Yellowstone Treasures Blog

Opinions and controversy concerning the wolves near Yellowstone continue to appear in media stories. Here are two recent examples.

On January 29 the state of Wyoming and a U.S. Justice Department lawyer presented arguments before a U.S. District Judge in Cheyenne. Put simply, Wyoming wants to take over wolf management, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service do not agree with their plan. For the details, see: "Wyoming urges judge to end federal wolf management".

Relevant to the wolf management problem, we can ask: are there more or fewer elk in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming than there were before wolf introduction in 1995? At last week’s Cheyenne hearing, outfitter B. J. Hill of Jackson claimed that he sees the rates of elk calves to cows dropping and the number of trophy bulls dwindling. However, Kirk Robinson of the Western Wildlife Conservancy includes this point in a February 4 Salt Lake Tribune article ("Why must Utah be kept free of wolves?"): “According to information published by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the number of elk in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming has increased by 88 percent in the last 35 years and by 14 percent since wolves were reintroduced.” (For the record, this information does not appear on the RMEF Website.)

The eternal problem: whom are we going to believe?