The hair on my neck stood up.
Alone in the dark in Idaho’s Frank Church
River of No Return Wilderness, I heard a wolf howling near me. I was on a solo backcountry elk hunt,
settling into my primitive camp for the night, when the unmistakable sound rang
through the mountains.
It had been many years since the howl
of a wolf echoed in these woods, because the species had been extinct here for
the past fifty years. But in 1994, a reintroduction program had begun, and I
was hearing firsthand the successful results of that effort.
But I was miles from any semblance of
civilization, my only light coming from my headlamp and trusty backpacking
stove. And just up the canyon in the dark was an apex predator and probably a
few members of his family.
It’s easy to let your mind play
tricks on you in these situations. I won’t deny being nervous.
From a young age, we are conditioned
to fear the wolf. It begins with stories like the Three Little Pigs, Peter
and the Wolf, and Little Red Riding Hood. In these childhood tales,
we are taught the wolf is a killer. Our conditioning continues into adulthood
with stories like The Grey, the action-horror movie starring Liam Neeson
in which a pack of wolves mercilessly haunts the steps of six oil workers after
their plane crashes in Alaska.
But childhood stories and Hollywood
movies are entertainment, not facts. And I knew the facts about wolves, as well
as the stories.
I knew from scientific studies that
worldwide since 1950 there had only been a handful of humans attacked every
year by wolves, about the same number as by the American black bear (and far
fewer than by the brown bear). And of those wolf attacks, only a dozen or so
resulted in a fatality.
The studies also showed that when an
attack did occur, it was rarely because wolves saw humans as prey. Most often
they occurred because the wolves were rabid, had been provoked, or had been
otherwise conditioned to seek food associated with humans.
So, I knew that when traveling in the
backcountry, there are much greater dangers than wolves. I remembered that in
the U.S. alone, hornets, wasps, and bees kill about sixty humans per year, and
lightning kills another twenty. In fact, bees and lightning kill more humans in
one year in the U.S. than all the wolf fatalities combined worldwide going back
to 1950.
Certainly, I knew that wolves can be
dangerous and should be respected. All wild animals do. But as I recounted the
facts, my nervousness soon turned to joy in getting to experience the
wilderness as it was before humans tamed it by exterminating wolves. A big
smile crossed my face. I loved the howl of the wolf as much as I loved the
bugle of the bull elk.
As I crawled into my sleeping bag, I
thought about Aldo Leopold, the renowned outdoorsman and conservationist, who
wrote poetically about the wolf’s howl, which he heard in the Carson National
Forest of New Mexico when he worked there as a forester in the early part of
the 20th century. Leopold
wrote:
Every living thing (and perhaps many
a dead one as well) pays heed to that call.
To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine forest
of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of
gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter
a challenge of fang against bullet. Yet
behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning,
known only to the mountain itself. Only
the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.
And at that moment, trying to think
objectively about the howl I just heard, I flicked off my headlamp and drifted
into a restless sleep filled with dreams of wilderness, wolves, and elk.
Reintroducing wolves to the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem, which includes parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, was
a radical change of policy for the federal government. In the first half of the
20th century, federal agents shot, trapped, and poisoned wolves out
of existence everywhere in the United States except for Alaska and isolated
areas in Minnesota. In Montana, 100,000 wolves were turned in for bounties in
one decade alone, and by the 1940s, wolves could no longer be found in the
Yellowstone area.
Wolf extermination was official
government policy in those days. It was believed to be necessary to protect
farming and ranching interests and to promote public safety. Even Aldo Leopold
got in on the action as a young forester in New Mexico. He wrote, “In those
days, we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf.”
But unlike most of his peers,
Leopold’s wolf hunting experience proved to be a quasi-scientific discovery and
even a spiritual transformation. As a forester, he noted that as wolves were
removed from the forests, plants were grazed to the ground by deer and elk. He
recognized that healthy ecosystems required biodiversity, which included
wolves. In addition, as a philosophical man, he came to realize that ethically,
wolves – indeed all plants and animals – had an intrinsic right to life.
