Officials in Grand Teton National Park are releasing few details about a gray wolf killed Monday on private land inside the park.
The individual who killed the wolf contacted Wyoming Game and Fish Department wardens, who reported the shooting to park rangers at approximately 10:30 a.m. Monday, according to a statement released by the park’s public affairs office.
Park rangers and a Park Service biologist responded to the area to investigate the incident, and the Wyoming Wyoming Game and Fish Department is conducting a concurrent investigation.
The wolf was a two-year-old male that was not wearing a radio collar, and its pack affiliation is unknown. At the time of the shooting, the wolf was in the company of three or four pack mates, park officials said.
Several private inholdings exist within Grand Teton National Park.
Wyoming state law allows wolves to be shot if they are harassing livestock or domestic animals, but federal regulations prohibit hunting wolves within Grand Teton.
Park officials declined to release additional details on the case, citing an investigation by the National Park Service done in consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Contact Yellowstone Gate at 307-213-9818 or info@yellowstonegate.com.
This is exactly one reason why grey wolves need to be reinstated as endangered. There are many ways there numbers are controlled without a “legal” hunt. Wolf on wolf conflict, poaching trapping disease etc… People who hate wolves due to a lack of education about them will stop at nothing to eradicate them. We need our apex predators for a healthy eco-system and as a plus for tourism…
Wolf hunters really, really disgust me, and they really are very selfish, not true people with understanding and kindness about wolves, one of the most beautiful animals in the world. Go away, Idiots and Leave wolves alone, damn it!!!
You are the one uneducated about these killing machines. Sounds like you are one of the brain washed Park Biologists ?
And it sounds like you are an uneducated, vindictive hunter who flatly refuses to see the whole picture. If the wolves go, what will your target be then? People like you ALWAYS need a living target.
La lucha contra los depredadores humanos es importante. Ningún animal es capaz de hacer lo que el hombre. Es una ardua lucha. El apoyo de verdaderos humanos, hace la fuerza.
I dont mean to bust your perfect world Utopia for yah but there isnt anything on this planent that doesn’t have to be managed by sound conservation practicies which includes Hunting mind you. You know the same activity that has supported the restoration and recovery of thousands of species. You know the same revenue used to even restore or re-introduce wolves.
Without sportsmen, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOUR GOING TO GET THE REVENUE TO FUND WILDLIFE RESTORATION OR RECOVERY? Do you think the USFWS generates it’s own revenue source? When is the last time you purchased a FEDERAL DUCK STAMP?
Wolves are a self regulating species. They were here on this planet long before humans as we know them. True sportsmen hunt for food not for the thrill of the kill.
My last comment is all that needs to be said in closing. You can take every NGO organization from around the world and every last dime they have ever raised for wildlife and it wouldn’t even come close to the revenue generated by sportsmen specifically for Habitat and wildlife restoration. That is a FACT.
In the US alone 90% of all wetlands , marshes that have been protected to date, HAVE BEEN PROTECTED BY THE WATERFOWLERS AND THE ASSOCIATED FEDERAL DUCK STAMP. We can go right on down the list like Big Horn Sheep, Elk, Buffalo etc. Without Sportsmen of North America most of what you advocate to protect would only exist in books as pictures.
Sportsmen to date have been the only ones to put their money where their mouths are. My point, you said their are other ways to manage wolves besides Hunting. OK how does this work? Who is going to pay for that management? Is it an ongoing practices that will cost money and generate zero for the own self preservation and management of a species? You get the picture? If it wasn’t for sportsmen you anti sporting folks would have nothing to advocate for and most of your activist organizations CEO’s would be sacking groceries instead of driving around in 50k dollar SUV and living 6 figure income life styles. Oh they got you fooled. Best I can tell you is look at what those CEO’s have made during their tenure at the position and ask yourself this question? How much more could we have saved with that salary? The make far more money from folks like you who follow blindly and trust me, they thank God every day that you do.
Bill Smith, please stop with that tired old argument. Any well-run “humane” organization has a well-paid CEO. If that wasn’t true, they wouldn’t be such a thorn in your side. It’s telling that you single out anti-hunting CEOs but make no mention of the inflated coffers of pro-hunt CEOs. Non-consumptive (non-hunters) users of wild lands spend very close to what hunters spend as supported by the USF&W’s 2013 report and breakdown. If you spend more, than we’re right on your heels.
