Yuan 1

Rochelle Yuan
Lynda Haas
WR 39C
August 26, 2016
Stop Harming Wolves and Coexist Instead
Introduction: The Wolf-Human Relationship
In Empire of the Summer Moon, S. C. Gwynne writes of an 1860 army attack on a camp
in which canines defended their masters; this may have been the beginning of the human-wolf
domesticated relationship (Safina 224). Since that time, as Barry Lopezs classic 1978 book on
the subject, Of Wolves and Men, suggests, the wolf exerts a powerful influence on the human
imagination (4). Much of that imagination, consisting of our desire to hunt what is unknown to
us, fears and hates wolves, which has resulted in violence towards them, even when the reasons
for fear and hatred are countered by close observation (Humans Versus Wolves). The scientific
research on wolves proves that they possess social behaviors unequivocally similar to those of
humans, which leads ecologist Carl Safina to claim that no two species are more alike than
wolves and humans (236). Based on these conclusions, we must now question the morality of
human mistreatment of wolves, such as unnecessary hunting, which results in diminishing what
little land they have left and bringing them to the edge of extinction. Instead, humans can coexist
with wolves, a solution that has been studied and has proven to be a success for both parties.
Still, why do these wolves deserve their attention? What is so wrong about creating more space
for the human species? They dont look like us, they dont act like us, they dont think like us

Yuan 2
is often what people believe (Yourofsky). Hence, the idea that humans and wolves are similar
and that wolves have a human-like social cognition (Safina 223) must be further addressed.
Review of the Scientific Literature: Social Behavior of Wolves
The similarities between wolves and humans begin at a young age. Adolescent humans
and wolves behave in a more juvenile way because they are still growing and learning. Harry
Frank and Martha Gialdini Franks 1982 study On the effects of domestication on canine social
development and behavior published in Applied Animal Ethology, compared four captive
Eastern timber wolves and four captive Alaskan Malamutes (508). They noted how the wolf pups
show agonistic behavior that may be innate, but that also involve their maturation and interaction
probably mediated by an innate teaching mechanism. Adversely, the effects of domestication
on dominance behavior in dogs causes selection pressures against aggression to relax, as dogs
probably elicit submissive responses more for attention rather than in response to domination
(517-519). According to archaeologist Colin Groves, as wolves transitioned into dogs and
became less aggressive, humans have [also] undergone a reduction in environmental awareness
in parallel to domestic species (Safina 235), such that they relied on each other for protection
(by wolves) or for food and shelter (by humans).
Besides the fact that wolves and humans alike have domesticated themselves (Safina 234)
and evolved with each other, a hierarchy still stands in each species because conflict is a part of
every relationship. Greg Moran analyzed Long-term patterns of agonistic interactions in a
captive group of wolves (Canis lupus), a 1982 study published in Animal Behaviour. Moran
recorded agonistic interactions in a group of captive, grey wolves for 21 months (75-76). He
described various aspects of interactions and relationships between different wolves and

Yuan 3
concluded that there is, in fact, an underlying dominance hierarchy social organization (77-81).
This may also relate to the Franks study, where the Franks examined how aggression in wolf
pups was innate. Such a hierarchy will thereby emerge as the wolves mature. Nevertheless,
Moran was able to see a hierarchical social organization within a pack, similar to how humans
live with families that usually contain a male and female head, alphas, and subordinates. Often,
the subordinates would listen to their alphas in both species or end up fighting, attempting to
assert dominance.
Tying into this struggle for dominance, Candice Baan, and her team from the University
of Neuchtel in Switzerland, observed free-living wolves in Yellowstone National Park from
2008-2009 and published their results as Conflict management in free-ranging wolves, Canis
lupus in Animal Behaviour. Baan et. al. recorded and analyzed social interactions of freeranging packs of grey wolves in Yellowstone National Park (328). Because of wolves high
interdependence on each other for survival, Baan discusses how reconciliation, although mostly
asymmetric (initiated by subordinates towards dominants), is highly favored in free-ranging
wolves in order to reduce social tension and restore social peace (331). However, the results
suggest that this occurs because of the benefits the subordinates would derive from cooperative
hunting, cooperative breeding, and cooperation in defense of the territory and related resources
from their stronger counterpart (Baan 332). Such interactions are a display of a dominance
hierarchy mentioned by Moran, a social organization that erupted from a base of innate
aggression in wolves as studied by the Franks. More often than not, subordinates would normally
take the first step in reconciliation, which could happen in said packs or in human families. Of
course, the more dominant individual would have the best chance at helping the family or pack