Leopold’s views presaged and even
inspired a conservation ethic that over time grew into a movement to
reintroduce wolves to many of the areas from which they had been exterminated,
including Idaho. By the mid-1980s, a family of wolves trekked down from Canada
and established themselves in Glacier National Park in Montana. At that time,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service floated the idea of formally reintroducing
wolves into the United States under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act.
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was
enacted in 1973. It passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate and was
signed by President Richard Nixon who said, “This is an environmental
awakening. Wild things constitute a treasure to be protected and cherished for
all time.” The ESA required the recovery of endangered and threatened species
by relying on the best science available.
By the time of its passage, the
United States had already lost the great auk, the Carolina parakeet, and the
passenger pigeon. It was in danger of losing the bald eagle, peregrine falcon,
California condor, and gray wolf. The decline of the bald eagle (the country’s
national symbol), however, is what provoked the nation into saving American
wildlife.
But it wasn’t until 1994 that the U.S.
Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbit, finally approved a plan to officially
bring wolves back to Yellowstone National Park and to central Idaho. The plan
called for the release of thirty-one Canadian gray wolves into Yellowstone and
thirty-five into central Idaho. Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness received eleven
of those, while the area near Salmon, Stanley, and Indian Creek, Idaho,
received the other twenty-four.
The reintroduction was wildly
successful. The wolves quickly adapted to their new habitat, which was rich in
prey, and began to mate and reproduce. In Idaho, within three years, the wolves
established ten breeding pairs and numbered one hundred individuals, far above
initial recovery goals.
But in the beginning, the program’s
success was far from certain, more because of political than ecological
reasons. In early 1995, the Idaho Legislature rejected the Wolf Recovery and
Management Plan that was put forth by its own Legislative Wolf Oversight
Committee. The plan would have allowed Idaho Fish and Game to take a leading
role in wolf recovery in Idaho, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
This surprised no one, given Idaho’s
ultra-conservative politics – dominated by farming, ranching, mining, and
lumber interests. In addition, Idaho’s hunters decried the introduction with
the argument that it would lead to the cataclysmic decline of the state’s elk
herds, the most popular big game animal in the state. The prevailing attitude
of the anti-wolf advocates was “shoot, shovel, and shut up” – shorthand for kill
all wolves, bury them, and don’t tell anyone.
Without a state partner to lead the
way, Idaho’s wolf recovery was in jeopardy of failing before it even got
started.
Fortunately, the Nez Perce Tribe
stepped in to assume the lead role in the state. Because of the tribe’s
connection to wolves and history of coexistence with them, it was more than
willing to engage on wolf reintroduction. And the tribe took pride in protecting
a species with which it had previously shared a homeland. The Nez Perce Tribe’s
positive attitude couldn’t have been more different than that found in Idaho’s
capital, and it literally saved the state’s wolf reintroduction program.
With a partner finally in place,
Idaho’s wolf reintroduction took off without the help of the state’s own fish
and game department. The rest, as they say, is history.
By 2023, Idaho counted more than
1,200 wolves in the state. The reintroduction, in fact, has been so successful
that the gray wolf is no longer even listed under the ESA. Although coming late
to the party, the Idaho Fish and Game is now successfully managing gray wolves
in accordance with state management plans, under which its wolf populations
have remained secure and well above recovery objectives.
There is, of course, a risk of
oversimplifying a complex subject involving the wolf-elk-human relationship.
But it does not appear that the cataclysmic decline of the elk herd which was
predicted by hunters has materialized. According to Idaho Fish and Game
statistics, the elk harvest has grown by a whopping sixty-eight percent, from
about 15,500 in the year 2000 to more than 26,000 in 2024.
