Dr. Douglas W. Smith

Douglas W. Smith PhD is the Project Leader for the Yellowstone Wolf Project and has been with wolf program since its inception in 1994 and is based in Yellowstone National Park. Doug received a B.S. degree in wildlife biology from the University of Idaho in 1985. While working toward this degree he became involved with studies of wolves and moose on Isle Royale with Dr. Rolf Peterson which led to a long-term involvement with this study as well as a M.S. degree at Michigan Technological University in biology. His M.S. research focused on beavers in northern Minnesota and resulted in an 11 year study of beavers in Voyageurs National Park which eventually led to a PhD from the University of Nevada, Reno in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology.

He has also conducted beaver research in Wisconsin and Michigan as well as studying wolves in Minnesota with Dr. L.D. Mech. He has published a wide variety of journal articles and book chapters on beavers and wolves and co-authored two popular books on wolves (The Wolves of Yellowstone & Decade of the Wolf which won the 2005 Montana book award for best book published in Montana) as well as publishing numerous popular articles. He has participated in a number of documentaries about wolves for National Geographic and British Broadcasting Company (BBC) as well as other media. He is interviewed widely and speaks often about wolves to audiences all over the world. His professional interests include wolf population dynamics, wolf-prey relationships, restoration of ecological processes, and beaver population dynamics. Besides wolves and beavers, he is an avid canoeist preferring to travel mostly in the remote regions of northern Canada.