The history of wolves in Yellowstone includes the extirpation, absence and reintroduction of wild populations of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) to Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. When the park was created in 1872, wolf populations were already in decline in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The creation of the national park did not provide protection for wolves or other predators, and government predator control programs in the first decades of the 1900s essentially helped eliminate the gray wolf from Yellowstone. The last wolves were killed in Yellowstone in 1926. After that, sporadic reports of wolves still occurred, but scientists confirmed in the mid-1900s that sustainable gray wolf populations had been extirpated and were absent from Yellowstone as well as 48 states.
Beginning in the 1950s, park managers, biologists, conservationists, and environmentalists began what would ultimately turn into a campaign to reintroduce the gray wolf into Yellowstone National Park. When the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was passed, the road to legal reintroduction was made clear. In 1995, gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in the Lamar Valley. The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone has long been contentious, as have wolf reintroductions worldwide.
Extirpation (1872–1926)
In 1872, when Yellowstone National Park was created, there was not yet any legal protection for wildlife in the park. In the early years of the park, administrators, hunters, and tourists were essentially free to kill any game or predator they came across. The gray wolf was especially vulnerable to this wanton killing because it was generally considered an undesirable predator and was already being deliberately exterminated throughout its North American range, usually in the interest of protecting livestock. In January 1883, United States Secretary of the Interior Henry M. Teller issued regulations prohibiting the hunting of most park animals, but the regulations did not apply to wolves, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, and other small predators.
Shortly after the U.S. Army took over administration of the park on August 1, 1890, Captain Moose Harris, the first military superintendent, allowed public hunting of any wildlife and left all predator control to the park's administration. Official records show, however, that the U.S. Army did not begin to implement a policy of killing wolves until 1914.
In 1885, Congress created the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy with the express purpose of conducting scientific research for the protection of wildlife. The agency soon became the U.S. Biological Survey, which was in turn the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1907, under political pressure from western cattle and livestock industries, this agency began a concerted predator control program which was eventually called Animal Damage Control. This program resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,800 wolves and 23,000 coyotes in 39 U.S. National Forests in 1907 alone. In 1916, when the National Park Service was created, its enabling legislation included words that authorized the Secretary of the Interior to "provide in his discretion for the destruction of such animals and of such plant life as may be detrimental to the use of said parks, monuments and reservations".
It is generally accepted that sustainable gray wolf packs had been extirpated from Yellowstone National Park by 1926, although the National Park Service maintained its policies of predator control in the park until 1933. However, a 1975–1977 National Park Service-sponsored study revealed that during the period from 1927 to 1977, there were several hundred probable sightings of wolves in the park. Between 1977 and the reintroduction of wolves in 1995, there were additional reliable sightings of wolves in the park, most believed to be singles or pairs transiting the region rather than permanently inhabiting the park.
Official records of wolves killed Prior to the National Park Service assuming control of the park in 1916, the U.S. Army killed 14 wolves during their tenure (1886–1916), most in the years 1914–15. In 1940, Adolph Murie, a noted wildlife biologist published his Fauna Series No. 4— Fauna of the National Parks of the United States-Ecology of the Coyote in the Yellowstone National Park. In this report, Murie tallied the number of wolves killed as reported annually by park administrators between 1915 and 1935: From the Superintendent's Annual Report: Year Number killed 1915 7 1916 14 1917 4 1918 36 1919 6 1920 28 1921 12 1922 24 1923 8 1924–1935 0
Updated research in the 1980s verified that the last official killing of wolves in the park took place in 1926 when two pups found near Soda Butte Creek were killed by park rangers. The last reported wolf killed in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (prior to today's legal hunting or control measures) occurred in May 1943 when Leo Cottenoir, a Native American sheepherder on the Wind River Reservation shot a wolf near the southern border of the park.
