Transcript The impact of reintroduced wolves on the elk population in

Hunter Roberts
 If wolf numbers in Yellowstone National Park keep escalating then the park will lose
its ecological diversity. If there’s more wolves, then there will be less prey species
like deer, elk, moose, etc. These claims make sense, an ecosystem can only hold so
much of one species before other species become impacted, which in turn will
cause another species to be affected and so on. This is known as a trophic cascade.
This is how a trophic cascade works. A predator affects a
herbivore which in turn affects the plants. This makes the
predator an indirect cause of destruction on the plant level.
 Wolves are a pack animal that hunt in a group to bring down large prey animals.
The average number of wolves in a pack in Yellowstone is about 10 wolves per
pack, Which doesn’t seem like a huge number until you break it down into what
one wolf can eat. On average, to reproduce successfully a wolf needs about five
pounds of food per day, but one wolf can eat up to 22.5 pounds of meat in one
sitting. Going with the lesser of the two, a pack of wolves would need around 50
pounds give or take a few pounds per day to survive and reproduce. In Yellowstone
the wolves major prey source is the Rocky Mountain Elk. Like most predators, the
wolf will hunt and single out the smaller weaker animals in a group (which would
likely be elk calves). An elk calf on average weighs around 35-50 pounds. Do the
math. In order to survive the pack would have to kill 1-2 elk calves a day. Over the
course of a year, wolves have a huge impact on the elk herds.
 To see how a wolf pack works in order to bring down prey watch this video.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAd00BMGwwE

(Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Web 2012)
 Yellowstone should offer wolf permits to sportsmen either through a draw system where hunters
apply in a drawing for wolf permits, or through an auction system where hunters bid for the
chance to hunt the wolves, the park will gain revenue because highly sought after tags have been
known to sell for more than $250,000, and the park could set prices on the tags. It would not take a
lot of time to determine a hunting season on wolves. Yellowstone could set the number of tags they
want to issue based on the current wolf numbers and issue less or more tags depending on the
year.
 A wolf hunting season in Yellowstone could offer a huge educational benefit to the parks and the
wildlife biologists who focus on the wolf populations there. Yellowstone could set required harvest
reports and tests on wolves that are harvested in the park. This would be a series of dental and
health-related tests on wolves that have been harvested within the parks boundaries. These tests
can determine age, health, diet, and disease records on wolves harvested in certain areas of the
park. Which can help the overall well-being of wolves in the park. If a wolf harvested in the
northern region of the park has a disease, they can track down which pack it came from and
determine if the disease has been passed to other wolves and stop it before it spreads to wolves
throughout the entire park.
 The biggest objection concerning this proposal is the Lacey Act and the Code of
Federal Regulations which prohibit the removal of any animal alive or dead from
inside Yellowstone. The law was put into place to help avoid the reintroduction of
non-native/invasive species into an area where they can cause harm or spread
disease. This may be hard to find a loophole or get around. But if the numbers of
wolves get out of hand then there just might have to be some changes made to the
law in order to protect the future of the park.
 Anti-hunters will protest this proposal to the end. Animal rights is becoming a
bigger deal every day. Animal rights activists claim that hunting is just a killing
sport. These activists base their arguments off of opinions and not solely off of facts.
It is hard to get the point across to someone who is so passionate about their
beliefs. This proposal is not to eradicate all of the wolves in Yellowstone it is to
harvest a set number of wolves in order to conserve the future of the park and the
other animals in the park. It is not a full blown extermination.
 The positive outcomes of this proposal is that the ecosystem in Yellowstone will keep its diversity
through healthy conservation practices. The numbers of predators and prey will stay in check and will
not cause over population, over grazing, or fight for territory in the park. It is hard to imagine
Yellowstone National Park without its plant and animal diversity. Yellowstone is home to hundreds of
different species of animals and plants. Going to Yellowstone and seeing buffalo, elk, bear, moose,
wolves, deer, beavers, rabbits, etc. is all part of the experience. These animals and the diverse
ecosystem add to the natural beauty of the park. If wolf numbers keep getting out of hand you may be
taking your children to see a bloodfest. Wolves fighting over their most recent kills, the growing pack
number would cause wolves to fight to the death over territory. The park could get overrun if the wolf
numbers get uncontrollable. Human lives can be put at risk, if a human runs into a starving pack of
wolves the outcome might not be on the side of the human. Keeping the populations of wolves in check
will help keep these animals around for future generations.
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