Yuan 4
survive, so its inevitable that the more submissive individual would benefit the most out of a
healthy relationship between them.
The social behaviors of free and captive wolves detailed in countless studies by
prominent researchers shed light on human and wolf similarity, forcing us to acknowledge the
impact our actions have on their lives. There was once a time when they thrived in the territory
they lived; however, by 1930, humans had wiped wolves off 95 percent of their holdings in the
lower forty-eight states (Safina 169). Over several recent years, the federal government
weakened wolf protections, claiming that 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves in the entire
northern Rocky Mountain region constituted a recovered population (Safina 169-170). Ever
since this recovered wolf population, hunting began occurring again with no limit to it,
something that had originally wiped out so much of the population before. Even though some
may believe such a population is recovered, a constant battle between their listing and delisting
oftentimes results in casualties that couldve easily been prevented (see Figure 1). Essentially, we
cast out wolves because they are not like us, and they become a metaphor for the feral and precivilized, the gang, for the people living outside the bounds of convention and conformity
(Safina 170). Keeping this in mind, how can humans continue to hunt wolves the way they do?
The Problem: Near Extinction
In Europes Middle Ages, wolves werent just persecuted; they were exterminated.
Centuries later, in America, trapped wolves were sometimes set on fire, or had their lower jaws
cut off or wired shut before being released to slowly starve (Safina 171). Doesnt this speak for
itself that humans just try to justify their extreme violence against wolves with what animal
activist Gary Yourofsky has called asinine and moronic excuses? Although scientists have

Yuan 5
come to acknowledge the significance of wolf life, leading to the enactment of the Endangered
Species Act in 1973 and the listing of gray wolves among the first species protected (Humans
Versus Wolves), anti-wolf legislations that allow for mass killing of wolves, who are still at the
brink of extinction, continue to emerge. Several substantive studies discuss the negative effects
human encroachment has caused wolves, primarily hunting, and indicate that these killings
should teach human beings a lesson in how to treat the natural world.
Most studies of wolves do not focus on their hormone levels; they are not as common as
those involving raw numbers that measure wolf populations. In 2014, Heather Bryan from the
University of Calgary co-authored Heavily Hunted Wolves Have Higher Stress and
Reproductive Steroids than Wolves with Lower Hunting Pressure, in the journal Functional
Ecology. Her team compared steroid hormone levels in hair of wolves living in Canadas tundrataiga that experience heavy rates of hunting with those in the northern boreal forest where
hunting pressure is substantially lower (348-349). Because their data provides the first baseline
on chronic levels of stress and reproductive hormones in wolf hair, Bryan and her team
broadened the range of wolf studies (354). Their measurements revealed that wolves from
heavily hunted populations had higher steroid hormone levels (Bryan 350-351), which lead to the
conclusion that hunting can disrupt a wolf packs complex social structure, alter normal
reproductive behavior and introduce chronic stress that may have evolutionary consequences.
These high levels can also decrease pack size, resulting in altered predation patterns, increased
time spent defending kill sites from scavengers, and may lead to increased conflict with humans
and livestock (Bryan 351-352). More conflict with humans, namely hunting, could result in more
conflict with livestock, as seen in the next study.

Yuan 6
In most stable social groups, wolves have only one litter per year, but a disruption can
cause multiple litters per social group to become more common. Robert B. Wielgus, an associate
professor of wildlife ecology, and his co-author Kaylie Peebles, assessed the Effects of Wolf
Mortality on Livestock Depredations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming from 1987 to 2012.
They collected data on the confirmed number of cattle and sheep depredated, wolf population
estimates, number of breeding pairs, and the number of wolves killed in the wolf-occupied area
of each state for each year from the United States Fish and Wildlife Services Interagency Annual
Wolf Reports (2). The data was then analyzed using a negative binomial generalized linear model
to test for the expected negative relationship between the number of livestock depredated in the
current year and the number of wolves controlled the previous year (1). They found that the
number of livestock depredated was positively associated with the number of livestock and the
number of breeding pairs. It appears that lethal wolf control to reduce the number of livestock
depredated is associated with increased, not decreased, depredations the following year, on a
large scale at least until wolf mortality exceeds 25% (Wielgus 11). Wolf pack stability is crucial
to controlling the impact of wolves on livestock, but wolf packs disrupted by culling can
reorganize, which may lead to more breeding and thus more livestock killed in the year after a
wolf reduction than before (Wieglus 12). Essentially, the more state-led hunting we allow, the
more livestock will wind up dead as well. Earthjustice, the nations original and largest nonprofit environmental law organization, documents the battle between delisting and listing
Northern Rocky Gray Wolves under the Endangered Species List that had first emerged in order
protect species that are likely to become extinct (see Figure 1).

