

On March 21, 1995, federal biologists finally opened the acclimation pens holding 14 gray wolves, sometimes called timber wolves, brought from Alberta. Earlier that year an additional 14 wolves had been set free in central Idaho’s mammoth wilderness. And the following year, 17 more wolves were released into Yellowstone and 20 more into Idaho.

A decade later, Yellowstone’s wolf population has grown more than five-fold and expanded into adjacent areas of Wyoming and Montana. Idaho’s wolf population expanded even more spectacularly–by thirteen-fold–with an estimated 452 animals in the Gem State at last count in 2004. All told, over 850 wolves now roam the US Rocky Mountains. It’s only a matter of time until they begin returning in numbers to Washington and Oregon, where they are now only rare visitors. [Click on the chart at left for state-by-state trends.]

Even better, the return of the native wolf has meant a return to healthier ecosystems. (Perhaps the best study of the effects of wolves on Yellowstone’s ecosystems appeared in the Journal of BioScience in 2003.) Because wolves are a dominant predator, the effects of their presence or absence are felt on many levels–biologists call this effect a “trophic cascade.” For example, wolves preying on beavers can mean more streamside trees–because beavers are fewer in number and fear to linger in the open–which in turn means more shady habitat for trout.




But wolves have also bred a fever pitch of controversy–a controversy I don’t fully understand. Certainly, a few ranchers and herders have, I suppose, justifiable concerns about predation of stock, though many of these concerns are addressed by compensation programs.

What’s bizarre, I think, is the amount of attention paid to wolves’ purported lethality to humans. Wolves are not actually dangerous to humans in any meaningful way. Healthy wild wolf attacks on humans are exceedingly rare and are usually the result of human stupidity. In a typical year, 50 Americans die from bee stings, 7 from snakebites, and 25 from dog bites. But in the entire 20th century there’s not been a single documented case of a wolf killing a human in North America, including Canada and Alaska where wolves are relatively numerous. [For more on this subject, and sources for my claims, click here.]
