Student: Dazhana Bauer-Jackson

Professor: Lynda Haas

Course Name: UCI Composition
Section Name: WR 39C Summer 2016
Sunday, Aug 28, 2:39 PM
Hass
AP Draft 2
August 12th 2016

"In April 2011, the US Congress intervened in gray wolf (Canis lupus)
policy by inserting a budget bill rider that removed federal Endangered
Species Act (ESA) protections for wolf populations (i.e., delisted them) in the
states of Montana and Idaho and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Utah
(USFWS 2009). Adrian Treyven " Over time it has been a constant battle for
wolves to stay as an non endangered species, but thus far they continue to
lose the battle. The question is what makes it so difficult for wolves to stay
endangered? The human race themselves that are uneducated with wolves,
are what continuously put the wolf in danger of extinction. Wolves are
completely misunderstood; While a lot humans view them as aggressive and
dangerous to their well being, wolves do not even take a second look at
humans because they do not view humans as prey. Wolves have made a
comeback from being near extinct but the moment that Endangered Species
Act(ESA) was dropped in 2011 they were automatically endangered in most
of the United States.
Since the 1970's wolves have been on and off the endangered species
act because of the fact that the moment they are removes people go and

hunt them again and send them right back on the list. Back in 2011 when the
wolf was taken off the ESA 550 of them were killed almost instantly by
hunters. There are many who believe they should be killed for the fact that
they endanger the cattle that humans use for themselves while wolves do
occasionally prey on cattle only 74 out of 2,500,000 were killed in the year of
2011 when hunters were given the green light to hunt them again. Putting
this into perspective, this is not even 0.5% of the cattle. Realistically this is
not an excuse to hunt wolves because the cattle that they do hunt are either
old or sick.
In the 1990's and early 2,000's when the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service
reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park from Canada, states like
Wyoming were fighting for unlimited wolf killing and eventually were granted
it. This is why they were on the ESA up until 2011 for all of the United states
and remain on the ESA in Wyoming, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Until those who advocate for wolf killing stop killing wolves every time they
are removed from the ESA, about every 20 years they will continue to go
through the cycle of having to rebuild themselves as a species. "Overall, the

greatest threat to wolves is prejudice, fear and misunderstanding

about the species. ( Wolf Defenders 2016)"
Over time there have been many studies done on how wolves
react in a situation of dominance. Candace Baan and her team of
researchers from The University of Neuchatel,Switzerland conducted
an experiment where they observed the wolves in their natural habitat,
living in Yellowstone National Park. Over the course of their research
they found that the wolves, specifically the alpha wolves was that they

only became dominant when approached. "Our results show that post
conflict friendly behaviours were mainly initiated by victims
(subordinates) and preferentially directed towards the former
aggressors (dominants).(Baan 331)" Even after a confrontation the
dominants will be civil with the aggressor because they understand
that they need one another to survive individually and as a species.
This shows that even when anything else is confrontational to the
dominant wolf they are still non aggressive after the fact. "Hence, even
though particular valuable relationships (which we could not
investigate in this study) may also be important to explain
reconciliation in wolves, our results suggest that conflict resolution in
this species can be explained by interdependence among pack
members as a result of the benefits they derive from cooperative
hunting, cooperative breeding and cooperation in defence of the
territory."(Baan 332) " Wolves will only become dominant when it is
necessary and that is to protect or provide for their pack.
Adrian Treves a professor of environmental studies at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and Jeremy T. Bruskotter of Natural
Resources at Ohio State University-Columbus conducted research on
the turning point of gray wolves. "Our research indicates that many
residents in wolf ranges do not favor the extirpation but do support
hunting or other lethal control when these actions are aimed at
improving coexistence and reducing conflict between people and

wolves (Bruskotter et al. 2007, Treves et al. 2009, Treves and Martin
2011). It is the U.S supreme Court's job to recognize what exactly is
best for these wildlife animals. What is really happening is the
government is sponsoring the killing of the innocent animals to the
point of extinction. "Widespread killing of many wolves will be difficult
to justify unless private property or human safety is seriously
threatened. (Bruskotter et al. 2007, Treves et al. 2009, Treves and
Martin 2011)" The government can not justify killing off these species
because anti-wolf groups dislike them and their ecological effects (
earlier proven are not realistic). This issue is becoming widespread in
places like Wisconsin wear anti-wolf groups are beginning to campaign
as well as make T-shirts and not enforce the laws of the wolf being
endangered. In this state wolves have the federal status of
"threatened" which gives a bit too much flexibility because it still
allows public hunting of the wolf. "Minnesota wolves have that status
now, but it is probably not politically acceptable for the Northern Rocky
Mountain wolves, which have an even more flexible "experimental,
nonessential" status.( Bruskotter et al. 2007, Treves et al. 2009, Treves
and Martin 2011)"
Rick McIntyre is a biological Tech for the Yellowstone Wolf Project
and hasn't missed a day of observation for 8 years. He gets to the
park by the time the sun rises because he does not want to miss any
interactions of the wolves. " Generally, Yellowstone wolves prey on