Another thing that needs clarification: You do not “donate” out of the kindness of your heart. You are MANDATED to pay for your hunting licenses and all related fees. If not, you would NOT be able to hunt. The wildlife agencies, for the most part, represent you and allocate that money where they feel is necessary to ultimately placate the hunting community.
Strange, isn’t it, that wolves only seem to be a problem for those who hunt particular species and for certain ranchers who refuse to be compliant with strategies proven to reduce depredation? Self interest groups are the biggest problem and they are milking taxpayers dry.
pretty old line of b.s. got there billy boy….tax dollars are the biggest contributor to preservation…hunters and fishermen like myself don t even come close to paying the full bill so stop trying to say sports people are the heroes…they give yes but no where close to what u r saying
Bill Smith —your argument that sportsman do it all and NGO’s / nonconsumptive users of wildlife pay little or nothing is just plain BS ( pun intended ). No–that’s too harsh and I apologize. I’ll just call it what it is instead : Mythology. A self-fulfilling prophecy from the hook and bullet crowd looking thru the wrong end of the binoculars again.
I don;t feel like refuting it here, because Ruffin ain;t got enough webspace available. I will say only this: WHO was responsible for wiping out most of the big game, even exterminating many prime species after the Pilgrims landed on the shores of the continent. Hint: it wasn’t the Native Americans. Try us Euros instead and our ridiculous notion of Manifest Destiny.
In 1620, it is estimated there were about 12 million Elk in the area we call the Lower 48 States today . Elk in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts all the way to the Pacific Coast. And hunters/ market hunters/ settlers/killers of any stripe shot all but 40,000 of them giver or take in the coming two centuries. Do the math : that’s a 99.67 percent killoff. Thanks for that.
It was even worse with Bison …from 60 million down to a handful. We all but extincted the Woodland Caribou a/k/a/ Rocky Mountain Reindeer that used to live in western Wyoming. I wonder where all the Grizzly bears went that used to range from Hudson Bay to Guadalajara Mexico…six of the seven subspecies of Ursos arctos horribilis in North America extincted by lead poisoning. In the mid-1800’s before the cattle barons started killing every Grey Wolf they saw in the Rockies, there were near 400,000 of them , according to mitochrondial DNA studies of skulls and pelts gathered by the Smithsonian back then and analyzed a few years ago. Montana alone killed over 80,000 wolves a year.
Please don’t try to tell me the Grey Wolf and Grizzly are restored and recovered. And ferdammsure don’t try to take credit for it. The rest of us had to hold a gun to your head to stop the killing. Teddy Roosevelt even realized ( eventually ) that it was wrong to kill off predators, and reversed course.
The so-called North american Model of wildlife management is only a partial solution and very narrowly focussed on providing large numbers of huntable game for ” harvest “. But big game and wildlife are two compeletely separate notions. Game is wildlife . But not all wildlife is game…. not even close.
We simply have to manage wolves as wildlife , not nuisance animals or shoot-on-sight predators using the lawyer’s definition and not the biologists.
As far as I’m concerned, the sport hunting community has a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-ng ways to go to atone for its prior sins of caniside and ursuside and slaughter of wildlife. The livestock producer needs to be taken to the woodshed, too. The States have terrible predator management programs. No wonder your elk hunting is so screwed up.
Why bother to ask for trouble. These wolves are a m,enace and their population is extreme. Just remove by any means possible!
You sir are one of the biggest idiots I have ever seen. How are they a menace? No recorded evidence of ever attacking a human. Help with population control of other species since they are at the top of the food chain. Most attacks of farm animals are by Coyotes not wolves. You are the menace and I want to remove closed minded people like you before you ruin this planet of what natural beauty it has left.
I count chasing people on motor cycle a potential attack. Attacking dogs with owners and threatening human is not cool either.
No known wolf attack on humans… Check your facts… A teacher in Alaska was killed by wolves. There are documented wolf attacks around the world, just because you choose to be ignorant doesn’t mean it is fact. Wolves carry and spread more than 30 diseases and more than half are spreadable to humans…
very few documented wolf attacks anywhere to be found…do u r research and stop spouting off like u r an authourity…there are far more dogs attacks and killings than anything in the wild has brought about
So very true!
jim…just move away and they ll be no trouble to you at all
This is why states, and not the federal government, should manage game populations. The state of WY knows what it’s doing. The feds, not so much.
