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Gray wolves once populated large portions of North America, Europe, and Asia, but were hunted to near extinction. Their numbers have rebounded due to conservation and reintroduction efforts.
Photograph by Joel Sartore
Wolves are legendary because of their spine-tingling howl, which they use to communicate. A lone wolf howls to attract the attention of his pack, while communal howls may send territorial messages from one pack to another. Some howls are confrontational. Much like barking domestic dogs, wolves may simply begin howling because a nearby wolf has already begun.
Wolves are the largest members of the dog family. Adaptable gray wolves are by far the most common and were once found all over the Northern Hemisphere. But wolves and humans have a long adversarial history. Though they almost never attack humans, wolves are considered one of the animal world's most fearsome natural villains. They do attack domestic animals, and countless wolves have been shot, trapped, and poisoned because of this tendency.
In the lower 48 states, gray wolves were hunted to near extinction, though some populations survived and others have since been reintroduced. Few gray wolves survive in Europe, though many live in Alaska, Canada, and Asia.
Red wolves live in the southeastern United States, where they are endangered. These animals actually became extinct in the wild in 1980. Scientists established a breeding program with a small number of captive red wolves and have reintroduced the animal to North Carolina. Today , perhaps 100 red wolves survive in the wild.>Read more
Why do Wolves Howl
The most ferocious predator in the forest, despised by cattle ranchers and feared by humans and nearly every other animal, has a soft side. Scientists in Austria have found that when wolves howl after being separated from a pack member, they are just showing a little love.
Researchers at the Wolf Science Center and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, set out to determine if the howl of a wolf is an involuntary cry caused by stress or a conscious result of separation from a companion that is particularly important, either because of social rank within the pack or genuine affection for a preferred mate.
Affection -- or love, if you're a romantic -- clearly won out.
"Our results suggest the social relationship can explain more of the variation we see in howling behavior than the emotional state of the wolf," Friederike Range, lead author of a study published in the journal Current Biology, said in releasing the report. >Read more
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No relief from Montana’s imposition on Park wildlife-
Year after year the state of Montana has pummelled Yellowstone Park’s wildlife right at its northern boundary. They have slaughtered thousands of bison that stepped outside the Park and now decimated Yellowstone’s already naturally declining wolf population.
Today a Montana state district judge strengthened the earlier ruling (injunction) by a now retired judge that struck down Montana Fish Wildlife and Park Commission’s (FWP) emergency wolf hunting closure around Gardiner, Montana. The town sits right on the north boundary of America’s (and the world’s) first national park. The wolf hunting closure area is in a natural wildlife migration corridor because the topography a couple miles to the east or west is too rugged and steep. New District Judge Brenda Gilbert issued her ruling and injunction today (Friday) after a Jan. 14 hearing in Livingston, MT. >Read more
Gray Wolves left out in the cold
Central Kentucky is coyote country. But the 33-kilogram animal shot by a hunter near Munfordville this spring was definitely not a coyote. Its huge paws, broad snout and massive build suggested that it was a grey wolf (Canis lupus) — the first to be shot in Kentucky in more than 150 years. DNA tests confirmed the animal’s identity in August.
The animal, a possible stray from hundreds of kilometres away in Michigan or Minnesota (although it cannot be ruled out that it was once captive), was also a player in a growing debate that mixes science, politics and passionate public opinion. From Kentucky to California, wolves are forcing biologists and policy-makers to re-examine the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the very definition of an ‘endangered’ species. >Read more
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