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Yellowstone’s reintroduction of wolves in 1995 is one of the best-known instances of a trophic cascade – a single change in a food chain that transforms an entire ecosystem. The return of the wolves rejuvenated wildlife in the park from top to bottom, even changing the area’s physical geography as native animals and plants reasserted themselves. Narrated by George Monbiot, How Wolves Change Rivers chronicles how Yellowstone’s extraordinary success in rewilding stems from a decrease in invasive and overpopulated species such as coyote and deer thanks to just 66 wolves returning after a 70-year absence from the park.
Video by Sustainable Human
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Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
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Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes
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Fairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
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Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
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Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
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Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes
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Information and communication
‘Astonished and somewhat terrified’ – Victorians’ reactions to the phonograph
36 minutes