The Return of the Wolf

Despite this fading presence, the wolf is at the center of a passionate debate over who will control the use of land in the West. For the ranchers whose families have for generations sought to exterminate these cattle-eating predators, the wolf is viewed as a threat to a way of life. But for others, particularly those whose roots don't run deep in the West's agrarian culture, the wolf is a reassuring symbol of the wild in our midst.

In 1995, the battle of the wolf entered a new phase. Years of research and heated debate were distilled into the biologically insignificant release of 29 Canadian wolves into Yellowstone National Park and a wilderness area in north central Idaho. Another 37 wolves were reintroduced a year later, in January of 1996. In time, these wolves may expand their territories and again play a meaningful role as top-level predators. Or political muscle may slam the project aside.

If the reintroduction program continues, the prospects for these endangered animals are unclear. They must establish new territories and survive the harsh winters in unfamiliar mountains and valleys. And they must dodge bullets from people who hate wolves almost as much as they detest the faceless forces that thrust these animals back into their world.

From the earliest days, plans to reintroduce the wolf have sparked bitter fights between neighbors, politicians and scientists. In Congress, critics pound the podium, demanding that ranchers be spared the inevitable loss of livestock, while environmentalists assert the necessity of balanced ecosystems.

The debate carries on in the editorial pages of small-town papers, in congressional hearing rooms and in the courts.

The American Farm Bureau is suing the Department of the Interior, demanding that all reintroduced wolves be removed immediately. Even some environmental groups have their doubts. The Audubon Society has joined other organizations in an effort to stop the program, primarily because it designates wolves as "experimental, nonessential" in these areas, thereby giving far less protection to wolves who lived in these areas before the reintroduction program.

These legal debates are merely the most recent chapter in a century-old story that pits Western settlers against Canis lupus, the gray wolf.

Government-sponsored extermination campaigns began in the late 19th century. Fearing for their families and their livestock, settlers pursued the slaughter with zeal. Wolves were shot, poisoned, burned alive, dragged behind horses, and mutilated in the name of civic duty. And until just recently, federal bounties were offered for exterminating the animals. The wolf, once found in almost every habitat north of today's Mexico City, nearly disappeared from the lower 48 states by 1930.

In 1974 the gray wolf was listed as endangered. That same year a wolf recovery team began considering reintroduction of wolves into the northern Rockies. After 20 years of research and public debate, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in May of 1994 issued its final Environmental Impact Statement, announcing its plan to reintroduce gray wolves to the northern Rockies on an "experimental basis."

Similar releases were planned for the next two to four years. The gray wolf will officially be "recovered" in the northern Rockies when there are 10 breeding pairs or about 100 wolves established in the region for three consecutive years.

To date, two of the original 29 are dead, both shot illegally. Of the wolves introduced this year, one was shot by the federal officials after it killed several sheep on a ranch near Yellowstone.

Faced with high expectations from all sides of the wolf debate, the handful of wolf packs now roaming the northern Rockies bear a heavy burden. Wolf recovery coordinator Ed Bangs, working from his office in Helena, Montana, doubts the wolf will be able to measure up to either side's expectations.

"It's a constant problem," he says. "People attach such strong symbolism to wolves. They see wolves as carriers of human values--the end of western civilization or the savior of all mankind. With that kind of pressure put on an animal, wolves are going to disappoint us."