Experts worry that as the gray wolf population just outside of Yellowstone National Park continues to grow, looser hunting restrictions in surrounding states could change pack behavior and hurt one of the most comprehensive research studies on the species anywhere in the world.
With about 100 wolves in Yellowstone, the wolf population is believed to have reached “carrying capacity” — the max number of animals that the landscape can support. Many more wolves, though, have moved out of the park in search of food and habitat.
“Wolves now number about 1,700 in the Western states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington,” reports The New York Times. “Threats to livestock have intensified in recent years, pitting ranchers against conservationists and prompting some states to permit limited wolf hunting again at certain times.”
Wolves inside the park tend to be less fearful around humans, since they’re used to tourists snapping photos, not hunters pulling triggers. But if they leave the protected area, they’re more likely to both attack livestock — they don’t realize the consequences — and to be shot for it.
“In March, a United States Court of Appeals paved the way for Wyoming to join Idaho and Montana in allowing wolf hunting,” says the Times. “Wildlife officials are now planning a hunting season on gray wolves for this fall, based on the court’s ruling that the state’s plan to manage wolves was adequate to ensure that the once-threatened species would not be imperiled again by hunting wolves near the park or those that leave it.”
While most experts think that the limited hunting quotas won’t seriously hurt the overall wolf population, hunting could make the animals more skittish. Sightings could drop off — one study in Denali National Park found as much as a 45-percent decrease in sightings once hunting and trapping were allowed in the adjacent region — and that could affect the park’s tourism business. Wolf-watching in Yellowstone is thought to bring in around $35 million a year for the regional economy.
Likewise, researchers worry that they, too, will have a tougher time tracking the animals if hunting disrupts the wolves’ normal movements, behavior and pack longevity. The Yellowstone wolf project has been in place for more than 20 years, gathering some of the most in-depth information on the animal anywhere in the world. But much of that data could be less useful if the very nature of the wolves’ existence is altered by increased human interference.