January 2025 - 24

to big game populations. This contentious
issue highlights the clash between preserving
natural ecosystems and addressing the livelihoods
of those who share the land.
The controversy surrounding wolves in the
West goes back to the 1800s when westward
expansion brought settlers and their livestock
into direct contact with wolves and other
predators. As land was settled and agriculture
flourished, much of the wolves' prey was overhunted
to local extinction. In the absence of
their natural prey base, wolves quickly turned
to domestic stock. To ranchers in the West,
the wolf became an enemy, and a call for
predator control ensued.
The gray wolf was present in Yellowstone
National Park when it was established in 1872,
but it was not a haven for wolves, nor was any
other region in the West. Stockmen's associations
offered bounties for wolves throughout
the early 1900s. Hunters and ranchers placed
strychnine tablets in deer, elk and pronghorn
carcasses to poison the wolves, along with
other species, that fed upon them. In 1919,
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
the park. By the 1940s, wolf packs were rarely
reported and had been almost eliminated from
the lower 48 states.
In the 1970s, awareness of environmental
issues grew, and many laws designed to correct
the mistakes of the past and help prevent
similar mistakes from occurring in the future
gained traction. It was during this time the
Endangered Species Act was passed. By 1978,
all wolf subspecies were on the federal list of
endangered species for the lower 48 states
except Minnesota, where the last surviving
wolf population was listed as threatened.
In 1995, 41 gray wolves were reintroduced
in Yellowstone National Park. The wolves
came from a contiguous source population
ranging from northwest Montana into Canada.
The population rapidly increased and
expanded, meeting the Endangered Species
Act recovery levels in 2002, and has continued
to exceed all recovery criteria since.
Nearly two decades later, and after a previous
decision to delist in 2012 was overturned,
the gray wolf was delisted and Game and Fish
received state management of wolves in 2017
on lands outside of Yellowstone and Grand
Teton national parks, the Wind River Indian
Reservation and the National Elk Refuge.
24 | January 2025
George " Coyote " Smith stands in the snow with a harvested wolf over his shoulder. Smith was a trapper in Wyoming during
the late 1800s and early 1900s. (Photo courtesy of Wyoming State Archives)
Mark McNay, retired biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, prepares an immobilized wolf captured in
Canada for reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Mark Bruscino, WGFD)

January 2025

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2025

January 2025 - 1
January 2025 - 2
January 2025 - 3
January 2025 - 4
January 2025 - 5
January 2025 - 6
January 2025 - 7
January 2025 - 8
January 2025 - 9
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