A Brief History of Wolves in the U.S.

Grey wolves (Canis lupus) were present from central Mexico all the way up to the Arctic until 150 years ago. While Native Americans respected wolves and even replicated their hunting techniques, wolves became demonized in the Medieval Ages by the Roman Catholic Church.

In the early 1800s, America experienced a massive western expansion. Private property and livestock ownership increased dramatically. This expansion resulted in the extermination of an estimated 5,000 wolves in the area that is now considered Colorado.

In the 1930s and 1940s, some biologists, notably Aldo Leopold, began raising concern over the mass killing of the species. However, the U.S. government continued its extermination, and by the 1940s wolves were basically extinct in the contiguous U.S.

In 1995, Yellowstone National Park reintroduced the grey wolf. 14 wolves were captured in Canada (they were not all from the same pack, seeing as that would have been almost impossible) and transported to Yellowstone, where they were released. The wolves initially fed almost entirely on elk and later added bison to their diet.

Yellowstone’s annual number of visitors increased by 22 percent during the month of June.

Yellowstone’s reintroduction of wolves is often cited as a model for the reintroduction process.

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