The Wolves of Yellowstone

Image Source: "First Outing," Todd Fredericksen from a film by Bob Landis, Trailwood Films Wildlife Art Gallery

According to today's Washington Post, 13 years after wolves were reintroduced into Yellowston, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took steps to remove the gray wolf of the northern Rockies from the Endangered Species List. "Environmentalists howled, calling it a last-gasp effort by the Bush administration to delist wolves."

The Post states that

for every 100 wolves at least six months of age, only 74 will live through the year, Bangs says. Of those that will not, 10 will be killed by government agencies because they attacked livestock. Another 10 will be killed illegally. Another three will die accidentally -- struck by a car, for example. And three will die from natural threats, including being killed by other wolves.

So how many wolves are there in the Rockies?

Last winter, Bangs says, there were 1,513 wolves in the northern Rockies. But the population has dropped this year, and there will probably be about 1,450 come winter......

Smith also suspects that there's an element of self-regulation of population. Yellowstone is now dense with wolves -- 171 of them spread among 11 packs. (The larger Yellowstone ecosystem has about 350 wolves.)

"At some point wolves control their own numbers through killing one another," Smith says.

I have read that there is good evidence that the wolves are a keystone species in the larger Yellowstone ecosystem, and that the predation of moose is resulting in changes in their grazing patterns that in turn is benefiting the plant communities. If they are a keystone species in Yellowstone, then I would guess they could be important in the larger ecosystem of the northern Rockies.

Comment: I can understand why the guys raising cattle and sheep want to eliminate wolf predation on their herds and flocks, but 1,500 is a very small population to maintain a species, and the northern Rockies is a very big space. The larger Yellowstone ecosystem, if it can support only 350 wolves is too small to protect the species.

I think this again is the Bush administration combining pseudo science, an ideological predisposition to distrust environmental regulations, and an unholy desire to pander to their (increasingly narrow) constituency that is pulling a fast one in the administration's dying days. This is worth a stand by all those interested in biodiversity, the protection of world heritage (The United States has had Yellowstone inscribed in the list of World Heritage sites maintained by UNESCO's World Heritage Center), the environment, and wolves specifically.

There must be a way to protect enough wolves to establish a sustainable population. The government could indemnify the owners of any calves or sheep killed by wolves. Laws could be more strongly enforced to prevent poaching. Research, if strongly supported over time, should provide means to keep the wolves within defined ranges and to reduce or prevent their predation on domestic animals. JAD

If we make the mistake of electing the McCain-Palin ticket, the wolves are probably in for a very hard time in the next administration. See my posting "Palin Versus the Wolves".