Absence (1926–1995)
Ecological impacts Once the wolves were gone, elk populations began to rise. Over the next few years, conditions of Yellowstone National Park declined drastically. A team of scientists visiting Yellowstone in 1929 and 1933 reported, "The range was in deplorable conditions when we first saw it, and its deterioration has been progressing steadily since then." By this time many biologists were worried about eroding land and plants dying off. The elk were multiplying inside the park and deciduous, woody species such as aspen and cottonwood suffered from overgrazing. The park service started trapping and moving the elk and, when that was not effective, killing them. Elk population control methods continued for more than 30 years. Elk control prevented further degradation of the range, but didn't improve its overall condition. At times, people would mention bringing wolves back to Yellowstone to help control the elk population. Yellowstone's managers were not eager to bring back wolves, especially after so successfully extirpating them from the park. Elk control continued into the 1960s. In the late 1960s, local hunters began to complain to their congressmen that there were too few elk, and the congressmen threatened to stop funding Yellowstone. Killing elk was given up as a control method which allowed elk populations to again rise. As elk populations rose, the quality of the range decreased affecting many other animals. Without wolves, coyote populations increased dramatically which adversely impacted the pronghorn antelope population. However, it was the overly large elk populations that caused the most profound changes to the ecosystem of Yellowstone with the absence of wolves.Stolzenburg, William (2008). Where the Wild Things Were. Jeffers Literary Press.
Reintroduction initiatives The campaign to restore the gray wolf in Yellowstone had its roots in a number of seminal studies related to the predator-prey ecology of the park. In 1940, Adolph Murie published Ecology of the Coyote in the Yellowstone National Park. That study and his 1940–41 work The Wolves of Mount McKinley was instrumental in building a scientific foundation for wolf conservation. In 1944, noted wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold, once an avid predator control advocate, made the following comments in his review of The Wolves of North America, Young and Goldman, 1944:
By the 1960s, cultural and scientific understanding of ecosystems was changing attitudes toward the wolf and other large predators. In part, this included the emergence of Robert Paine's concept of the keystone species. In the early 1960s, Douglas Pimlott, a noted Canadian wildlife biologist was calling for the restorations of wolves in the northern rockies.
In 1970, American wolf expert, David Mech published The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species (1970, 1981), an enlightening study of the wolf and its impact on its environment. In 1978, when wildlife biologist John Weaver published his seminal study Wolves of Yellowstone, he concluded the report with the following recommendation:
The gray wolf was one of the first species to be listed as endangered (1967) under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. However, until the passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, there was no legal basis or process for re-introducing the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The Endangered Species Act obligated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop restoration plans for each species designated as Endangered. The first recovery plan was completed in 1980 but gained little traction. In 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a revised Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan which led the way to wolf reintroduction. The plan was a cooperative effort between the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, academia, state wildlife agencies and environmental groups. Its Executive Summary contains the following:
In 1991, Congress directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the express purpose of reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park and regions of Central Idaho. The final statement was published on April 14, 1994, and selected five potential alternatives for reestablishing wolves in Yellowstone and central Idaho to be seriously examined. Reintroduction of Experimental Populations (incorporating most of the state implemented nonessential reintroduction alternative with parts of the 1987 Recovery Plan). Natural Recovery (with limited land-use restrictions in anticipation of some illegal killing of wolves). No wolf (as proposed in alternative scoping). Wolf Management Committee (as proposed by Congress). Reintroduction of Non-experimental Wolves (incorporating the accelerated wolf recovery alternative but with fewer land-use restrictions)
Alternative 1 was the recommended and ultimately adopted alternative:
The final EIS opened the way for re-introduction, but not without opposition. The Sierra Club and National Audubon Society opposed the re-introduction plan on the grounds that Experimental populations were not protected enough once the wolves were outside the park. The Farm Bureau's of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana opposed the plan on the basis that the wrong subspecies of wolf—Canis lupus occidentalis (northwestern wolf (Canada)) instead of Canis lupus irremotus (Northern Rocky Mountains wolf) was selected for reintroduction. These objections were overcome and in January 1995, the process of physically reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone began.
Reintroduction (1995–present)
Initial releases 1995–96
In January 1995, U.S. and Canadian wildlife officials captured 14 wolves from multiple packs east of Jasper National Park, near Hinton, Alberta, Canada. These wolves arrived in Yellowstone in two shipments—January 12, 1995 (8 wolves) and January 20, 1995 (6 wolves). They were released into three acclimation pens—Crystal Creek, Rose Creek and Soda Butte Creek in the Lamar Valley in Northeast East Yellowstone National Park. In March 1995, the pens were opened and between March 21 and March 31, 1995, all 14 wolves were loose in Yellowstone.
Seventeen additional wolves captured in Canada arrived in Yellowstone in January 1996 and were released into the park in April 1996 from the Chief Joseph, Lone Star, Druid Peak and Nez Perce pens. The reintroductions were planned on taking 3-5 years but these were the last wolves released into the park as officials believed that the natural reproduction and survival were sufficient.
Annual wolf status since reintroduction