animals that are weak, old, or sick, since they know that the strong
healthy ones can either outrun them, in the case of elk, or stand up to
them, which is often the case with bison. (Rick McIntyre)" This claim
100% proves that the anti wolf population using the claim that wolves
are killing human prey are stating false facts. When the wolf preys on
something they do not want it to be confrontational by any means,
they simply want to feed themselves and their family without too much
trouble. When people go to view the wolves at Yellowstone National
Park, they are often taken by surprise that the wolves aren't fighting or
being aggressive to one another, especially after a kill. The reason for
this misinterpretation is "they have seen documentaries, filmed
outside of Yellowstone, of wolves being aggressive and fighting with
their packmates in a competition for food. But many of these
documentaries were filmed, unbeknownst to the viewer, with captive
wolves. In these situations, there is more perceived competition for
resources and violence may erupt more easily. Generally, we observe
wolves peacefully sharing the bounty. In some cases the alpha male
and female will walk away from a carcass right after a kill and let the
members of their pack eat first.( Rick McIntyre)" The wolves that act
up in these scenarios act up due to mistreatment in which nobody can
base their research off of because any species, including humans act
out when they are mistreated. The alpha wolves are even Civil enough
to let their pack eat before them, proving there is no way that these

wolves would be aggressive to humans because they are not even

aggressive to their prey. The wolves simply are surviving when they
are killing, nothing more.
Wolves are animals that have been misunderstood from the
beginning of time and absolutely nothing is changing that, because
people simply refuse to educate themselves on the true facts of these
innocent animals. Gary Yourofsky is and animal rights activist who is
sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA)> He is
extremely passionate about his work to the extent that he has been
arrested 13 times and spent 77 days in a maximum security prison for
raiding a farm in Canada of fur. As most people in this day and age
agree with Yourofsky believes that "If you're Black, White, Hispanic,
Asian, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, male, female, androgynous,
transgender, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, young, old, rich, poor,
furred, feathered, scaled, hooved, clawed, finned, whatever, you feel,
you hurt, you desire, you love. And you deserve life." So why does
anything change when it comes to the lives of innocent animals?
Speciesism is the discrimination against others based on their species,
but for the most part refers to the way humans treat animals, as well
as the imaginary scale we put animals on; For example the fact that
dogs are a mans best friend, yet it is okay to murder a wolf in which a
dog evolved from. Wolves are murdered by humans who have not one
legitimate reason to kill these innocent animals is exactly like killing

someone because they are black. . Humans illogically think that it is

okay to do horrible things to animals without correlating the fact that,
these were the exact things done to people of different religions,
sexual orientation, and race. Killing wolves is a huge issue throughout
the United States of America to the point where these animals are
becoming extinct and people still want to continue to kill them. There
is nothing that this animal does that it deserves to be murdered by the
100s.
Overall wolves have been endangered since the beginning of
time and have yet to successfully prove their innocence. There are
many advocating wolves petitions and groups but they can only do so
much when it comes to getting people to actually listen to the issue
and understand that wolves mean absolutely no harm. According to Jim
Robertson an animal wildlife advocate, "There are currently fewer than
600 wolves in that state (hunters and trappers killed nearly 200 last
season). Yet Montana wildlife officials say they are hoping to reduce
the wolf population to around 450. Of course, that number does not
even come close to representing a recovered state wolf population by
any historical standards when you consider that 10,261 wolves were
destroyed between 1884 and 1886 in Montana alone after a bounty
was first initiated thereor that 380,000 wolves once roamed the
lower 48." Every time the ESA is lifted wolves are killed by the
hundred and there is no reason for it because according to Montana

Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department there are 141,078 elk in the state
which is 55% over their management objective if 90,910. The issue is
anti wolf extremists who have one of two arguments which are that
wolves are dominant and dangerous to humans, or they are killing the
livestock that humans survive off of, which are both incorrect and
should have been disabled throughout this paper.
Overall more people need to become educated on the advocacy
of wolves. Realistically if wolves were as dangerous as most people
think chances are there would not be so many advocating for them.
Wolves are continuously going to remain on the ESA as long as they
are not extinct because of the ignorance that people believe about
them being dangerous or killing livestock. Hunters and anti wolf
extremists will probably never change their view on wolves because it
is what they advocate for but overall the killing of wolves because of
the species they are, is speciesism and is no different than hunting a
black or homsexual for being themsleves.

"An Answer to an Anti-Wolf Extremist." Exposing the Big Game.

N.p., 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2016.
Baan, Candice, Bergmller, Ralph, Smith, Douglas W., and
Barbara Molnar. "Conflict Management in Free-ranging Wolves, Canis
Lupus." Animal Behaviour 90 (2014): 327-34. Sciencedirect. Web. 6
August 2016.

"Conflict Management in Free-ranging Wolves, Canis Lupus."

Conflict Management in Free-ranging Wolves, Canis Lupus. N.p., n.d.

Web. 07 Aug. 2016.

"Speciesism: The Original Discrimination | Ft. Gary Yourofsky."

Bite Size Vegan. N.p., 2015. Web. 13 Aug. 2016.

Treves, Adrian, and Jeremy T. Bruskotter. "Gray Wolf

Conservation at a Crossroads." BioScience 61.8 (2011): 584-85. Web.

"Yellowstone Park Foundation." Yellowstone Park Foundation.

N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2016.