How many wolves are too many?

Restoring Wolves to Yellowstone In his book, Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat tells an Inuit tale, saying that in the beginning, caribou were created for humans to hunt. However, humans “hunted only the big, fat caribou, for they had no wish to kill the weak and the small and the sick,” creating a weak population of caribou. The creator then made wolves to eat the sick, weak, and small caribou, creating a natural health and balance to the earth (124). Humans have traditionally seen wolves as a competitor and a danger, but these misconceptions can now be put to rest. Because wolves regulate the carrying capacity, preserve the health of herds, and complete the ecological cycle in a balanced system, they must be restored to Yellowstone.

Scotland has now lost over 90% of forest cover necessary for many endangered species. Today, a lot of money is spent on deer culls and also putting up electric fences to stop deer from getting at saplings. Firstly these fences cause visual pollution, as the countryside is often littered w... ... middle of paper ... ...ith the many benefits it will bring to Scotland, then perhaps their attitudes will change. Even though this would be a difficult task it would be the biggest step towards reintroducing the wolf. A few years ago there were plans to keep four wolves in a secure enclosure at the Alladale Estate across 50,000 acres but the plans were scrapped in the interests of the animals’ welfare.

The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park did not end the debate of whether wolves should stay or go. Advocates for wolf reintroduction say the wolves control elk and deer population numbers; preventing the destruction of ranchers cattle and the land. Opponents say the wolves kill elk and deer that could be hunted. Ranchers fear the wolves will kill their livestock decreasing profits. Wolves are a natural mean of controlling the number of deer, elk, and other large game in an environment.

In the state parks and forest preserves the government decides to hire sharpshooters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing besides the outrageous amount of money it costs to take out just one deer. Shutting down the parks in the winter months when deer season is in and opening them to deer hunters would be the better thing to do. It creates revenue for the state and produces meat for the hunters that harvest a deer which maintains the herd’s population. Many hunters rely on deer meat to survive while some people just want horns. Hiring sharpshooters and biologists is not the way to go about harvesting these deer.

The Wolf Trust, and The Highland Wolf Fund are trying to reintroduce wolves worldwide. The reintroductions of wolves at Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks have already begun; to date, about 115-120 wolves inhabit Yellowstone. Around the World, groups are still trying to gain public support and allowance from the Government to begin the reintroduction programs in their areas. The project at Yellowstone was met with some apprehension. Biologists there feared that without the fear of predation during the past few generations, the resident moose at Yellowstone would not fear the wol... ... middle of paper ... ...d have nothing left to eat, and they would die.

Government statistics show that 2.6 million live in Montana, meaning only a miniscule %.004 of cattle was killed. In fact, the number of killed livestock has actually decreased since the wolves were reintroduced because the animals the wolves kill they make up for in animals saved from coyotes. Previously, coyotes had been the primary predator of the domestic animals and wolves hold this population in check, saving much more livestock than they have killed. There has also never been one documented wolf attack on humans, so there is no reason to worry about the danger to humans. Ranchers have the ability to prevent such livestock depredations, but do not realize it.

This meant that they turned their attention to domestic livestock, causing farmers and ranchers to fight back. There were even some states offering bounties for the wolves. Montana had a bounty on wolves that totaled more than $350,000 on 81,000 wolves. Due to the lack of a food source, as well as the bounties being offered, a wolf was no longer safe in the lower 48 states. However, there was one safe haven, and that was Yellowstone National Park that was established in 1872.

Yes, there are programs which reimburse ranchers for their losses, but the raising calves to cows, feeding them, and immunizing them is more money than one wants to put out for one animal if it isn’t your income. Farmers lose from wolves because their cows, sheep, goats, and dogs get eaten or killed by wolves. For farmers, the money situation is almost as bad as it is for ranchers. Either way wolves infringe on the rights of farmers and ranchers, so they should not be reintroduced into the southwest. Another reason wolves are bad for our society in the southwest, is a good piece of income and food is raised from hunters every year; with wolves being in the wild, hunters would feel afraid to go into the back country looking for a good deer or elk, the best animals would be eaten by wolves thus reducing the number of permits that are being given out, reducing the money generated by hunting permits.

The wolf is an incredibility majestic creature of the wild. Centuries of hunting have pushed the wolf to the brink of extinction. Man decided to bring back the wolf, but it took many years before their numbers came up enough to be taken off the endangered species list. Now the wolf is abundant with overwhelming numbers. In 2009, a law was enacted allowing people to go out to the local Fish and Game office and buy a license to hunt wolves.

The general public needs to dig deeper than the newspaper in order to get real facts on wolf issues. What needs to be considered is the biological proof of wolf kill issues and then that information put side by side with hunter kill statistics. Once you do the math you can see that a single wolf eats a ton of meat every year, that being 5-10 pounds of meat a day. It hunts daily every day of the year, it has no limited or regulated season the way human hunters do and it takes a lot of wild game to fill up just one wolf thus decreasing a species population quickly. Hunters have seasons that are strategically set to make sure population reproduction is not effected drastically.