. Steven Turnbull and Louie Cary are keeping tabs on a new pack that has formed in the Lamar Valley. Some of them, they hear, have even ventured as far as Silver Gate.

The political fight over wolves is now fully divorced from the science coming out of Yellowstone. By spring 2011, biologists studying the park are arguing that the return of wolves has triggered a “trophic cascade,” a chain reaction in the health of the park’s ecosystem.