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19 - Is That a Wolf? Politics, Science and Red Wolf Identity
- Edited by Ian Convery, University of Cumbria, Owen T. Nevin, Central Queensland University and University of Cumbria, Erwin van Maanen, Peter Davis, Newcastle University, Karen Lloyd, Lancaster University
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- Book:
- The Wolf
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 10 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 18 July 2023, pp 217-230
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
A grey-brown lupine predator emerges from swampy brush. As it lopes across a clearing, a hunter squints through his scope. What is it? What does the hunter think he sees? Will he pull the trigger?
The animal the hunter sees is a red wolf – maybe. Red wolves (Canis rufus), weighing up to 36kg, were once apex predators in the region from Texas to New York (FWS 2022a; Fig 19.1). After going extinct in the wild, they were reintroduced by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in 1987. However, by 2020, the red wolf recovery programme (RWRP), celebrated as a triumph of ecological restoration 15 years before, stood on the brink of collapse. The return of wild canids, and the way human beings understand them, is challenging in many parts of the world, but is particularly vexing in the case of the red wolf. The ecological complexities of restoration have become political complexities, as one of the programme's biggest challenges is the claim that the red wolf is not a legitimate species.
Of Red Wolves and Men
From colonial times, European settlers hunted red wolves vigorously (Beeland 2013). Until recently, predator elimination was a nationwide wildlife management goal such that large predators went extinct in much of the mainland United States. Human communities thus spent decades without interacting with them.
By the 1960s, the only remaining wild red wolf population was restricted to bayous on the Louisiana–Texas border. Red wolves were federally listed as endangered in 1967 – they were, and remain, one of the most endangered predators on Earth (FWS 2018b). FWS captured these animals and placed 14 of them in a captive breeding programme. In 1980, FWS declared red wolves biologically extinct in the wild (FWS 2018b).
In 1987, after years of intensive preparation by wildlife biologists, FWS reintroduced red wolves to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, on North Carolina's Albemarle Peninsula; the adjacent five counties were designated as the red wolf recovery area (Fig 19.2). In order to offer management flexibility and public goodwill, and to protect people from legal action if they accidentally harmed a wolf, FWS designated the reintroduced red wolves as a nonessential experimental population under the Endangered Species Act (Waddell and Rabon 2012).
22 - The Wolves of Yellowstone: Saviours of the Songbird or Pieces of the Puzzle?
- Edited by Ian Convery, University of Cumbria, Owen T. Nevin, Central Queensland University and University of Cumbria, Erwin van Maanen, Peter Davis, Newcastle University, Karen Lloyd, Lancaster University
-
- Book:
- The Wolf
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 10 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 18 July 2023, pp 249-258
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The contemporary story of the wolves of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) has become part of the fabric of the American west. The short film, How Wolves Change Rivers, which combines footage of Yellowstone with narration by journalist George Monbiot (Sustainable Human, 2014) has been viewed over 43 million times (including adoption by school curricula globally), and has contributed to popularising the concept that reintroducing wolves has caused ‘trophic cascades’ in YNP. This is an irresistible story, one which appeals to conservationists on many levels. Wolves are charismatic carnivores, and the film's narrative provides a simple explanation of trophic cascades and their potential. Monbiot's narration speaks of ‘bare valley sides’ becoming ‘forests of aspen and willow and cottonwood’, with wolves causing a ‘radical change’ in ungulate behaviour.
This is known as the ‘ecology of fear’ effect, where the presence of a predator causes a behavioural change in another species. In Yellowstone the introduction of wolves leads ungulates to avoid areas where they are most vulnerable to predation. The decrease in valley herbivory has resulted not only in an increase in species diversity as available habitat increased, but also the increased vegetation cover led to a reduction in soil erosion. It is argued that the ‘instrumentally valuable’ wolves have also transformed the physical geography of YNP – or so the story goes. However, there is still considerable scientific debate regarding the ecological impact of the wolf reintroduction to YNP and the mechanisms by which impacts are mediated, as will be discussed later in the chapter.
Emma Marris (2014, 2017), amongst others, has questioned the evidence that the re-introduction of wolves triggered the purported trophic cascades in Yellowstone. In a 2014 Nature paper she cites the work of Marshall et al (2013), who suggest that it is beavers, rather than wolves, that play a key role in helping willows thrive, adding that the removal of wolves in the 1920s allowed elk to eat so much willow that there was none left for the beavers, causing their decline. Marris's point is that the absence of a scientific consensus is not reflected in the popular press, with a simplistic version of the scientific story being reported far more often than the more complex, but more accurate, reality (Marris 2017).