Also, hunting should be allowed in National Parks. Just treat them like wilderness areas.
No hunting should not be allowed in national parks. Let’s kill the great Elk while we are at it, in national parks, or anywhere. Ridiculous! When will you hunters give it a break. I don’t care how much hunting conservation gives back, if you all had your way you would hunt to extinction. Maybe that would be good so you would then begin to hunt each other!
Are the pathetic worthless Feds human hating lunatics or what. A worthless vermin pest was shot and you want to make a Federal case out of it. You Federal official are an embarrassment to America. How sad and pathetic you are willing to ruin people lives over a vermin pest. Delisted wolves Nation wide, put a bounty on the vermin pest like Russia and Canada is doing. Bunch of sissy pansy anti America scum of the earth in the Federal Government.
Park service should seize his property (under Eminent Domain), kick him out of the park and ban him from ever entering again.
Yes they should. Gun happy person had non logical reason to shoot a wolf. If I see a dog running loose should I have the right to just get my gun out and shoot it?
YES! If they are chasing deer! Harassing wildlife is not tolerated.
Why should the rancher’s property be seized? Why should the government be able to take a person’s property for protecting it? You sound like you have very little knowledge of the laws…
Really Robin?? Details have not been released and that is your suggestion? What if he was protecting his 3 year old child, and he feared for their life? Would you still feel that way? You are a perfect example of why people dislike the pro-wolf crowd…. there is no reasoning behind your angry suggestion, and the finger is out, and pointing toward the man who shot the wolf…….making obserd suggestions to ruin his life, and you dont even know what for.
The original wolf in the Rockies was a subspecies of the Gray wolf. The pro-reintroduction people lied and said all wolves are just gray wolves. The TRUTH is that there are 32 subspecies. The Northern Rocky Mountain Timber Wolf was the second smallest (Behind the Mexican Gray Wolf)smallest of these and historically ran in small packs. Adults ranged from 60-80 pounds and packs were 6-10 adults. It’s name is Canus Lupus Irremotus. However the wolf re-introduced into Wyoming and Idaho was the Canus Lupus Occidentallis – The MacKenzie Valley Gray Wolf. This subspecies never, ever lived in America. It resided in Canada and feasted on Alaskan Moose, Caribou, Elk and other large game. Due to the larger sized game in game and the vast open spaces unlike in Yellowstone, the MacKenzie Wolf evolved to be larger – averaging 12-140 pounds and they gathered packs of up to 30 animals. That is what has been unleashed in America. A giant, non-native wolf that hunts in very large packs. The enviro-whackos said it would restore balance and instead is has decimated elk and moose populations and the wolves are spreading like a virus across Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Colorado. Wolves have been confirmed as far south as central Colorado and as far west as California and Oregon. Livestock, family pets and native populations of elk are being wiped out. The Northern Yellowstone elk herd has dropped 75 PERCENT! Now the Park Biologists are studying why. Really? You put massive apex predators into an ecosystem they never previously lived in and you wonder what happened?
75%? That’s a crazy estimate that I’m sure you just came up with off the top of your head. Same thing about the lies of the people that headed up the reintroduction of the wolves. That’s all the wolf haters fall back on: these aren’t our wolves. How can anyone take that claim seriously when the people making it are the same ones that want to kill wolves so they can kill elk? The elk are fine, if anything is killing them off too fast it’s the humans.
Extremist Wolf- Predator haters will stop at nothing to disparage and marginalized the Wolf. We’ve heard them all- massive 200 pound killing machines that kill everything in it’s path and kill for sport. Decimated elk, deer and moose herds- all debunked, as FG agencies have posted the best elk hunting in decades. There are more elk in the NRM today than there were in 95 when wolves were reintroduced….there are studies that show the N Yellowstone elk herd is a complicated ecosystem impacted by weather, climate, predation, and human hunting outside the park- but we always here the simplistic and inaccurate- the wolves are killing all the elk and moose…..no science, evidence or reason to explain these changes are good enough for some people- they believe what they want to believe. Meanwhile- these fake sportsmen continue to poach and whine. Pathetic
Sportsmen are anti-wildlife terrorists
Wolves are not a pest. These anti-wildlife “sportsmen” are the vermin pest
I live on the edge of the predator/trophy hunting zone in Wyoming, and I really like wolves. They are amazing to observe, they bring in tourist income and balance out ecosystems where hunting is not allowed, like Yellowstone. In short, like to exist where they do.
