This type of research and/or writing places too much importance on a vague idea of some sort of "natural balance," without discussing either a way for humanity to discover that "balance" or a reason for us to do so. Granted, there must be some way to discover the balance toward which natural systems tend – but the government is not the entity to do the job. The best way to ensure survival of the wolf species and maintain respect for human life is to cultivate a symbiotic relationship between the two, by allowing humans to profit from the existence of wolves, not merely from their deaths.
 

The Wolves in Yellowstone and Isle Royale National Parks

          The case of the gray wolf in North America offers a fine example of an instance where the line between wildlife conservation and human survival is a very hard one to draw. Conservationists wishing to preserve the wolf in its natural habitat are vehemently at odds with many farmers who perceive the wolf's existence in the wild as a threat to their livelihoods. In particular, there have been very heated debates about the appropriateness of wolf conservation in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) (where the wolf was reintroduced in 1995 and 1996 after being exterminated by park rangers in the 1920s [Huff et al 1999, Coughenour 1996.]) and IRNP (where the wolves migrated in the late 1940s, and have recently begun to die out [Petersen 1999]).

          The history of the gray wolf in North America is that of an ongoing war between man and beast. Beginning with the European colonization of America, wolves were hunted and killed on a regular basis, for the protection of human settlements or livestock. As early as the 1600s governments (usually small town councils) paid bounties for wolf carcasses on the East Coast; according to Barry Lopez's 1978 book Of Wolves and Men,
 

"The first wolf bounty law in America was passed in Massachusetts on November 9, 1630… Wolf bounties had been a means of effecting wolf control for thousands of years and were current in Europe and the British Isles at the time of immigration [to America]. A system both biologically ineffective and open to fraud, it was nevertheless popular because raising the bounty payment in exchange for a dead wolf was tangible, daily evidence that something was being done" (Lopez 1978, p. 171).

          In the late 1800s the national parks were formed for the purpose, among other things, of protecting large ungulates(5). "Yellowstone National Park was the world's first national park... [and was] established in 1872" (Huff et al 1999, p. 17). Park managers at YNP were concerned with enlarging the size of elk herds, and "from ~1875 to 1930… predatory animals (e.g. wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and bears) were sporadically controlled and in some cases completely eliminated" (Huff et al 1999, p. 18). Fifty years of dedicated hunting took its toll, and by the 1930s wolves were completely eliminated from YNP and the park managers had an overpopulation of elk on their hands (Coughenour 1996, p. 574). Indeed, the first set of scientific surveys made in the context of natural resource preservation was prompted by
 

"concerns about overpopulations… the surveys suggested that the capacity of the winter range in many parks to support large ungulate species was decreasing. They also advocated an end to predator control in parks. At the time, major ungulate predators such as the wolf (Canis lupus) and cougar (Felis concolor) had been reduced to virtual extinction in many parks, and thus no longer played an important role in controlling ungulate populations" (Wright 1999, p. 31).

          At this point, the tables began to turn; rather than bending all efforts on exterminating the gray wolf as a predator, conservationists began to see a need for such predators in controlling the population of ungulates, and in maintaining the delicate balance of the ecosystem of national parks such as YNP.

          The NPS, under a great deal of pressure from public opinion (primarily through lobby groups), finally determined that an appropriate solution to the overpopulation of elk (Cervus alaphus) and imbalance of the ecosystem in the park would be to reintroduce the wolf to YNP, and in 1995 and 1996 they accomplished this. The reintroduction of the wolf to YNP was controversial and was met with complaints from many farmers whose livestock grazed on lands surrounding the area the wolves were reintroduced to. Public opinion continued (and continues) to be divided: "Whereas many have come to view wolves as an innocent victim of a society that has lost its bearings and place in nature, others still retain hostile attitudes toward wolves and large predators" (Kellert et al. 1996, p. 979). In contrast, the IRNP wolves have so far been left to their own devices, although closely observed by NPS researchers.

          What makes IRNP unique is that although it was made a national park in 1931, the NPS never attempted to manage either ungulate population (in this case, moose herds) or predator populations. As L. David Mech explains it:
 

"Wolves found their way some 15-20 miles across the Lake Superior ice from Ontario to Isle Royale National Park. In 1949 that 210-square-mile gem of an island was ideal for wolves. It supported a moose herd that for half a century had never felt the fang of a wolf. The right combination of wandering mainland wolves and a solid ice bridge apparently only happened once. "The Isle Royale wolves flourished, and so did the moose. And so did scientists who followed both populations. The island was an ideal natural laboratory in which to count the wolves and the moose and to study their interactions over time" (Mech 1995, p. 11).

          Perhaps largely because of its remote location, IRNP was never a target for NPS micromanagement, and since the late 1950s it therefore has served as an ideal place for ecologists to study the relationship between gray wolves and a single prey. However, in the late 1990s the gray wolf population was in steep decline and a major question was that of whether or not it should be supplemented by the introduction of gray wolves from other areas. Again, this is an example of how even if the goal of resource management is what is "best for the ecosystem" in question, it is by no means simple to determine what is "best" for any ecosystem (which includes humans – and every ecosystem in the world does) when there is no profit-and-loss system to signal managers as to what public opinion prefers.

