Working to protect public lands and wildlife since 1967


Wolf Management

After intensive government-sponsored extermination campaigns, wolves were eliminated from Wyoming by the 1930s. Over the ensuing decades, the widespread public perception of wolves became increasingly more favorable, and culminated with the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming beginning in 1995. As a top predator, wolves have benefited the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem by reducing elk numbers and redistributing elk–moving them away from open areas near rivers and wetlands and into higher elevations with thicker cover. This has allowed willows, aspens, and cottonwoods to regenerate in areas where elk formerly congregated. Such vegetation growth has stabilized stream banks, provided shade, and improved habitat for beavers, fish, and migratory birds. Wolves also have reduced coyote populations, bolstering pronghorn reproduction and small mammal populations. Finally, wolves routinely provide animal carcasses that feed a host of avian and mammalian scavengers. Wolves are surprisingly tolerant of, and highly visible to, Yellowstone visitors, and as a result they have brought an additional estimated $22.5 million per year in tourism dollars to the counties around Yellowstone, according to a 2006 study by Duffield et al, titled Wolves and People in Yellowstone: Impacts on the Regional Economy. According to the same study, visitors who spend money specifically to see or hear wolves generate approximately $35.5 million annually in the three-state area around Yellowstone National Park.

Despite the ecological and economic benefits of wolves and the support they receive from a majority of Wyomingites, the Wyoming legislature assigned wolves a dual classification in the state when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to remove the species from Endangered Species Act protection. Wolves were classified as trophy game to be managed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in the northwest corner of Wyoming (12% of the state) and as a predator that could be shot by anyone at any time in the rest of the state.

Wolves were delisted in March 2008, but were returned to the endangered species list that same year by a federal judge who agreed with concerns expressed by conservationists that Wyoming’s wolf management plan was inadequate to protect a sustainable population of wolves, and that excessive wolf killing would further inhibit interbreeding among the wolf subpopulations in the Northern Rockies. Wyoming’s unwillingness to forego its dual classification system and grant trophy game status to the few wolves that roam its designated predator zone has stymied wolf delisting for years and frustrated the Northern Rockies states’ (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho) opportunity to manage their wolves. In April 2009, the Fish and Wildlife Service again delisted wolves in Idaho and Montana, but this time left Wyoming’s wolves on the endangered species list because of the state legislature’s continued refusal to eliminate the dual classification management system.

The Wyoming Outdoor Council believes that granting statewide trophy game status to wolves in Wyoming is the critical first step to achieving wolf delisting and responsible state management. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department would manage wolves as a wildlife resource throughout the state, all ranchers would be compensated for wolf depredations instead of just those in the wolf trophy game area, and the WGFD would not receive undeserved negative publicity for every wolf killed by the public in the predator zone. As a result, the Outdoor Council and its partners are working to promote statewide trophy game legislation. We also work to disseminate science-based information on the impact of wolves in Wyoming, and to promote proven innovative solutions that allow wolves and ranchers to coexist successfully in wolf country. It is our goal to bring all stakeholders to the table to create a science-based wolf management plan for the Rocky Mountain region, and to ensure that Wyoming maintains a sustainable wolf population managed by wildlife professionals rather than public emotions.

PDF Links

Western Wolves

Wyoming Game and Fish Department Wolf Management Plan

Public Comment on 2008 Draft Revision – Wyoming Gray Wolf Management Plan

Defenders of Wildlife’s “Livestock and Wolves – A guide to nonlethal tools and methods to reduce conflicts” publication

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