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The protection of endangered species
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The largest member of the canine family is the wolf, the ancestor of almost all dogs known today. The males can get up to 95-99 lbs. and the females can get up to 79-85 lbs. Wolves tend to live together in groups called packs, a group of animals living and hunting together, a pack on average consists of 5-11 wolves at a time. There are 1-2 adults, 3-6 juveniles, and 1-3 yearlings, and sometimes you will find one or more families grouping together to make a bigger pack. Wolves are very territorial animals and don’t like it when strangers start wandering around their area. Stray wolves will tend to go into other territories in order to join the pack if they left them or to steal food. But why would they be a stray in the first place? Why did they wander away from their pack? How far would they wander off to?
A wolf pack has a basic social unit and it starts with the mated pair, or alpha male and female, then the pack consists of their offspring, and then their offspring going down the line. Wolves are generally committed, mated pairs typically remain together for life, unless one of them dies. Unmated females are uncommon, since, males often prevail in any wolf population. There are “Casanova wolves,” they are wolves that are unable to form a territory or find a mate, that mates with the offspring of already created breeding duos from other packs. Females are able to deliver pups every year, with one litter yearly being the average. If a parent wolf dies or gets separated from the group, another wolf may adopt the pups and keep them as their own.
The wolves have a unique of hunting; it can be divided into five stages. The first stage is locating the prey; the most common way of locating prey is by scent. The breeze carries the sc...
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...ou really want to know where and how far they go, then you would need to put a radio collar on them.
Works Cited
• Gray Wolf . Ed. Ray Coppinger, Will Graves, Steven R. Lindsay, Barry H. Lopez, and David L. Mech. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. . Path: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_wolf.
• Gray Wolf (2013). In Defender of Wildlife. Retrieved March 24, 2014, from http://www.defenders.org/gray-wolf/basic-facts
• Lindsay, Steven R. (2000). Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training: Adaptation and learning. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-8138-0754-9.
• Mech, L. David (1981). The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1026-6.
• Mech, L. David; Boitani, Luigi (2003). Wolves: Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-51696-2.
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
After reading "scared to death" and "wolf family values" I think the second article gave better reasoning behind why we should protect the wolf population. Both articles talk of the wolves return to Yellowstone national park, but the first essay "scared to death" by Ed Yong focuses on the wolves effect on the elk population. The second essay "wolf family values" by Sharon Levy focuses mainly on the wolves and their population and changes of their behavior because of hunting and trying to manage the population. it also focuses on the effects they have on the environment in general.
The gray wolf, Canis lupus, on Isle Royal is a small ever fluctuating population. On the endangered species list since 1978, the gray wolf has recently been taken off the endangere...
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.
Maughan, Ralph. "Overview and history of the central Idaho wolf reintroduction." September 25, 1999. visted: October 4, 1999. http://www.poky.srv.net/~jjmrm/wpages/idaho-o.htm
Mader,T.R. Wolf reintroduction in the Yellowstone National Park: a historical perspective. Common Man Institute. 1998. 26 pgs.
The habitat of the Arctic wolf is a very harsh place. The temperature must be below zero degrees. There are tundra, rolling hills, glacier valleys, ice fields, shallow lakes, and green flatlands (Arctic/Antarctic: The Arctic Wolf). These snowy white creators don’t have that many places to live. Arctic wolves used to be everywhere in North America, but sadly now they are reduced to Canada, Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (Arctic/Antarctic: The Arctic Wolf). Arctic wolves are one of the most dangerous types of wolves; people need to find a way to save them and their habitat before they disappear forever.
Sometimes they even hunt moose. Their sense of smell is superior. Wolves hunt in packs all male to be exact. Wolf packs are mostly led by the parents of the wolves and some other wolves with the parent wolf to join their pack for hunting and killing their prey. The Gray Wolf can also run as fast as 31 - 37 MPH which makes them really good hunters. And they have been seen viciously attacking people. Unlike some animals wolves don’t hibernate so they have to hunt all year. Wolves also tend to mate in the early spring as well. Then before you know it the female wolf has babies some time during the winter, and their babies also have to eat.
Canis Lupus, the Latin term for the “North American Wolf”. A meat eating mammal with the capability of weighing up to 180 pounds and reaching a height of sixty-three inches, the wolf is easily the largest member of the canine family. Over 500,000 wolves once lived in harmony, roaming the Northern Americas alongside the Native American tribes and the rest of the ecosystem. Wolves live in packs, a pack essentially being a family. 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. Every member of the pack has a specific job that benefits the pack, without the pack, death would be almost imminent. The pack is set up as a hierarchy, with an alpha male and an alpha female. The alphas get the best of everything, the best part of the kill, the best sleeping spot, and the breeding rights. When hunting, one member will scout ahead and will determine the weakest member of the herd. Once determined, the rest of the pack will chase the animal down and either takes it down on the run or chase it until it tires out. Unlike many predators in the animal kingdom, wolves eat their prey alive. While wolves are known for their spine tingling howls, the howl is not the only way they communicate. “Wolf Language” so to speak, consists of many grunts, snarls, growls, yips, and whines....
Carter, Angela. "The Company of Wolves." Folk and Fairy Tales. Eds. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. 3rd Edition. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2002.
However, the hunters would not keep all of the wolves that grew up from the cubs they had. Keeping a wolf that became overly aggressive towards them, or if it had little practical use, would have been both pointless and dangerous to their group. They most likely would have killed those types of wolves or left them behind to fend for themselves. The hunters would have chosen semi-tame wolves and those with the most desirable traits and abilities and bred the two together, repeating the process until what resembled a dog today. The first bones found which ...
Gibson, J. William. "The New War on Wolves." Los Angeles Times. 08 Dec. 2011: A.25. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
When the reintroduction of wolves began in the state of Wisconsin, a goal of 350 wolves was set, and this number was reached successfully in a short amount of time. Once this was reached, however, the population continued to rise dramatically and exponentially, and is now in the upper 600s (Allen). The problems now come down to a few simple questions that have complex answers. Will a regulated hunt get out of control, and a repeat of the past begins? Are the wolves posing any sort of threat in the present? Who or what would a hunt benefit? First, the issue of the past must be addressed. Back in the earlier years of the United States, wolves roamed free, and when farmers moved their livestock into what was then the wolves' territo...
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 farmers were moving out west they felt threaten that the wolves would hunt their cattles so the farmers thought that the best solution would be to take them out of the picture. This was possible because at the time there were no government regulations on hunting....
Sikes, Roberts. and William L. Gannon. "Guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists for the Use of Wild Mammals in Research." Journal of Mammalogy 92.1 (Feb. 2011): 235-253. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Oct. 2011.