Wolves were once the most widely distributed mammal on the planet. With their exceptional ability to adapt, wolves occupied almost every habitat except tropical jungles. But with the arrival of humans, wolves numbers diminished. Systematic eradication programs were aimed at top predators; this, along with over-hunting of prey populations and habitat loss due to population encroachment, wolves were eliminated from most of the contiguous United States by the 1940s. In 1973 wolves were finally put under the protection by the Endangered Species Act, and just recently wolf populations are increasing due to wolf recovery and reintroduction projects. Within the continental United States, gray wolves once ranged from East Coast to West Coast, and from Canada to Mexico. Today only about 2,200 wolves live in the wild in Minnesota, fewer than twenty on Lake Superior's Isle Royale, about 120 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, 120 in Wisconsin, and about 240 in the northern Rocky Mountains of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Now staff members at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks are trying to raise wolf numbers by working to reintroduce them in their parks. 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. An environment without wolves is something that we cannot afford. We've lost too many species already, let's not repeat our mistakes. It is our fear and carelessness that caused the wolves to be eradicated from the United States and other countries around the world; let's not let our false fears or indifference deepen the wound we've created. Yellowstone has given us an example to follow, we now know that reintroductions can be done safely, and that wolves can coexist with humans. I believe that wolves are a very important part of our environment, and other environments as well. The United States should be working to reintroduce wolves throughout the country, repaying the wrong that we did in the past. Maybe then, other Countries will follow our example, and the wolves will then return to the grandeur they once had.
The history behind the extirpation of the grey wolf in the United States dates back to the very first European settlers that colonized eastern North America in the late 16th century. The killing of gray wolves was done primarily out of fear in an attempt to protect livestock, and, in some cases, to protect human life within the colonies. As more settlers expanded West, the practice of killing wolves was considerably increased to protect livestock that included cows, pigs, and chickens. As waves of European settlers expanded westward, they began to deplete the deer, moose, and elk populations. The gray wolves food source continual depletion gave rise to wolf populations actively targeting the settler’s livestock, causing great financial loss. The fiscal loss of livestock became such an issue to wealthy ranchers and settlers that they began to offer cash rewards for wolf pelts. This practice gave birth to a lucrative cottage industry of professional hunters and trappers. As the wolves began to move further West, and into Wyoming, they began to diminish the elk and moose population. To respond to this threat, Congress approved funding in 1914, to eliminate the native gray wolves from
This makes them seem less menacing and scary like the first article makes them look. Sharon Levy says in part "It is only in the two decades that biologists have started to build a clearer picture of wolf ecology….Instead of seeing rogue man-eaters and savage packs, we now understand that wolves have evolved to live in extended family groups.." (ll 19-22) This article also explains the positive overall effects of the wolves moving back to Yellowstone. Not only did the wolves have a new home filled with beautiful elk for prey they were also protected from hunters. This changed the attitude of the wolves as well as their population, of course their population grew and stayed more
Isle Royal is an island surrounded by the cool Lake Superior. Wolf and Moose are the two largest species on the island, and the wolf and moose interaction is the longest running large mammal predator-prey study on earth (USNPS, 2014). The two populations were once said to exhibit some kind of “balance of nature,” now that is not believed to be the case (Vucetich, 2012).
Gray Wolf Optimization Gray wolf optimization is presented in the following subsections based on the work in [13]. 1) Inspiration: Grey wolves are considered as apex predators, meaning that they are at the top of the food chain. Grey wolves mostly prefer to live in a pack. The group size is 512 on average. They have a very strict social dominant hierarchy.
...I think that repopulating wolves in an area where they might have to deal with people is kind of a feeble-witted idea. Wolves are not an animal with a great reputation, even though they might not deserve that reputation most people do not like. I think that people as a whole would probably rather have deer in their back yard rather than wolves. Therefore, the questions what can happen, what should happen, and what will happen, with the deer problem all three have different answers. These answers will differ due to the area that the deer are in and the peoples' feeling towards these deer. It is too bad that there is not one perfect solution to the deer problem. Maybe in the future there will be, but until then we will have to deal with each problem that comes up individually.
Rapidly evolving throughout the late Pleistocene to the early to mid Holocene, hunter-gatherer-fisher societies hunted megafauna creatures in a systematic and ethical way. When one species migrates to a different ecosystem, that species is not usually recognized as a threat to other species. Survival, during the late Pleistocene and Holocene era, was one of the most important aspects to life. Any organism, regardless of size, living within their environment had to stay alive and reproduce. During these two eras, it seems...
Hypotheses of the Effects of Wolf Predation Abstract: This paper discusses four hypotheses to explain the effects of wolf predation on prey populations of large ungulates. The four proposed hypotheses examined are the predation limiting hypothesis, the predation regulating hypothesis, the predator pit hypothesis, and the stable limit cycle hypothesis. There is much research literature that discusses how these hypotheses can be used to interpret various data sets obtained from field studies. It was concluded that the predation limiting hypothesis fit most study cases, but that more research is necessary to account for multiple predator - multiple prey relationships. The effects of predation can have an enormous impact on the ecological organization and structure of communities.
Phillips, Michael K., Smith, Douglas W. The Wolves of Yellowstone. Voyage Press, Inc. 1996, pgs 25-30.
middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Barrett, Todd. The "Oh, Deer!" National Wildlife (World Edition) 29.6 (1991): 16-22. Encore.
A lot of people think that humans are the only ones killing Arctic wolves, but that is not the case. Arctic wolves most dangerous threat is humans, but they are also being killed by gobal warming for melting there habitat to water and since there are less of them now polar bears have a bigger advantages to hunt them down.
Coyotes and bears are a common sight in the woods. These animals, along with others, are predators that help to control deer population but also decrease the amount of land allowed to the deer. In Western NC, deer rates have fallen and bag limits have been reduced. In Pennsylvania, biologists have conducted a lengthy study to determine fawn mortality and predation. Predators killed 46% of fawns, (Hart). A study about coyotes in Ohio found that even though they kill numerous fawns, the population of deer continues to grow, (Hart). It would be critical to maintain...
In comparison, wolves were gone from Yellowstone for more than 70 years. While they were gone, the ecosystem continued to function properly. With the gray wolf returning, the ecosystem improved. Yellowstone depends on the gray wolf to hel...
need to look at how we coincide with nature in the future. Only 1200 wolves in
Most of the native Mexican gray wolves originated and exist in the southwest region of the United States. In the beginning, when the United States was being colonized, European settlers began hunting the prey of Mexican gray wolves for sport as well as for market gain. After continuous years of hunting deer and elk, they eventually depleted the majority of Mexican wolves’ food source (Mexicanolvesorg).
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 of species has been missing in Yellowstone National Park for a very long time. Wolves, which got reintroduce back into Yellowstone National Park, should stay there because without them the ecosystem would be out of balance.