1. How many gray wolves are in the United States?
2. Where are gray wolves found?
3. Is the gray wolf protected by the Endangered Species Act?
4. What is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services' plan for gray wolf management?
5. What is a distinct population segment?
6. Why is isolating gray wolf populations a problem?
7. Do wolves pose a threat to people and their pets?
8. Can livestock be protected from wolf predation?
9. Why does The HSUS oppose state management of gray wolf populations?
10. Why is it important to keep the gray wolf on the Endangered Species List?
11. What about the Mexican gray wolf and red wolf?
12. What is The HSUS doing to protect gray wolves?
1. How many gray wolves are in the United States?
The current estimate for the continental United States is about 5,000 gray wolves (Canis lupus). Genetic data suggest that the historic population in this area was roughly 400,000. Alaska's population is estimated between 7,700 and 11,200. The closely related red wolf (Canis rufus) is all but extinct.
2. Where are gray wolves found?
In the United States, the gray wolf was once found in Alaska and most of the continental United States, (except for part of coastal California and the southeast, where its range overlapped with that of the red wolf). Currently, there are self-sustaining populations in only seven states: Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. There is a small, experimental population on the border of Arizona and New Mexico, but it contains fewer than 30 individuals, and its numbers are regularly supplemented by captive bred animals.
3. Is the gray wolf protected by the Endangered Species Act?
The gray wolf was one of the first species protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1974. The species' status has changed a few times in the last 30 years, and recently the wolves of the Great Lakes region were designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a Distinct Population Segment (DPS) and removed from the Endangered Species List ("delisted"). The wolves of the Rocky Mountains are being considered for delistment. The HSUS filed suit in federal court to challenge the delistment of the Great Lakes wolves in April 2007. Also in 2007, The HSUS submitted comments opposing the 'Distinct Population Segment' designation and delistment of the Rocky Mountain wolves and awaiting the final rule from the USFWS.
Hunting and livestock interests and individual state governments have incessantly pressured the USFWS, which is required to protect wolves under the ESA, to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list and turn over management of the species to state agencies, most of which have already announced plans to institute wolf hunting seasons. The current delistment efforts have been sparked in part by the urgings of these interests.
4. What is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services' plan for gray wolf management?
Unable to justify depriving endangered species protection from the entire continental U.S. population, the USFWS has taken a divide-and-conquer approach. Rather than apply criteria for endangered species protection to the continental U.S. population as a whole, the USFWS proposed in early February, 2007, that this population should not be treated as a single population but as a set of separate, independent populations, referred to as Distinct Population Segments (DPSs). The current areas occupied by wolves have thus been classified as two DPSs by the USFWS, one in the Northern Rocky Mountains (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Utah) and one in the Western Great Lakes (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and parts of the Dakotas, Iowa, Illinois and Ohio). In this way, wolves will no longer be listed as endangered where they actually live but only in areas they historically occupied and no longer occupy.
5. What Is a distinct population segment?
The ESA allows certain populations of species to be designated as Distinct Population Segments in order to provide greater protections to those populations. However, the legislative history and statutory structure of the ESA demonstrate that DPSs were to be utilized only when listing the species or subspecies was not warranted; they were not created to be used as a delisting tool. In order for a population to qualify as a DPS, it must be distinct from other populations of the same species based upon these criteria:
- The population must be located in an unusual or unique ecological setting.
- The loss of the population must result in a significant gap in the range of the species.
- The population must represent the only surviving natural occurrence within its historic range.
- The population must have marked genetic differences from other populations of the species.
The populations of wolves in the proposed DPSs fail to satisfy any of the requirements:
- The location of these populations is not unusual for this species.
- The range of the gray wolf has been so decimated that the gaps between populations are much larger than the areas that the population occupies; therefore, the loss of these populations would not form a gap.
- Neither of these population segments represent the only surviving natural occurrence of this species.
- These populations are not genetically different from gray wolf populations in Canada and Alaska.
Moreover, the USFWS cannot abdicate its responsibility to recover the gray wolf across a significant portion of its range by creating a Western Great Lakes DPS and Northern Rocky Mountain DPS and then delisting the gray wolf in those areas.
6. Why is isolating wolf populations a problem?
Genetic diversity is essential to the health of the species. Wolves do not maintain high population densities, because each pack maintains a large territory (typically 50 to 100 miles). Since packs are usually made of one or more breeding pairs and their offspring from years past, dispersal is the primary means by which young wolves may locate a unrelated mate. Thus, if wolf populations are large, but individual packs become isolated, there is a risk of inbreeding.
7. Do wolves pose a threat to people and their pets?
Generally, wolves do not attack humans. There have only been a handful of recorded wild wolf attacks on humans in North America, and no lethal attacks have ever been confirmed. (In the rare instance that a wolf approaches in a threatening manner, stand your ground. Never run or turn your back, as such behavior is typical of prey. Make noise and throw objects at the wolf.) The most important thing to remember about wolves—and other wild animals—is that they should NEVER be fed. If wild animals associate humans with food, they will lose their natural fear and become much more likely to act aggressively towards humans.
