Wolves and Viable Ecosystems
In 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the grey wolf from the Endangered Species List. The self-accolades accompanying the delisting noted that the recovery of grey wolf populations in the continental United States was a remarkable achievement that spanned half a century. Confined to northern Minnesota and nearby Isle Royale, Michigan, in the mid-twentieth century (a total of about 1,050 animals), wolf populations at the time of the delisting had spread to Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and north-central Utah (a total of about 6,100 animals).
Although this achievement is indeed remarkable, it is also incomplete. The territorial range of the grey wolf once spanned the entire continental United States and Canada; yet today, its range is restricted to portions of 9 states. Moreover, as soon as the delisting was approved, both Idaho and Montana launched aggressive programs aimed at significantly reducing their wolf populations. Given humankind’s at best ambivalent relationship with wolves, it would not be surprising to see a half-century of progress reversed in less than half a century.
Underlying the attempt to (drastically) reduce wolf populations is the profoundly erroneous belief that we can rely on human management to manage complex ecosystems. Given our inability to fully understand the way in which the individual elements of complex ecosystems interact, and how human intervention upsets this interaction, even management based on the best science is likely to run afoul of unanticipated interactions. But the best science is rarely used. Instead, wolf management is often based on a one-sided concern for the economic interest of ranchers, an erroneous belief (as we shall see) that prey populations (such as deer) are negatively impacted by the presence of wolves, and by simple fear that wolves will behave aggressively toward people (something that is extremely rare, since wolves look with suspicion upon and prefer to avoid the activities of man). There is also an element of irrationality; in Of Wolves and Men, Barry Lopez writes that, “Throughout the centuries, we have projected on to the wolf the qualities that we most fear and despise in ourselves.”
Instead, research has shown that wolves are an essential ingredient to healthy ecosystems in numerous ways. To mention just a few:
- The presence of wolves maintains healthy populations of their prey. Wolves tend to kill the weaker members of a herd and avoid conflict with its stronger and healthier members. This improves the overall vitality of the herd. (In contrast, hunting has the opposite effect, since hunters target the strongest, largest, and healthiest animals.)
- The presence of wolves changes the grazing behavior of their prey. Without wolves, prey populations become fearless, graze in far more widely dispersed patterns, and particularly damage vegetation along rivers and streams, causing soil erosion and endangering aquatic plants and animals.
- Wolves and coyotes are unable to coexist in the same territory. That wolves prey on large hoofed mammals, eating smaller mammals only when large game is unavailable, assures a more abundant food supply to other animals who prey on smaller mammals. fosters a greater diversity of species, and, in cases where the particular species of small mammals are endangered, helps to preserve the endangered species. Although coyote attacks on humans are also rare, coyotes nevertheless pose a greater threat to humans.
While we cannot individually help to reintroduce or strengthen wolf populations, we can support educational organizations, wolf sanctuaries, and wolf preservation organizations that work to ensure wolves will be or become a critical component of healthy ecosystems. Some of these organizations include:
- Wolf Haven International, a sanctuary for wolves born in captivity located in Tenino, Washington.
- Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, a wildlife park near Yellowstone that is accredited by the elite American Zoo & Aquarium Association (the same organization that accredits only a handful of zoos such as the Bronx Zoo and the San Diego Zoo).
- International Wolf Center, a wolf sanctuary and educational organization in Northern Minnesota.
- Twin Timberwolf Information Network, a wolf education project in central Wisconsin, an area into which wolves were recently reintroduced.
The following are a few of the environmental and wildlife preservation groups that also focus on wolves: