The Yellowstone Wolf Controversy

1914 began the official war of the wolves. This year Congress officially approves funds for the eradication of wolves, cougars, and other destructive animals. Wolves were declared destructive to agricultural and big game interests and formally hunted. Nearly a century later, in 1995, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness(Phillips, 1996, p.20). The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park did not end the debate of whether wolves should stay or go.

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.

Wolf activists, farmers, and hunters are the main players in the fight for or against wolf reintroduction. Wolves are a vital part of our ecology, the animal kingdom’s food chain, and economy; and as such should be reintroduced to all the areas that the wolf roamed before they were wiped out by European explorers. The ecology, or how living organism interact with their environment, starts from the top, or the predator and goes down to the soil and streams. Before the wolf was introduced to the Yellowstone National Park, elk populations have grown too large for the land to sustain them. Due to the large number of elk eating the grass and trees, the grass has been eaten, and the soil has become loose due to the lack of grass to hold the soil in place (Hannibal 2012).

While the average size of a pack is six to ten, the largest confirmed pack recorded in North America can be found in Yellowstone National Park where the “Druid Pack” numbers thirty-seven strong and counting. There have been alleged reports of a pack that attacked a small Russian town killing thirty horses in just four days. This pack numbered up to almost 400 members. Animal experts remain suspicious due to the fact that this number is almost fifteen times the size of an average sized pack. Wolves heavily rely on their pack.

Bison were once a major source of meat and hides in the United States. Their population was once at 60 million. By 1890 the number was reduced to less than 1,000. Prior to the Civil War, hunters would trade and sell buffalo hide. Although they were killed for meat, their hide was in higher demand.

Now 116 wolves now live and more then 75 pups. The controversy surrounding the reintroduction of the wolves are many from both sides. Some local farmers are against it because some wolves hunt their animals. However, if the farmers can prove their animal was attacked by a wolf, then the government would reimburse them for the animals value. Another problem is that some taxpayers are against the reintroduction because it cost them money to get the wolves back into the park.

Over the past several years, the gray wolf, native to the Wisconsin area, has been listed federally as an endangered species due to the graphic and horrific treatment they had received during the industrialization periods of America, when they were frowned upon and hated because they are predatory creatures and did, on occasion, attack livestock and pets. Because the government was encouraging the hunting, including bounties for the animals, the wolves were hunted to near extinction. However, now Wisconsin faces a new problem. With the reintroduction of the wolves to the state, and their continued endangered status federally, the population has increased well beyond expectations, reaching what could be considered a problematic state. A regulated hunt and a population control procedure has become necessary in Wisconsin to protect state's economic endeavors of game, wildlife, and agriculture, and also the wolves themselves, to keep them from overpopulating and facing starvation and lack of land.

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.

Wolves, which got reintroduce back into Yellowstone National Park, should stay there because without them the ecosystem would be out of balance. Wolves had live throughout parts of the world for thousands of years before humans just kept rising in population and minimizing the wolves’ population through the expansion of their territories for farm agriculture and industrialization. It is only in the United States where humans completely annihilated wolves; they did this by hunting the wolves down until the last wolf was killed in 1926. However, in 1995, 14 wolves were caught from Canada and release into Yellowstone National Park. This makes it almost 70 years since the wolves have been reintroduced back into Yellowstone National Park (17 July 2009) The wolves’ were hunted in late 1800 s’ and early 1900‘s in the United States because farmers wanted more land for their cattle’s to graze upon.

As of 1995, wolves have been reintroduced into the park. This has come with some strong opposition and yet has prevailed. The future of the wolf in Yellowstone park is now looking bright, although not certain since there still are those who want them banished again. History Many hundreds of years ago wolves roamed the entire North American continent with no barriers and very few predators. As settlers moved into the United States, wolves became more and more scarce in the wild of America.