Yuan 7
Figure 1. A timeline of the fight for ESA protection for Northern Rocky gray wolves.
Source: http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/wolves-in-danger-timeline-milestones
Although the conservation groups had won, they were not able to avoid the aftermath of loss due
to the government allowing humans to juggled with wolf life.
Moreover, Maureen Hackett, president and founder of Minnesota-based Howling for
Wolves, explains why gray wolves, who are native to the state of Minnesota, should not be
hunted. She says that not many animals make it off the Endangered Species List alive, and the
same year (2012) the Minnesota gray wolf was removed, it was hunted and trapped for
recreational purposes; Wolves were killed at random in the wild, not just those in conflict with
farmers (Hackett). Imagine being in the shoes of those wolves, hunted for sport and forced to
scurry away with their tail between their legs as their homeland is taken from them. Acts like
these cause Yourofsky to come to the conclusion that if you take out humans, it benefits all
other species. Even if wolves were in conflict with farmers, Wieglus revealed that the number
of livestock killed, of wolf breeding pairs, and of wolves killed each year were correlated. Thus,
as more wolves die with the excuse that theyre killing farm animals, more livestock is being
killed as a result. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), eighty
percent of the public did not support the wolf hunt in Minnesota, but it still occurred (Hackett).
Hackett sheds light on how legislators can suspend such killing and stop the indiscriminate
methods and how it is important that the DNR and the legislature focus on the idea that stopping
wolf hunts are important to the state of Minnesota and its residents.
The Solution: Coexistence

Yuan 8
Some may wonder what is the point to wolf protection? Why do we need to stop hunting
them if they dont benefit us in any way? Wayne Pacelle, President and Chief Executive Officer
of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), addresses in his blog how clear it is that
wolves provide an enormous economic and ecological benefit. Wolves boost tourism-related
commerce and limit deer and moose populations, depressing crop depredation and shrinking the
number of collisions between these animals and cars as a result. Its evidential that they impact
ecosystems in a positive way by killing the weak, sick, and older prey. The fact that they do
provide such balancing effects will in turn, help humans in the dealing of overpopulation of a
species with no predator. Thered be no moral controversy over how we should deal with them.
Rather than just unleash wolves on overpopulated prey though, WildEarth Guardians, with a
mission to protect and restore wildlife, believe wolves should be present in sufficient numbers to
create a host of positive ripple effects throughout the ecosystem.
Another solution is to seek middle ground between wolf protectors and anti-wolf
activists, like how in 2015, Maureen Hackett and the HSUS compromised in the StarTribune.
Originally, members of Congress were preparing legislation to undo a Dec. 19 federal court
decision that restored certain federal protections for wolves and ended short-lived wolf hunting
and trapping in Upper Great Lakes states. Animal protection and environmental advocates in
Minnesota and nationally had informed federal regulators that they would accept a reduced level
of protection for wolves in order to avert a congressional effort to remove all protections for the
species. Rather than fight a losing battle to prevent the laws that harm wolves, citizens can settle
for a middle ground, which is better than nothing, because it still benefits wolves.
Furthermore, the best solution to help protect wolves is by at least learning about what
they do for the environment. Defenders of Wildlife, a major national conservation organization

Yuan 9
founded in 1947, explains in 2014 how, Coexisting with Wolves in Idahos Wood River Valley
by using nonlethal methods for keeping wolves from preying on livestock proves that people
dont need to hunt wolves. Defenders implemented the Wood River Wolf Project in 2007 that has
become a model of success; it involves drawing on experience and a suite of proactive methods
and tools that are nonlethal. It has (1) kept sheep losses to wolves at less than 1 percent90
percent lower than losses reported in the rest of the stateand wolves killed by wildlife control
agents to zero, (2) provided agencies and livestock cooperators with training in nonlethal
deterrent techniques, (3) co-sponsored wolf-livestock coexistence workshops to educate people
about this method, and (4) served as a testing ground for nonlethal coexistence methods. This
project demonstrates the benefits of cooperative existence because it (1) reduces livestock
predation by wolves and other predators, (2) lessens the impact of livestock grazing on wolves,
(3) contributes to economic sustainability and reduces the cost of wolf-livestock management,
(4) improves community support of ranching and conservation coexistence practices, (5)
increases tolerance for native wildlife, and (6) enhances scientific knowledge of nonlethal
methods.
Such coexistence ties into ecology expert Mohsen Ahmadis 2014 study of Spatial
Heterogeneity in Human Activities Favors the Persistence of Wolves in Agroecosystems, where
Ahmadi et. al. combined information measured at landscape and fine spatial scales, and
generalized linear models to identify patterns of 35 different den sites in agroecosystems (2-5).
They concluded that wolves, as many other large carnivores, do not strictly require areas devoid
of humans, showing a high ability adapting to multiple landscapes that are used (6). Their results
show how the heterogeneity in human activities emerges as a key factor favoring the persistence
of wolves in agroecosystems. Thus, vulnerability of wolves, and other large carnivore species, in

