Recently, both Idaho and Montana have implemented new regulations aimed at reducing each state’s wolf population by roughly 90%. In 85% of that state, wolves can be killed at any time, by almost any means. Wyoming has had fairly aggressive wolf-management policies for years. The loss of specific pack members can completely destabilize wolf packs, causing a variety of problems within their social groups, as well as across the landscape that these apex predators help regulate. What happens outside the National Park can have significant consequences inside the park, especially when it comes to wolves. When the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park were originally drawn, they had nothing to do with encapsulating prime wildlife habitat, and like all of the animals in Yellowstone, the wolves don’t exclusively stay within these park boundaries. Since then, each of the three states that make up the GYE have allowed hunting and trapping of wolves outside of the National Park boundaries, and the wolf population has remained fairly stable in recent years. In 2011, wolves were delisted (removed from the Endangered Species List) in Idaho and Montana, and in 2016 they were delisted in Wyoming. The wolf population has since stabilized in the Park (~100 wolves) and expanded beyond the Park’s invisible boundaries. Between 1995-1997, 41 wolves from western Canada and northwest Montana were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park.

Several years later, as our collective understanding and appreciation of ecology and wildlife biology improved, the National Park Service (NPS) and USFWS restored wolves to Yellowstone. In 1973, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) listed wolves in the Rocky Mountain West as an ‘endangered species,’ and designated the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) as one of three recovery areas. In 1926, the last wolves in Yellowstone National Park were killed, and not long after the only American land south of the Canadian border that maintained a viable wolf population was in northern Minnesota. Seen as a pest, a threat, or a nuisance, wolves were almost entirely extirpated from their historic range in the contiguous United States by the early 1900’s. The story of Yellowstone’s wolves is one of peaks and valleys, both literal and figurative. 3 Day Winter Wolves and Wildlife Safari.2 Day Winter Wolves and Wildlife Safari.

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