Why are wolves important

to the environment?
Olivia Sosnowska
Why I chose this topic
I chose this topic because I love wolves,
they’ve been my favorite for the longest time. I
want to spread more awareness about what’s
happening to them. That includes wolves
being hunted and not yet being fully restored
to healthy populations.
Question and topics mentioned:
My original question was “Why are wolves important to the environment?”. However while
doing my research I came up with more questions.

- Background Information- slide 4

- Are wolves really as bad as people make them out to be? - slide 5
- How are wolves doing today? - slide 6
- New Idaho Law - slide 7
- What would the environment be like without wolves? - slide 8
- Reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park data - slide 9
- Reintroduction of wolves to Isle Royale data - slide 10
- Why are wolves important to the environment? - slide 11
- Sourcing - slides 12,13 and 14
Background Information
In the past the grey wolves in the U.S
were nearly hunted to extinction.
According to Christine Peterson, “by the
early 1900s, with only small populations
scattered along the Canadian border. In
the 1970s, the U.S. listed the gray wolf as Why were wolves almost hunted to extinction in the
endangered”. first place?

The simple answer being, people were scared of losing their

livestock. When Europeans first settled into the colonies after
arriving in North America their livestock was vulnerable.
According to the Article “Wolf Wars: America’s Campaign to
Eradicate the Wolf” “…because most early colonial communities
were small, livestock often grazed on the periphery of the
settlements with little protection” Wolves would bunt cattle and
sheep because they found them much easier prey than the
elk,bison, moose, and deer that were being depleted by the
European settlers.
Are wolves really as bad as people make them out to be?
No, actually wolves help the environment. “Moon, and many others, don't like how some of
Wolves are a very important keystone species, the state's prized elk herds have become smaller
especially in Yellowstone National Park. since wolves returned” (Oppie). This shows that
‘“While the presence of wolves changes the people don’t realize how important wolves are
to maintain biodiversity in an ecosystem
behavior of elk — the animals congregate less
because elk herds aren’t supposed to be huge as
and spend more time at higher elevations —
they would eat all the vegetation and eventually
Lucid says the predator actually makes its starve themselves.
prey species healthier by "reducing disease
and culling older and weaker members of
those herds."’ (Oppie). Wolves have changed
the environment incredibly, helping restore
healthy populations in other species and
creating more biodiversity among the
ecosystem.
How are wolves doing today?
Recently grey wolves have been removed
from the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
According to the article “NRDC Sues Feds
for Failure to Protect Gray Wolves During
Biodiversity Crisis” “The delisting rule
violates the ESA and the Administrative
Procedure Act because it arbitrarily lumps
gray wolves across the country together and
justifies their delisting based on their The bigger populations of wolves include 4,200
recovery in only one region, the Great wolves across the Great Lakes and 1,500 to 2,000
Lakes” (Sedique). This means that the wolves in the Northern Rockies whilst there are
removal of the species from the ESA was only 7 wolf packs, altogether 54 wolves in the
only based off regions with high recovering region of California, Oregon and Washington.
wolf populations, not giving other region That is a major difference in numbers and should
not be ignored. The grey wolves deserve to have a
with less wolves a chance for healthy
full healthy population recovery in all regions, not
recovery with no threats. only some.
New Idaho Law
On July 1st the new Idaho law allowed
people to kill 90% of the states wolf
population. This is worrisome because
wolves have been slowly recovering
their population to healthy numbers
and to just kill 90% of them in Idaho,
even if it’s only one state, is wasting all
the progress they have made. People argued, for the new law, that wolves are a threat to
livestock and should be dealt with even though according
to Troy Oppie “…the U.S. Department of Agriculture
found only about 130 cattle and sheep in Idaho were
confirmed or probable kills by wolves between July 2019
and June last year. The state is home to around 2.7 million
cattle alone”. If wolves have only killed a little percent of
all the cattle in Idaho then it is unjust to kill 1,300 out of
the 1,500 of them as stated in the same article by Troy
Oppie.
What would the environment be like without wolves?
Wolves are a keystone species so the environment
wouldn’t fare well without them. Without wolves
the biodiversity of the ecosystem would crumble.
The elks would eat all the vegetation and starve
themselves which would lead to less food for
other animals like bears and other animals who
eat vegetation or the elk. The food web of that
ecosystem would fall into an imbalance. This is
why it is important for wolves to be protected and
restored to healthy populations.