Yuan 10
human-dominated landscapes could be compensated by the existence of spatial heterogeneity in
human activities, favoring a land sharing model of coexistence between large carnivores and
people (Ahmadi 7-9). If we combine these two examples of coexistent success between humans
and wolves, we can ultimately prevent the needless hunting of them.
In addition, social media has become an important part of today's society and can be of
great use for increasing attention on such a problem. Clay Shirkey, an American writer,
consultant, and teacher on the social economic effects of Internet technologies, conveys in a
TEDTalk about "How Social Media Can Make History that "media is increasingly less just a
source of information and is increasingly more a sight of coordination" and gives an example of
how "we are increasingly in a landscape where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap"
through China's 2008 earthquake. According the Shirkey, the Chinese citizens learned that the
reason so many school buildings collapsed from this earthquake was because corrupt officials
took bribes and allowed them to be built to less-than code. Of course these officials did not want
people to find out, but the media was produced so quickly that they could not filter it, similar to
when a local tour operators photograph of snorkelers harassing an endangered green turtle
reached 63,631 unique people on Facebook in 2011 (Wijedasa). Plus, when World Wildlife Fund
created #LastSelfie in 2015 using Snapchat to highlight that time is running out for endangered
species, the campaign reached 40,000 shares and was exposed to 120 million people on Twitter,
globally, in only the first week! This proves we can use social media platforms to spread the
negative impacts humans have on wolves and why we should have coexistence rather than laws
intended to protect them. Laws are not enough, as demonstrated by Figure 1. As long as the
public is informed, there is more possibility that they will act on it. Like how the Chinese

Yuan 11
citizens obtained information about the school buildings, American citizens could, in turn, learn
about why wolves and natural wildlife should be helped.
These creatures, once brought to the brink of extinction, should be allowed to survive in
the decades ahead and not have their packs ceaselessly battered by random and reckless killing
by trophy hunters and commercial trappers (Pacelle). One of the most powerful forces in the
wolfs corner is the American public, and time and time again, public opinion has supported such
creatures; thus, as part of the American people, you can do so again as easily as just signing and
sharing a petition (Howling for Wolves).
Works Cited
Ahmadi M, Lpez-Bao JV, Kaboli M (2014) Spatial Heterogeneity in Human Activities Favors
the Persistence of Wolves in Agroecosystems. PLoS ONE 9(9): e108080.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108080
Bryan, Heather M., Judit E. G. Smits, Lee Koren, Paul C. Paquet, Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards,
and Marco Musiani. "Heavily Hunted Wolves Have Higher Stress and Reproductive
Steroids than Wolves with Lower Hunting Pressure." Functional Ecology 29.9 (2014):
347-56. doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12354
Lopez, Barry Holstun. Of Wolves and Men. New York: Scribner, 1978.
Safina, Carl. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. New York, NY: Henry Holt,
2015.
Wielgus RB, Peebles KA (2014) Effects of Wolf Mortality on Livestock Depredations. PLoS
ONE 9(12): e113505. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0113505
Wijedasa, Lahiru S., Sheema Abdul Aziz, Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, and Gopalasamy R.

Yuan 12
Clements. "Opinion: Does Social Media Like Conservation?" The Scientist. N.p., 8
April 2013.
Yourofsky, Gary. "Through the Eyes of an Animal: A Lecture by Gary Yourofsky." Youtube. 20
April 2015.
"#LastSelfie." The Webby Awards. N.p., 2015.
"Coexisting with Wolves in Idaho's Wood River Valley." Defenders of Wildlife. N.p., 2014.
"Finding Solutions for Wolves - Wayne Pacelle's Blog." A Humane Nation. N.p., 2015.
"Howling for Wolves." WildEarth Guardians. N.p., n.d.
"Humans Versus Wolves." WildEarth Guardians. N.p., n.d.
"In Protecting Wolves, Advocates Seek Middle Ground." Star Tribune. N.p., n.d.
Press, Pioneer. "Maureen Hackett: The Gray Wolf Should Not Be Hunted." Twin Cities. N.p.,
2014.