September 25, 2009
The Gray Wolf: Of Poison, Population Size, and Premature Delisting
Removing federal protections for the gray wolf is not the answer
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recently reduced federal protections for the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Previously listed as "endangered" in most of the lower 48 states, the gray wolf has been downlisted to "threatened." USFWS also plans to begin the process of removing federal protections entirely for wolves in all areas of the United States, other than a handful of southwestern states.
Once wolves are no longer protected by the ESA, their management will be turned over to the states in which they are currently found. Unfortunately, the management plans drafted by these states would allow for what many conservationists and protectionists consider to be unnecessary and liberal wolf killings by hunters, trappers, and ranchers who feel that the wolves threaten their livestock.
The final rule released by the USFWS to describe the wolf's reduced federal protections is complicated and is described elsewhere on our site (see link below). Below we examine the management techniques and population issues integral to understanding why gray wolves should not lose any federal protections.
Lethal and nonlethal management
The Humane Society of the United States, along with many other animal protection and conservation organizations, has long advocated the use of non-lethal methods to prevent wild predators from attacking livestock. These methods can be effective in protecting livestock and will foster peaceful coexistence between humans and wild predators. Though an increasing number of progressive ranchers have committed to using only non-lethal methods in protecting sheep and cows from predators, the vast majority turn to traditional lethal methods.
Clearly, much of the human population residing within wolf country is not yet ready for the peaceful coexistence envisioned by conservationists. The state wolf management plans reflect these negative attitudes, and demonstrate that states will take full advantage of the wolf's reduced federal protections.
In fact, some state and federal wildlife managers have gone so far as to suggest that the best way to increase human tolerance for wolves is to allow humans to kill wolves, an argument that lacks scientific support and goes against common sense. The opposite argument could just as easily be made: that allowing people to behave aggressively toward wolves will simply feed their negative feelings toward the animal.
Wolf population size and structure
Many conservationists and scientists are concerned that the current number and size of wolf populations in the lower 48 states won't be enough to allow gray wolves to recover. Both wolves, and the ecosystems from which they have long been absent, would benefit from the establishment of additional wolf recovery areas—as well as from the expansion of existing wolf populations.
Increasing the number and size of wolf populations would help to ensure the long-term viability of the gray wolf in North America by allowing for population sizes sufficient to maintain genetic variability. This should also help guard against the loss of a wolf population hit by a disease outbreak or catastrophic weather or chance genetic processes that can reduce genetic variability over time.
An important fact of wolf reproduction is that only the highest-ranking male and female in each pack reproduce. Thus, even if a wolf population seems large, it's the number of breeding adults—not the total number of individuals—that will determine whether the population will be able to survive over the long term.
Wolf populations may also suffer in less obvious ways if they are subjected to the sport hunting and trapping under state management plans. Killing adult pack members of this very social animal can upset the stability of territories and result in increased aggression between packs. This could also result in a population composed mostly of young dispersing wolves and fewer adults with stable territories. Finally, the alpha male and female of a pack mate monogamously; if one member of a mated pair is killed, it may be some time before the survivor will form a new pair bond.
Returning this key carnivore to the wide variety of habitats it once occupied would help restore balance to those ecosystems. For example, certain traits—such as swiftness, vigilance, or perceptual acuity—of many prey species evolved because of wolf predation as a selection pressure, and smaller carnivores such as foxes and coyotes evolved in the face of competition from wolves. Without competition from wolves, these smaller carnivores can reproduce more and survive longer; competition from (and occasional predation by) wolves was an important factor keeping smaller carnivores in check.
Of course, restoring wolves to much of their historic range will depend heavily upon the protection of vast expanses of public land to meet the wolf's habitat requirements and to allow for movement of wolves among separate populations.
It's too early to delist the gray wolf
The removal or reduction of federal protections for the gray wolf now appears to be premature, for three reasons. First, gray wolf populations are insufficiently recovered. Second, a vocal minority of the U.S. public continues to express irrational negative attitudes toward the wolf, demonstrating their unwillingness to tolerate this native carnivore. And third, the state plans include provisions for liberal sport hunting and trapping of wolves, and fail to mandate protections adequate to ensure the survival of wolves.
Coexistence with large predators requires human tolerance and education regarding the means by which conflicts may be avoided. That willingness to coexist has not been developed in any portion of the gray wolf's range; therefore, simply restoring a certain “magic number” of wolves to a region (which has been the focus of federal wolf recovery efforts and of existing state plans) may not be enough.