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.
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.
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)
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...
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.
During 70 years of absence from the Rockies, the Grey Wolf had been protected under the Endangered Species Act that was passed in 1973. Since the wolf is under the protection of Endangered Species Act a person could be punished with up to a $100,000 fine and up to 1 year in jail for killing a wolf. Back in the 1850's there was a major population increase of the wolves in America, this was due to settlers moving west. These settlers killed more than 80 million bison, the wolves started to scavenge on the carcasses left behind.
middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Barrett, Todd. The "Oh, Deer!" National Wildlife (World Edition) 29.6 (1991): 16-22. Encore.
...y white fur for fur that cost a lot of money. Some people like to sell their teeth for money or make jewelry. Mostly just for the thrill of it. Also to sell the whole wolf for money or cut off pieces of the wolf like head, ears, paws, and tail as a award for that they killed one. So because of all the stuff that people are doing to kill these wolves are making all them all disappear. There are less ad less. There are not in all 50 states as they use to be, they are reduced down to 7 states and Canada, that is how serious there case is now a day.
Wolves were once also native from Iowa. They remain on the endangered species list because of their low numbers. We have records saying that the last wolf that lived here was all that way back in 1925. There has only been one wolf seen since then and it was shot all the way down in Buchanan County. That was the first wolf seen and killed since 1925 that we have on record. The wolves are no longer here because in the 1900’s people were killing them off for their pelts that they used for currency or trade. We also killed them because people were very scared of them because they were mean and they usually run in numbers, known as “Packs”. There’s also a little creature from Iowa. The river otter once was full in this river. They weren’t just killed off here it was large parts of central and western part of The United States. That took place during the Mid-twentieth century. The otter’s were abundant during the European settlement. We killed them off again only for their pelts. After about 1890 in iowa they only existed on the mississippi river of
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...
need to look at how we coincide with nature in the future. Only 1200 wolves in
This extermination method continued from 1940 to 1970. The last three wolves were killed in 1970. The U.S. government also sent experts to Mexico to teach them how to exterminate Mexican wolves. The methods worked because ever since 1980, no Mexican wolves have been seen in Mexico. The U.S. Biological Survey continued to exterminate wolves that attacked cattle and sheep at the farmers’ requests (Mexicanolvesorg).