I also grow and hunt the majority of my food. The protein part of that includes killing one deer and one elk for my wife and me each year. I have great respect for the wild animals and the natural process of life and death, which feeds some and allows others to be born. I feel privileged to be IN that process and have that direct connection, rather than existing solely as an observer, with food coming from “somewhere else” and nature confined safely under a glass bowl where it can be photographed, but never touched by human hands.
We have known for a very long time that wolves are one of humanity’s closest competitors. We like a lot of the same stuff, namely large herbivores, domestic and wild. Historically we dealt with wolf competition by attempting to kill every last one and our science at the time supported it.
Times have changed, our understanding of ecology has changed, and attitudes have changed, even in the place where I live. The “kill them all” crowd is still the loudest voice in the forums, apart from perhaps the “save them all” crowd, but I would guess most people directly impacted by wolves are somewhere in the middle. They are trying to reconcile having some natural resources, which were used to support themselves, perhaps for generations, taken and given to a reintroduced large predator….forever. That transfer included part of the annual bounty of wild game for the freezers and safe summer pastures for cattle to graze when the winter pastures must be rested to avoid overgrazing. It is a hard thing to reconcile for a large portion of the local population, particularly since the agent of change has come mostly from individuals that have no direct economic or lifestyle impact from it. Still, it happened.
Measures were finally taken after wolf numbers greatly exceeded the original objectives. The complete protection of wolves was removed outside of Yellowstone National Park and replaced with population models, wolf harvest quotas and monitoring protocols designed to retain the existing population as it is. Not fewer wolves, the same. It created a balance at the local level, where resources where divided between humans and wolves.
I believe this hard fought balance should be preserved because it does what the Endangered Species Act was meant to do. However, it is continually under legal attack by outside anti-hunting groups that have the luxury of not being directly impacted by wolves. If those groups win out and upset this balance, the Act is proven unjust and we are then just waiting for the political tides to change, and rightly overturn it. In my opinion that would be a great tragedy extending far beyond wolves. Given the present political climate though, is it really farfetched?
We need the average American citizens that is not directly impacted by rare species conservation efforts to stand up and defend the hard fought balances, the successes, even if your culture is different from those affected. Let your voices be heard!
Well said Joe Shmo. Thank you.
The most intelligent piece on this very sensitive issue yet!
I have been employed in the park in the past which I will always count as 2 if the best yrs of my life and have visited the park nearly every yr for 15 yrs or more.
Thanks for some common sense on this issue…it’s exactly whats needed at this time.
Thank you Joe Schmoe for a balance and evenly considered reply to the article. Not all sportsmen are “kill em all.” The extreme conclusions that both sides of the argument jump to are ridiculous and weaken their points. I am so tired of every discussion becoming an episode of Jerry Springer. Little wonder wildlife is in the position they are, when we are the ones determining the worthiness of their existence…
Amen
Ah…thanks! Finally an intelligent soul!
I can’t believe how greedy people are. I have nothing against ranching but the ranchers are the reason that there are supposedly no more grizzlies in Colorado. There wasn’t any land set aside in Colorado for bears. The same with wolves. If a wolf, mountain lion, or bear gets a cow or sheep they are killed. People hunted the bison almost to extinction because of money. I was in Silverton, Colorado a couple of years ago and saw a wolf pelt hanging in the store for $3,500.00. Get this, they are raised and then shot and skinned. Makes me very angry. I would never buy anything in that store. I love Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I also think Wyoming and Montana are magnificent. I live in New Mexico. I love wildlife. The reason I visit Yellowstone and Grand Tetons is to see the wildlife. We’ve got to give these animals a place to live. We don’t need to crowd in on every single area where these creatures live. If you raise cattle or sheep where these animals live you’re going to lose some. Mountain lions will get them too. What about electric fences? No, let’s just get out the gun and kill the useless varmits!
It took 200 years to get rid of them and then you re-introduce them? They are not endangered. Healthy populations exist in many parts of the world. We don’t need them here. They are killing machines, that kill for sport and territory.