Western stockmen's associations offered bounties for wolves. Hunters and ranchers placed strychnine tablets in deer, elk and pronghorn carcasses to poison the wolves that fed upon them. Wolf packs were rarely reported and had been almost entirely eliminated from the lower 48 states. All wolf subspecies were placed on the federal list of threatened and endangered species for the lower 48 states. 1872 1919 1900s 1940s 1973 1978 1995 Yellowstone National Park was established and wolves were present. The U.S. Biological Survey and National Park Service set up wolf hunting camps across the West, encouraging hunters and ranchers to use steel traps in addition to poison. Between 1914-1926, at least 136 wolves were killed in Yellowstone National Park. The Endangered Species Act was passed to protect species at risk of extinction. Gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. The wolves came from a contiguous source population ranging from northwest Montana into Canada. The animals were managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act. THE HISTORY OF A lone wolf in Grand Teton National Park. (Photo by Mark Gocke/WGFD) 22 | January 2025