But the gray wolf is not the only
success story written by the Endangered Species Act. The bald eagle, peregrine
falcon, California condor, whooping crane, Hawaiian monk seal, Oregon chub, and
Apache trout are all species that have been brought back from the brink of
extinction because of sound environmental and scientific initiatives carried
out under the authority of the ESA. In fact, a 2019 scientific study found the
ESA has prevented the extinction of 291 species since 1973, and 54 of those
species have sufficiently recovered to be removed from the endangered and
threatened list altogether.
Despite its overwhelming success in
preventing the extinction of species, however, the ESA is needed now more than
ever. Scientists believe the current species extinction rate is between 1,000
and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate – that is, the speed
of extinction that would occur if humans were not around. This phenomenon has
become known as the “sixth mass extinction,” which, unlike previous extinction
events caused by natural phenomena (like the dinosaurs being wiped out by an
asteroid), the sixth mass extinction is driven by human activity, primarily the
unsustainable use of air, land, and water, as well as climate change due to
factors such as the burning of fossil fuels.
Relatives of the gray wolf – the
Mexican gray wolf and red wolf – are among the species most critically
endangered with extinction. In 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
estimated there were only 286 Mexican gray wolves remaining in the wild in Arizona
and New Mexico. This population is the result of the capture of some of the
last remaining Mexican gray wolves in the wild in Mexico and a binational
captive breeding program between the United States and Mexico.
The red wolf is in even worse shape
than the Mexican gray wolf and is the most endangered wolf in the world. It was
once widespread throughout the Southeastern United States. Today, however, the
only known wild population – about 20 individuals – is found on the Albemarle
Peninsula in North Carolina. The primary threats to the red wolf population are
habitat loss, illegal hunting, motor vehicle collisions, and hybridization with
coyotes.
Just when it is needed most, though,
the ESA is under threat – not from the usual suspects of farmers, ranchers,
logger, miners, and misinformed hunters, but from the federal government
itself. In January 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order
declaring a national energy emergency, an order that specifically targeted the
ESA in order to undermine it. The order stated, among other things, that the
ESA cannot stand as an obstacle to the extraction of energy sources such as
crude oil, natural gas, uranium, and coal.
In furtherance of Trump’s
anti-wildlife agenda, Brian Nesvick, Trump’s pick to be the director of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (responsible for protecting the nation’s fish
and wildlife and their habitat on public lands), has proposed to rescind the
definition of “harm” under the ESA. Rescinding the definition of “harm” would
result in habitat modification or destruction no longer being considered a
violation of the ESA, as those actions are defined today.
The term “harm” is found in the ESA’s
statutory definition of “take,” and for decades has been defined through
regulation as any action that either kills or seriously injures protected
wildlife through actions that include habitat modification. Removing the
regulatory definition of “harm” would ultimately redefine what constitutes
“take” of a species.
The proposal is likely to become
finalized next year, and “take” of a species would no longer include activities
that modify or degrade species habitat as long as species are not directly
killed or injured. The term “take,” however, would still prohibit activities
that directly injure or kill wildlife.
Nesvick’s proposal is nothing but a
land grab for oil and gas, timber, mining, farming, and ranching interests. By
eliminating habitat destruction as a cause of action under the ESA, corporate
interests will be much freer to engage in land-use activities that affect
protected species habitat.
The fact is, however, there is no
actual national energy emergency. According to the U.S. Energy Information
Association (EIA), the U.S. produced a record amount of energy in 2024, more
than 103 quadrillion British thermal units, which itself was a one percent
increase over the previous record set in 2023. The EIA wrote, “Several energy
sources—natural gas, crude oil, natural gas plant liquids, biofuels, solar, and
wind—each set domestic production records last year.”
Trump’s national energy emergency
executive order was simply a lie designed to undermine the Endangered Species
Act. “Drill, baby, drill,” Trump promised his supporters on the campaign trail,
and his executive order, coupled with Nesvick’s assistance, helped fulfill that
promise.
