Canis Lupus: Can it be?

The odds of this occurring? Slim. But certainly possible. After years of near-extinction, wolves are working their way back to Utah.

The history of wolves in the United States has been, and continues to be, complex. In 1907, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt maligned wolves as “the beasts of waste and destruction.” A three-decades-long slaughter followed that almost wiped the species out in this country. By 1940, gray wolves had almost been exterminated in the western United States. In 1973, a contrite U.S. government included canis lupus among the original cast of characters protected by the nascent Endangered Species Act.

In 1995 and ’96, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) re-introduced 66 adult wolves into Yellowstone National Park. Their recovery has been nothing short of phenomenal. Biologists estimate that today there are 1,250 wolves in the tri-state recovery area of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, a figure far exceeding original recovery goals.

It’s one of the most successful wildlife re-introduction programs in history — some say too successful. True to their reputation as the most adaptable animals on the planet (next to humans), wolves from Yellowstone in search of new territories began to scatter throughout the northern Rockies. Utah wildlife biologists warned it was not a question of “if,” but “when” a wayward wolf would wander into our state.

The gray wolf’s exponential recovery has pleased FWS biologists and laid the foundation for their removal from the federal Endangered Species List. Yet angry ranchers and big game hunters have cried foul from the beginning. They railed against the FWS for re-introducing humankind’s most feared and hated predator back into the northern Rockies.

When news came that an adult gray wolf had been trapped alive near Morgan, Utah in 2002 (just 30 miles from Park City as the crow flies), no one was surprised. The event set in motion a chain of events that state and federal wildlife biologists, wolf lovers and haters alike had long anticipated. Battle lines were quickly drawn.

In the 11 years since the wolf re-introduction, the elk population in Yellowstone has been reduced by over half. Big game hunters in surrounding states are concerned. In Utah, where the state has invested millions to create what is widely touted as the West’s best trophy elk herds, most hunters are not eager to share it with wolves.

Ranchers running sheep and cattle in and around the tri-state recovery area have also sustained losses from marauding wolves. FWS hunters and trappers promptly trap or shoot wolves outside the park boundaries when they develop a taste for cattle or sheep. But northern Utah ranchers are still worried that wolves might get away with murder.

While ranchers complain bitterly that the wolf re-introduction is an experiment gone wild, wolf enthusiasts and most conservationists welcome the news. They argue that the large predators represent an essential, long-missing link in the region’s ecosystem.

“Yes, there are fewer elk in Yellowstone Park [now], but they’re smarter,” says Kirk Robinson, Director of Western Wildlife Conservancy. He also notes that the ecosystem within the park boundaries has improved, since elk are no longer eating everything in sight.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), charged with stewardship of the state’s wildlife, straddles the fence on the wolf issue. The agency has developed a management plan to deal with dispersing wolves if and when they are taken off the Endangered Species List (“de-listed”) in the northern Rockies. The plan will allow wolves in Utah under very strict guidelines. They will not be allowed to cause “unacceptable” livestock depredation, nor negatively impact wildlife populations. This means that wolves relocating to Utah will have to behave themselves.

In late January of this year, the FWS complicated the issue further by announcing plans to de-list the gray wolf population in the northern Rockies tri-state recovery area, as well as in eastern Washington and Oregon and a small portion of northern Utah (Box Elder, Cache, Rich, Weber and Morgan counties). Utah wildlife managers had hoped the animals would be de-listed statewide, a move that would trigger implementation of the state’s plan.

Here’s the problem. Under the proposed FWS scenario, any wolf that manages to survive crossing through the de-listing area would be officially considered an endangered species again once it has passed through that small portion of land. By simply crossing a road, the wolf’s management would be wrested from the state and returned to the FWS. That has Utah state wildlife officials in a quandary. However, if a wolf were to run the northern Utah gauntlet and reach the south side of I-84, it would be virtually untouchable by state wildlife managers. That’s unappealing to the DWR.

“It puts us in an awkward position,” says DWR Director Jim Karpowitz. “We understand from people in Wyoming and Idaho that there’s not anyplace where wolves co-exist with livestock that they don’t eventually get into trouble. Virtually all of the Utah land in the proposed recovery area has livestock on it. I suspect wolves would have a hard time staying out of trouble there,” says Karpowitz.

Ed Bangs, the Western Wolf Recovery Coordinator for the FWS, says he has no expectations for wolves in Utah. “Wolves are doing extremely well in the primary recovery area. We don’t expect or need Utah to carry any wolf packs. But the area should be de-listed to allow states more flexibility to manage them when they show up,” he says.

“I’m discouraged,” says Western Wildlife Conservancy’s Robinson. “We oppose the de-listing plan because it won’t give wolves a chance to re-colonize in northern Utah.”

That argument has fallen on deaf ears in Wyoming, where officials are calling for a shoot-on-sight policy for wolves caught outside Yellowstone Park. Until Wyoming drafts a more reasonable plan, it’s unlikely the FWS will de-list wolves there.

The arguments for and against wolves are both complex and compelling. Although only two wolves have been trapped in Utah in the last five years (the second was found dead in a coyote trap last November), experts predict more will come.

The prospects for wolves in Utah remain unclear. Will they dance, or will they die?

Steve Phillips was media coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and hosted “Utah Wild” on KUED Channel 7 for many years. Now retired, he remains busy as a writer, actor and hot air balloon pilot/instructor.