Wolf Pack

Lore & Background

In 1872, when Yellowstone National Park was created, there was not yet any legal protection for wildlife in the park. In the early years, administrators, hunters, and tourists were essentially free to kill any game or predator they came across. The gray wolf was especially vulnerable because it was generally considered an undesirable predator and was already being deliberately exterminated throughout its North American range, usually in the interest of protecting livestock.

In January 1883, Secretary of the Interior Henry M. Teller issued regulations prohibiting the hunting of most park animals, but the regulations did not apply to wolves, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, and other small predators. Shortly after the U.S. Army took over administration of the park on August 1, 1890, Captain Moose Harris, the first military superintendent, allowed public hunting of any wildlife and left all predator control to the park's administration. Official records show that the U.S. Army did not begin to implement a policy of killing wolves until 1914.

Reader's Guide

Once the wolves were gone, elk populations began to rise. Over the next few years, conditions of Yellowstone National Park declined drastically. A team of scientists visiting Yellowstone in 1929 and 1933 reported, 'The range was in deplorable conditions when we first saw it, and its deterioration has been progressing steadily since then.' The elk were multiplying inside the park and deciduous, woody species such as aspen and cottonwood suffered from overgrazing.

The park service started trapping and moving the elk and, when that was not effective, killing them. Elk population control methods continued for more than 30 years. In the late 1960s, local hunters began to complain to their congressmen that there were too few elk, and the congressmen threatened to stop funding Yellowstone. Killing elk was given up as a control method which allowed elk populations to again rise.

Without wolves, coyote populations increased dramatically which adversely impacted the pronghorn antelope population. Beginning in the 1950s, park managers, biologists, conservationists, and environmentalists began what would ultimately turn into a campaign to reintroduce the gray wolf into Yellowstone National Park. When the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was passed, the road to legal reintroduction was made clear. In 1995, gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in the Lamar Valley.

Did You Know?

• The U.S. Army killed 14 wolves during their tenure (1886–1916), most in the years 1914–15.
• In 1907 alone, an estimated 1,800 wolves and 23,000 coyotes were killed in 39 U.S. National Forests as part of the Animal Damage Control program.
• The last reported wolf killed in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem before modern legal hunting occurred in May 1943 by Leo Cottenoir, a Native American sheepherder on the Wind River Reservation.