North America’s big four terrestrial carnivores—gray wolves, pumas, black bears, and grizzly bears—have seen a strong recovery in recent decades.

So strong that the risk of a person to encounter or even to be attacked by one of these carnivores has also significantly increased!

"All four species have significantly expanded their population and range (see the figure below), though they remain far below historic levels. ..."

From the abstract:

"Over the past five decades, gray wolves, pumas, black bears, and grizzly bears have made significant spatial and numerical recoveries across North America, enabled by legislative protections, the cessation of predator-eradication campaigns, and changing societal perceptions of large carnivores.

Here, we document the recoveries of these large carnivores and synthesize what is known about their direct effects on ungulate prey and mesocarnivores, as well as their indirect effects on vegetation and broader ecosystem processes.

While large carnivores are widely believed to reduce ungulate populations and promote plant growth through trophic cascades, our synthesis shows that their impacts are complex, context dependent, and shaped by multispecies interactions, alternative stable states, and especially, human activities.

As large carnivores recolonize multiuse landscapes and new technologies improve how we study them, understanding when and where they exert strong ecological effects is essential for predicting outcomes and guiding future conservation and management."

Doomslayer: Progress Roundup - by Malcolm Cochran

Large Carnivores Have Been Recovering in North America

The Ecological Impacts of Large-Carnivore Recovery in North America

Figure 2 Distributions of (a) wolves, (b) black bears, (c) pumas, and (d) grizzly bears in North America.

Tan shading with diagonal hatching shows the historical range; light blue, the range circa 1975; and dark blue, the expansions from 1975 to 2025.