Needing Wolves in Yellowstone WHY THERE HAVE BEEN NO WOLVES IN YELLOWSTONE: A Brief History Around 1930, the last wolf was spotted in the Yellowstone Area by a paid hunter, he got a shot off but his aim was not true. That was the last recorded sighting of a gray wolf in the Yellowstone Park land. From 1918 to 1935 government scouts recorded killing 35 mountain lions, 2,968 coyotes and 114 wolves (Phillips 1996). Those are total numbers, since a wolf hadn't been seen since 1930, the 114 wolves
Should the Wolves Stay in Yellowstone National Park? National Parks are the cornerstone of every country because it preserves the rich cultural and natural resources of a nation, such as Yellowstone in the United States of America. Yellowstone National Park is the World’s First National Park which brings millions of attraction each year, it is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combine and have over a thousand species of plants and animal (Yellowstone Media). However, a very important type
eliminated from the Rocky Mountains (Bangs, et al 147). In 1973, congress passed the Endangered Species Act that protected any wolves that naturally migrated from Canada (U.S. Congress). Public opinion began to shift and the value of the wolf on the ecosystem became understood. In the early 1990’s, planning for a reintroduction of the gray wolf, Canus lupus, to the Greater Yellowstone Wilderness was undertaken (Bangs, et al 148). When the reintroduction began in 1995, it met much public opposition. Wolf
short synthesis of the potential ecosystem responses to predation risk in a three-level trophic cascade involving large carnivores, hoofed animals, and vegetation; and secondly to present research that centers on wolves, elk, and woody browse species in the northern area of Yellowstone National Park. The authors begin by defining several terms in depth. First, the term trophic cascade is defined in the context of the study. In this study, the authors focus on top-down processes and the ways in which
Introduction Yellowstone National Park is located primarily in Wyoming but also extends into Montana and Idaho (Figure 1). Established in 1872, it is thought to be the first National Park in the world (Russell et al. 2004). The park spans an area of 3,468 squares miles and includes lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Park has a large number of megafauna in its region, including the gray wolf. Even when Yellowstone was created, the gray wolf population was already in decline. By
as cold-blooded killers, they were hated and persecuted. Wolves were not merely shot and killed; they were tortured as well. In what was believed to be a battle between good and evil, wolves were poisoned, drawn and quartered, doused with gasoline and set on fire, and, in some cases, left with their mouths wired shut to starve (Begley 53). Convinced that they were a problem to be solved, U.S. citizens gradually eradicated gray wolves from the lower 48 states over a period of 25 years.
on that change with this cryptic remark: "After this, nothing happened." Even Western pioneers who experienced the change were shocked. As L.A. Huffman, the famous Montana photographer, remembered it, when he first came west in the 1870s, "This Yellowstone-Big Horn country was then unpenned of wire, and unspoiled ... One looked about and said, "This is the last West. ..." There was no more West after that. It was a dream and a forgetting, a chapter forever closed." From any perspective, that great
USFW (US Fish and Wildlife Service) and IUCN status of the Red wolf The red wolf is listed as endangered under the U. S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) (United States Public Law No. 93-205; United States Code Title 16 Section 1531 et seq.). Wild red wolves inhabiting the north eastern North Carolina (NENC), USA recovery area and a single island propagation site (St. Vincent NWR, Florida) are designated as experimental non-essential populations under Section 10(j) of the ESA. The IUCN Red List of Threatened
species list once Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have enough wolves to be deemed sufficient to continue to expand the wolf population, requiring only that each of these three states have a management plan in effect to prevent the gray wolf from becoming endangered again. With the current attitude of the governments in these states, the wolf should not lose their federal support under the Endangered Species Act as it would merely serve to cause the wolves to become endangered once again, or at best, held to