As is the case in all areas where wild carnivores are present, pets should never be left outdoors unattended in wolf habitat. Pets should always be fed indoors, and dogs should be sterilized to prevent the possibility of breeding with wolves. Dogs should never be allowed off leash in wolf country or used for hunting in these areas. Wolves will perceive these dogs as intruders or competitors from outside the pack and will attack to defend their territory.
8. Can livestock be protected from wolf predation?
There are a wide variety of non-lethal techniques and products that can be employed to protect livestock from wolf predation. Such devices including turbo fladry (flags hung off of an electric wire), electronic training collars, non-lethal ammunition (capsicum filled, rubber, or noise making rounds), and guard animals (dogs and llamas) have all been effectively utilized to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts. Improved husbandry practices include the penning of livestock during birthing season and at night, the removal of animal carcasses from the field, and even shepherding (range riding). While wolves can habituate to individual techniques over the long term, recent successes in Idaho show that a combination of non-lethal methodologies can be 100 percent effective.
9. Why does The HSUS oppose state management of gray wolf populations?
If the USFWS' scheme to delist the gray wolf as two DPSs succeeds, the individual states would assume the management of their wolf populations, independent of federal control. All of the states with current wolf populations have created wolf management plans in anticipation of this delisting. All of these plans call for increased killing of wolves in response to livestock and public-safety complaints. All state plans but Minnesota's, which calls for a five-year waiting period, include immediate hunting seasons to reduce current wolf populations to numbers that hover just above the minimum for relisting.
Some of the state plans could result in precipitous declines in the current wolf populations. For example, Idaho's plan calls for a minimum of 100 wolves in 10 packs before lethal control measures would be curtailed. The current wolf population in Idaho is estimated to be 370-512 animals. Even at the most conservative estimate of 370, reducing the population to 100 animals would mean killing 73 percent of the population. Under these state plans it is unlikely that the gray wolf would be able to expand its range outside the arbitrary borders of the DPSs. The population goals in all of the state plans are not based on any historical estimates but have been arbitrarily set at levels that will effectively restrict the expansion of the species.
10. Why is it important to keep the gray wolf on the Endangered Species List?
Based on the long and continuing legacy of wolf persecution and hatred by some segments of the population, a premature delisting would be devastating to the recovery of the gray wolf in the lower 48 states. The borders of these DPSs would effectively act as corrals, preventing the wolf populations within their boundaries from expanding and recovering further into their former range—or potentially expanding to eventually form one, contiguous population.
Returning this key carnivore to the wide variety of habitats it once occupied would help restore balance to those ecosystems. Numerous scientific studies have confirmed the importance of so-called "apex predators" to ecosystem health, function and stability. The effects of these carnivores is not only observed through the regulation of prey populations but also in the restoration of plant communities and the reestablishment of species that are directly dependent upon the habitat conditions facilitated by the predatory actions of the wolf.
11. What about the Mexican gray wolf and red wolf?
The Mexican gray wolf is considered a subspecies of the gray wolf. This reintroduced population is classified by the FWS as a non-essential experimental population, much like the wolves in part of the Northern Rocky Mountains. Mexican wolves are generally smaller in size than other gray wolves. This variant once ranged throughout the desert southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico) but is now solely found in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area (BRWRA). This area spans the border between Arizona and New Mexico. A total of 90 captive-bred wolves have been reintroduced into the BRWRA since1998. Despite major efforts by the USFWS to establish self-sustaining populations in this recovery zone, illegal killings, lethal depredation control, the inadequate size of the recovery area, and the negative effects of inbreeding have hampered the growth and expansion of the population. Current estimates remain below 60 individuals.
Red wolves, native to the southeastern United States, are considered a separate species (Canis rufus) by most researchers. They are generally smaller than gray wolves, and their fur tends to have a reddish hue, though dark or black fur has been recorded. In the 1970s, the USFWS removed 14 of the 17 known wild red wolves from their habitat on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana and placed them in captive breeding facilities around the country. Starting in 1987, the FWS reintroduced individuals from this bloodline into North Carolina, where the species once ranged. From the original pair and a number of later introductions, a stable, wild, reproducing population of over 100 individuals survives today in five counties. However, owing to the propensity of the red wolf to mate with coyotes, this reintroduction has been accompanied by the management of coyotes in the Red Wolf Recovery Zone. This management scheme includes the surgical sterilization or lethal removal of coyotes that may potentially hybridize with reintroduced red wolves. Wolf/coyote hybrids are also killed or sterilized. As the numbers of red wolves increases, these naturally territorial animals have begun to displace and kill coyotes in the recovery area, leading to a self-sustaining wild population. However, hunters do mistake red wolves for coyotes on occasion, and these animals have been mistakenly shot.
12. What is The HSUS doing to protect wolves?
We are working through local activism and litigation to ensure that wolves are not delisted as DPSs before a more robust recovery has been made. We are also working to ensure that these protected wolves are not unnecessarily persecuted as FWS attempts to adapt the tenants of the ESA to appease those who would kill wolves in large numbers. In the summer of 2006, The HSUS won a court battle to prevent the broad-scale killing of wolves in Wisconsin under the auspices of enhancement permits. Currently, depredating wolves may be killed in all states in which they are present. Yet such lethal controls require individual permits for each action in addition to evidence that preventative measures were taken but failed to halt depredations.
Posted Feb. 14, 2007. Updated May 8, 2007
