Originally Posted by brianspetcare

I am a biologist and in my ecology class in college they discussed what happens when things are signficantly changed. When you add or remove a species it has drastic changes to the whole ecosystem.

In this case when you introduce a predatory species that has been gone for decades, which allowed its prey to increase in numbers, you will get a HUGE increase in the population of the predator. It will be so big that it will drive its prey almost to extinction. The long term effect of the drop in prey is a big drop in the predator. Then the prey comes back, then the predator, etc. Eventually you will hit a more natural balance (which still usually goes through cycles). The problem is that this is on a very long term scale (many decades to centuries).