Gray Wolf Fact Sheet

– History
– Facts about Human-Wolf Coexistence
– Current Situation
– Resources

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has released a proposal to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list. This rash move threatens to undo the unfinished recovery efforts of the past four decades, and once again decimate population levels.

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History:

• The gray wolf, a keystone predator, is an integral link in the food chain of the ecosystems to which it belongs. It regulates prey populations, which indirectly restores plant communities and reestablishes species dependent upon these habitat conditions.
• Before widespread settlement over the continent, an estimated 400,000 wolves roamed the landscape.
• Wolves hunt ungulates, and unless human intervention and loss of habitat reduce their hunting options, they do not generally pose a problem for livestock or human safety.
• Their annihilation was hastened by habitat destruction and government bounties that encouraged hunting wolves by any means.
• These programs have left a legacy of wolf persecution, turning them into one of the most hated species by many people.
• The gray wolf was placed on the endangered species list under the Endangered Species Act in 1973 as a response to perilously low population levels.

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Facts about Human-Wolf Coexistence:

• Some ranchers, farmers, and other citizens express concern that the reintroduction of wolves will be dangerous for livestock and impact their profits, but this is simply not the case. A report from the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service, which uses self-reported data from cattle producers, found that wolves were responsible for the death of only 8,100 head of cattle in 2010, or about 0.2 percent of all reported cattle deaths. 94% of losses are due to non-predator related causes, such as respiratory disease, digestive problems, weather, calving problems, etc. Wolves came in as the second-to-last cause of predator-related deaths; for comparison, dogs killed 21,800 cattle that year. Additionally, there are compensations fund for ranchers who lose livestock to wolves, established both by the government and by NGOs, so that predation is not a financial burden. The threat wolves pose to livestock has been blown far out of proportion to suit an anti-wolf agenda.
• Predator management, as it is implemented by state governments, simply does not work. A statistical study of 25 years of records across several states by researchers at Washington State University concluded that traditional wolf management — killing some wolves to reduce their impact on livestock like sheep—is mostly ineffective. Killing wolves, the analysis suggested, may in fact make things worse as packs adapt, move around, and increase their reproduction rates—benefiting neither the people who want wolves gone, nor the wolves whose packs and territory are severely disrupted.

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Current Situation:

• An estimated 5,000 gray wolves currently reside in the lower 48 states.
• Removing gray wolves from protection under the Endangered Species Act places management of the species in the hands of state agencies, and many of these states have already announced plans to institute wolf hunting seasons.
• FWS has released its proposal to delist gray wolves to appease certain interest groups, like the hunting lobby and livestock industry. This contradicts the Endangered Species Act, which requires the use of sound science in making any decisions about delisting a species.
• Returning this key carnivore to the wide variety of habitats it once occupied would help restore balance to those ecosystems and prevent exploitation through cruel hunting methods.
• (Update Aug., 2013) According to news reports, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has put on hold the scientific peer review of its proposal to remove the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act. FWS disqualified three scientists from the panel of experts reviewing this proposal because they signed a letter that questioned some of the science behind the delisting of gray wolves. The decision to list or delist species is intended to be based on commercial and scientific information, but it is evident that politics informed the actions of FWS. This manipulation of the panel is not the way to conduct a fair and independent review of a matter, particularly one that holds many lives in the balance. We encourage you to continue to write to FWS, urging a fair process that takes all available scientific information into account. Read more here.
• (Update Feb., 2014) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) reopened the comment period on its proposal to delist gray wolves. This comes after an independent scientific panel published a peer review of the science used in the FWS’ proposal, and deemed it inadequate. They found that the proposal is “not well supported by the available science,” and “was strongly dependent on a single publication, which was found to be preliminary and not widely accepted by the scientific community,” according to a statement from the University of California-Santa Barbara. The comment period closed again on March 27th, 2014.
• (Update Sept., 2014) A federal judge restored Endangered Species Act protection to gray wolves in Wyoming, stating that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the FWS to rely on Wyoming’s “nonbinding promises to maintain a particular number of wolves when the availability of that specific numerical buffer was such a critical aspect of the delisting decision.” This ruling restores wolves to “endangered” status in Wyoming, and stops all wolf hunting and trapping in the state.
• (Update Dec., 2014) In response to a lawsuit filed by Born Free USA and other groups, a federal judge ordered that endangered species protection for gray wolves must immediately be restored in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Judge Beryl Howell wrote, “At times, a court must lean forward from the bench to let an agency know, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough. This case is one of those times.” This tremendous victory overturns a 2011 decision by FWS to delist gray wolves in the Great Lakes states. The lawsuit argued that the basis for the delisting decision was flawed. This ruling restores wolves to “threatened” status in Minnesota, and “endangered” in Wisconsin and Michigan, and stops all wolf hunting and trapping in those states.
• (Update Jan., 2015): Members of Congress from Western Great Lakes states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota) and Wyoming have introduced legislation to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list in those states. If they succeed, we will see a return of barbaric hunting seasons. In response, Born Free USA has joined the Humane Society of the United States and others to petition the FWS to reclassify gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act as threatened rather than endangered (see press release here). If adopted, the proposal would continue federal oversight and funding of wolf recovery efforts and encourage development of a national recovery plan for the species, but would also give FWS regulatory flexibility to permit state and local wildlife managers to address specific wolf conflicts. This compromise is necessary if we are to have any hope of defeating Congressional efforts to remove all protections for gray wolves.

For more information about the highly endangered Mexican Gray Wolf subspecies, click here.

For more information about the Alexander Archipelago subspecies, and efforts to list it as threatened or endangered, click here.

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Resources:

• http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/wolves/facts/faq_gray_wolf.html
• http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Canis+lupus
• http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=A00D

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