Wolves - Eating

Thousands of visitors each year travel to Yellowstone National Park to view wolves in the wild, but with changes in the Endangered Species Act, the wolf population is threatened.

  • Wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone area in March 1995 when they were included on the Endangered Species Act.
  • There are two opposing and radically different views concerning the management of the wolf population.
  • Wolves lost protection in the Northern Rockies under the Endangered Species Act in 2008.

Reintroduction of Wolves in Yellowstone National Park
The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone and the manner in which they are managed has long been a controversial subject. After being absent from the region for over 70 years, wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone area in March 1995.

Those animals have done remarkably well, reproducing at a rapid rate. At the end of 2008, at least 124 wolves in 12 packs and various groups occupied Yellowstone National Park. However, the number of wolves within the Park is currently declining. It has been documented that the current population of gray wolves in the park will be 116, a 33% drop from 2003, when the population was at an all-time high of 174.

Delisting from Endangered Species Act
While parvovirus and mange continue to reduce the population, part of the decline can be traced to the fact that wolves lost protection in the Northern Rockies under the Endangered Species Act in 2008. Wolves, like all wildlife, are protected inside the park, but when they roam beyond the borders, they fall into the individual state's wildlife management practices. Idaho and Montana, which border Yellowstone, permitted hunting of wolves in the fall of 2009.

Controversy
As with all controversies, there are two opposing and radically different views concerning the management of the wolf population.
Hunters have long insisted that wolves deplete the elk and deer population. Wolves certainly eat elk and deer, but wildlife biologists insist that they don’t actually kill as many elk and deer as they work to change their grazing habits. The elk and deer will graze for shorter periods of time before moving on. What wolves really do is make elk and deer hyper-vigilant. Wolves increase biodiversity; wolves affect elk behavior more than elk populations; and aspen growth in elk winter range is directly related to wolves.

Hunters, of course, prefer elk and deer that aren't quite so wily, but changes in the food chain of nature work both ways. Remove the wolves, and elk and deer are easier to find. But then coyote populations explode, eating their way through the local game-bird population. Enhance one hunting opportunity, and you affect another.

Several conservation groups, including the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, have joined in a lawsuit and argue that the Northern Rockies wolves should be put back on the endangered species list. If wolves are relisted, hunting would be banned. 

The controversy is bound to continue as man continues to get involved with mother nature’s work to find equilibrium between predator and prey.

Something not quite right? .