          It's important to clarify that, in this paper, the "ecosystem" includes human beings. To say what is "best for the ecosystem" means what is best for humanity in relation to the natural world. Despite the NPS' hands-off approach and their lack of "overt management emphasis other than assuring that populations are free of unwarranted unnatural disturbances" (Wright 1999, p. 32), it is important to remember that humanity is, as always has been, part of the ecosystem. Humans are mammals who must live in some kind of combination with other animals. "It is widely recognized… in the scientific community that contemporary biotic ecosystem components managed under the agency's natural process management policy evolved over thousands of years with sympatric humans. They now continue to evolve with modern humans" (Huff et al 1999, p. 23). This means that when we consider the optimal situation for a certain ecosystem, such as a natural park, and that ecosystem includes humans (which most do, in this era), then we must consider what is best for mankind as well as what is best for the other inhabitants of that ecosystem.

          Rolf O. Petersen, who has worked with the Isle Royale wolves and moose for decades, puts it nicely: "Allowing nature free rein in national parks is not as easy as one might suppose, even when the effort is backed by good science and determination" (Peterson 1995, p. 179). In the case of the national park system, many valuable resources are present; land and wild ecosystems, competent scientists, and very strong public interest. The reason that the parks are often managed inefficiently is that there are no market prices to guide the managers.

          In addition to the problem of lack of price signals, conservation efforts to date have been hampered by conflict in public opinion. Scientists and managers working with the wolves must pay close attention to public sentiment, since the National Park Service is a federal government-funded and -run organization. From the earliest park managers' rampant wolf-killing spree (in the late 1800s/early 1900s) to the reintroduction of the wolf with apparent disregard for the opinions of local landowners and farmers, to the indecisive policy followed by the NPS, government management of Canis lupus has been anything but stable or consistent. At the end of the eighteenth century, government bounties offered for wolf carcasses encouraged slaughter of the animals. From the earliest days of European civilization in North America, there was a relentless war waged against the wolf; it was
 

"directed against an animal… not for the value of its hair, skin or meat, but because that animal preyed upon other animals that humans desired for their own consumption. Along the way, the wolf became the object of a passionate, often irrational, sometimes brutal hatred that humans ordinarily reserve for members of their own kind. Hundreds of thousands of wolves were trapped, poisoned, shot, or dynamited in their dens, while some suffered deaths that had every visage of revenge. Caught alive and soaked with kerosene, wolves were set ablaze; others were scalped, had their mouths wired shut, or had their eyes pierced with branding irons before being released to starve to death. Still others were bound with ropes on their upper and lower jaws, tied to horses, and ripped apart. "Although wolf hatred did not originate in North America, it was here that it reached its zenith early in the twentieth century. By then, world populations of the wolf, which along with humans were once the most widely distributed land mammal on earth, had drastically declined due to human encroachment and persecution. Now federal governments themselves took up the chase. What followed was a determined, subsidized, and well-organized crusade to wipe out the final remnants of the species from a vast portion of the planet."(6)

          Even after the federal government turned to a more conservationist approach of dealing with nature, in the late 1800's with the introduction of the NPS, government workers were still opponents of the wolf. The original object of the NPS was to preserve land areas with large populations of ungulates; free ranging wolf packs are hardly conducive to the preservation of herds of elk or moose. "The goal of early park management was… to protect species considered to be desirable, primarily large ungulates, and to eliminate undesirable species or processes which threatened the desired species."(7) Then, thanks to public pressure, the NPS decided to reinstate the wolf in Yellowstone(8), after that early hunting. The point is that government policy on conservation issues sways back and forth with public opinion; there is only a semblance of scientific coherence to the actions of the NPS. It is apparent that if conservation efforts are to succeed, conservationists must find a way to achieve their goals without having to become political lobbyists.
 

PART II >>

1. Peterson 1995, p. 181.
2. In an economic sense, an actor is a person who interacts under market conditions.
3. The last passenger pigeon died in captivity in 1913. The species had been hunted to endangered status, as it was a sought-after delicacy. http://www.audubon.org/nas/timeline.html.
4. It must be emphasized that the environmental movement is extremely decentralized, and it is therefore somewhat inaccurate to claim that any particular position is held by the "average" conservationist or even the "mainstream" environmentalist. In the question of the wolf, however, Barry Lopez and Farley Mowat have been the main researchers who argued for "pro-wolf" activities at the expense of humans.
5. An ungulate is a large hoofed mammal such as a moose (Alce alces), elk (Cervus alaphus), or deer (Odocoilus virginianus).
6. Hampton 1997, p. 6.
7. Wright 1999, p. 30.
8. McNamee 1997.

Bibliography
 

• Coughenour, Michael B. (1996) "Elk Population in Yellowstone National Park Under the Policy of Natural Regualtion," in Ecological Applications, Vol. 6, No. 2.
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• Rothbard, Murray. (1973) For A New Liberty, New York: Libertarian Review Foundation.
• Rothbard, Murray. (2004) The Scholar's Edition: Man, Economy and State, with Power and Market, Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute.
•  Wright, R. Gerald. (1999) "Wildlife Management in the National Parks: Questions in Search of Answers" in Ecological Applications, Vol. 9, No. 1.