“The elk and deer population would increase and

eat the cow and other livestock’s food. Then we,
the Humans, would have a food shortage in beef
and dairy and possibly shortages in other food
products too” (Fleming). Without wolves we
humans would also be affected even if we aren’t
necessarily neighbors with wolves.
Reintroduction of Wolves to Yellowstone National Park
Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995.
They’re reintroduced has brought many great
changes to the environment. They have restored
healthy populations in elk herds and continue to
do so. “So by targeting bulls during years of scarce
food, they give the cows a chance to reproduce,
thus keeping the population afloat” (Peterson).

According to the graph on the right, the elk

population has decreased ever since wolves were
reintroduced to Yellowstone. In the years
In 2006-2006 the wolf population
1997-1998 the graph shows the elk population at
decreases to just below 60 with the elk
over 14,000 with the wolf population at 40.
population decreasing to around 7,000.
Around the year 200 the wolf population spikes up
By 2011-2012 the wolves had decreased
to just below 80 while the elk population decreases
the elk population to around 4,000 elk
to around 8,000 by the year 2003-2004.
with below 40 wolves remaining.
Reintroduction of wolves to Isle Royale
Isle Royale is a strictly no human
development island off the coast of The
Michigan Peninsula in Lake Superior. The
whole island has no human civilization
except one station with a dock for the people
who monitor the island or work there.

According to the article “Wolves at Isle

Royale”, “The decline in wolves was driven
in part by a virus inadvertently introduced
by a hiker’s dog, which spread through the
wolf population, cuttings it ranks from 50
down to 14 in 1980” . The graph on the right Not shown on this graph however, but the
also shows this information and data. While wolf population reached an alarming low
the wolves decreased, the moose population number of 2 maybe even 1 at some point in
skyrocketed. The moose population almost 2018. In 2019 though, 19 wolves were
reached 2,500 while the wolves were just introduced to Isle Royale and now in 2021
above 20. there are 14 wolves with growing pups.
Why are wolves important to the environment?
And to finally answer my original One of the examples being Isle Royale. Without wolves the
question after doing all of my moose population skyrocketed and if wolves hadn’t been
research I’d say that wolves are reintroduced then we humans would have to take matters
important to the environment into our own hands and control the moose population by
because they are keystone species. hunting over 1,000 of them. Some people say “Let nature
Wolves help maintain healthy elk take its course” but in the end we would have to take
herd populations along with other matters into our own hands eventually because if we would
species they prey on. They help not survive.
maintain the biodiversity of the
trees by controlling the elk
populations. Without wolves the
ecosystem would not survive and
we would be affected too.
(Bibliography) Sources used:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/gray-wolves-taken-off-endangered-species-list-i
n-controversial-move - used on slide 4
This source is credible because it has cited its information and has links to more information. They also
credit the photographer of the photos used on the article. This source is also from National Geographic
which is a well known trustworthy magazine founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal.

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/the-wolf-that-changed-america-wolf-wars-americas-campaign-to-e
radicate-the-wolf/4312/ - used on slide 4
This source is trustworthy because there is a sourcing at the end of the article where they got all of their
information and it’s published by PBS which is a trustworthy and well known television broadcasting
founded in 1969.

https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2021-05-21/new-idaho-law-calls-for-killing-90-of-states-wolve
s - used on slides 5 and 7
This source is trustworthy since the author cites their sources and the article was published recently in
2021 so its recent. The publisher is Wyoming Public Media which is a radio station founded in 1966.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/ridhwan-sediqe/nrdc-sues-feds-failure-protect-gray-wolves-during-bio
diversity-crisis - used on slide 6
This source is credible because they have links to more information and it’s a recent article form 2021.
The NRDC is a non-profit founded in 1970 and the current president and CEO of NRDC is Manish
Bapna.

https://www.sidmartinbio.org/what-would-happen-if-the-wolves-went-extinct/#What_would_happen_if_the
_wolves_went_extinct - used on slide 8
This source is trustworthy because the article is recent from 2021 and they also have a Privacy Policy with
terms and conditions.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/yellowstone-wolves-reintroduction-helped-stabilize-eco
system - used on slide 9
This source is trustworthy and credible because the sources are cited with links and the publisher is a well
known magazine, National Geographic which was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal.

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolves.htm - used on slide 9 (Only read this article but it helped me

write slide 9)
This source is credible and trustworthy because they cited their sources and the article is published by National
Park Service which was founded in 1916 by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Stephen Mather and Horace
M. Albright.
https://www.npca.org/advocacy/37-wolves-at-isle-royale - used on slide 10
This source is credible and trustworthy because it has cited sources and links to more information about
the topics mentioned. The article is also published by National Parks Conservation Association which
was founded in 1919 by Stephen Mather, Robert Sterling Yard.

I trust these sources because most if not all of them are published by
professional magazine, radio stations or national parks. The articles are also
recent, most of them being published in 2021.