I have always found wolves to have a mysterious nature about them.  Perhaps that’s what makes me want to learn more about them, plus photograph them.  Of course I have always loved nature, never being afraid of it but embracing it. That being said, the nature of the human race to kill everything they see has disturbed me.  From reading the history of the west and how many wolves were slaughtered for their fur coats and just killing indiscriminately has saddened me. When I began photographing the nature around me, I’m always pleased to be in the presence of the animals around me.  Some with curiosities, other’s quite skittish.  

You could imagine the excitement I had when I heard back around in 1995 – 96 that officials would reintroduce wolves to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park.  The plan was to reintroduce 66 wolves to the area.  Well, the plan worked well.  In fact it’s estimated that the population of wolves has reached 2,000 individuals.  When they were released in Idaho and Washington they quickly wandered into Oregon. There is strong evidence of the first wolf pack in Oregon, the first in many years since the eradication from the West.  With the wolves recovering in bigger numbers each year there seemed to be hope for them. Obviously, I was to quick to judge.  The Bush administration felt differently.  They delisted the Greater Yellowstone area wolves in March of 2008 since being listed on the endangered list in 1974.  I cannot understand how anyone can honestly say that a species be taken off the endangered species list when there is only a population of around 2,000 wolves in those areas, is beyond me.  I was truly upset with this decision by the Bush administration.  Since their removal from the endangered species list there has been over 100 wolves killed in the short time since they had been removed from the list.  

I’m excited to say that the tables have turned once again for wolves of the West.  The reason for this, since then a judge has restored the wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies to the endangered species list making it illegal once again to kill wolves.  The judges decision was based on the fact that the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not prove that they had genetically linked the wolves. This meant that the wolves throughout Idaho and Montana must be interbreed with wolves from Yellowstone – before delisting, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had to do a better job of explaining why that didn’t matter anymore.

While the battle isn’t over.  My opinion, is that the wolves were illegally removed from the endangered species list because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not prove they had genetically linked the wolves bowing under the pressure of the Bush administration to remove them from the endangered species list. For now, I hold hopes that things will work out for the wolves.  

No related posts.