Needing Wolves in Yellowstone :: Yellowstone National Park Wildlife Essays

Needing Wolves in Yellowstone WHY THERE HAVE BEEN NO WOLVES IN YELLOWSTONE: A Brief History Around 1930, the last wolf was spotted in the Yellowstone Area by a paid hunter, he got a shot off but his aim was not true. That was the last recorded sighting of a gray wolf in the Yellowstone Park land. From 1918 to 1935 government scouts recorded killing 35 mountain lions, 2,968 coyotes and 114 wolves (Phillips 1996). Those are total numbers, since a wolf hadn't been seen since 1930, the 114 wolves had been exterminated in the early 1920's. In 1933, the Park adopted a slightly humanistic policy, taking a stance on limiting the unnecessary killing of predators in the Park, but it was too late; Humanity had successfully extinguished canis lupus along with its food sources and habitat from the west (Phillips 1996). (Canis rufus is the red wolf, which has been restored to the southwest since 1987). From the 1800's through the 1930's was a time of horrific destruction in the west. Between the United States Government and the newly formed National Park Service, predatory animals were s laughtered continuously. Even the urging of the President of the United States could not slow this thirst for dominance and desecration. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a letter to the Superintendent of Yellowstone imploring the army to stop the killing, yet it went on relentlessly. Times have changed. In 1972, thoughts of restoring the wolf to Yellowstone National Park, as part of its original biodiversity, began to circulate. In part, the new philosophy of wildlife management (verses wildlife destruction) came into being with the help of a man by the name of Dr. Starker Leopold, chairman of the Interior Secretary's Advisory Board. He authored a paper later to be known as the 'Leopold report', which stated "As a primary goal, we would recommend that the biotic associations within each park be maintained, or where necessary recreated." (Phillips 1996). This document began to outline the critical areas of preservation and helped to turn people's thoughts from consumption to conservation. There were many others before him who tried to warn people of the loss of our wild areas, such as John Muir, Aldo Leopold (who advocated the reintroduction of the wolf to Yellowstone as early as 1944), and a significant political force, Theodore Roosevelt, but it was not until th e public began to realize that the environment was in terrible shape, and was not responding well to the continuing pattern of rape and pillage, that support for wolf restoration started to gain momentum.