The problem with Trump’s and
Nesvick’s attack on the ESA is that a single species interacts with many other
species to produce healthy ecosystems which benefit people. The extinction of a
single species can have a ripple effect on critical ecological functions that
support human life – factors such as a stable climate, predictable regional
precipitation patterns, clean air and water, and productive farmland and
fisheries.
The renowned naturalist John Muir
famously captured these associations when he wrote, “When one tugs at a single
thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” This is the
same principle Aldo Leopold articulated when he wrote about the negative
effects of wolf removal on the mountain ecosystems of New Mexico.
Trump and Nesvick have a different
view of nature than Muir and Leopold did. To Trump and others like them, nature
is subordinate to humans and exists solely for human use and benefit. Trump’s
view is nothing new, and, in fact, it has largely been the land ethic humans
have pursued for most of history. Leopold labeled it the “Abrahamic view,” and
expressed it elegantly as the following: “Abraham knew exactly what the land
was for: it was to drip milk and honey into Abraham's mouth.” To Trump and
Nesvick, milk and honey are corporate profits.
And so, after more than fifty years
of successfully protecting endangered and threatened wildlife, the Endangered
Species Act itself is in danger. Nesvick’s proposal will undoubtedly be
challenged in the courts, but should it prevail (as is likely), the nation will
face a scenario in which a few corporations benefit and profit from the
destruction of species at the expense of everyone else as well as the natural
world.
And once again, we may not know the
call of the wild.
References
Arizona Game
and Fish. n.d. “Marble Canyon and Vermillion Cliffs COA.” Arizona Game and
Fish, accessed May 29, 2025.
https://awcs.azgfd.com/conservation-opportunity-areas/terrestrial/marble-canyon-and-vermillion-cliffs
Associated
Press. 2024. “US House Votes to Remove Wolves From Endangered List in 48
States.” US News and World Report, April 30.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-04-30/us-house-votes-to-remove-wolves-from-endangered-list-in-48-states
Busek,
Aubry. 2023. “Flight to Survive: From the Razor’s Edge of Extinction, Whooping
Cranes Stage a Remarkable Comeback.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, September
21. https://www.fws.gov/story/2023-09/flight-survive
Corbin,
Clark and Heath Druzin. 2025. “River of No Return: How the Nez Perce Tribe
stepped in to save wolf reintroduction in Idaho.” Idaho Capital Sun,
June 11.
https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/environment/2025-06-11/river-no-return-nez-perce-tribe-wolf-reintroduction-idaho
Delgado,
Anton L. 2020. “Gray wolves lose endangered species protections, but Mexican
wolves keep status.” AZ Central, October 29.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2020/10/29/feds-delist-gray-wolf-but-leave-mexican-subspecies-protected/6074221002/
Federal
Register. 2025. Federal Register, The Daily Journal of the United States
Government, April 17.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/17/2025-06746/rescinding-the-definition-of-harm-under-the-endangered-species-act
Flores, Dan.
2023. “How the Endangered Species Act Saved America.” Time, December 12.
https://time.com/6358278/endangered-species-act-50-anniversary/
Frey, David.
2021. “Report Documents Wolf Attacks Around the World.” The Wildlife Society,
May 24. https://wildlife.org/report-documents-wolf-attacks-around-the-world/
Handwerk,
Brian. 2023. “What 70 Years of Data Says About Where Predators Kill Humans.” Smithsonian
Magazine, January 31.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/where-lions-and-tigers-and-wolves-attack-and-kill-humans-180981539/
History.com
editors. 2024. “Bald Eagle removed from list of threatened species.” History,
last modified June 25.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bald-eagle-removed-from-list-of-threatened-species
Idaho Fish
and Game. n.d. “2000 Elk General Hunt Harvest Statistics.” Idaho Fish and Game,
accessed September 19, 2025.
https://idfg.idaho.gov/ifwis/huntplanner/stats/?season=general&game=elk&yr=2000
Idaho Fish
and Game. n.d. “2024 Elk General Hunt Harvest Statistics.” Idaho Fish and Game,
accessed September 19, 2025.
https://idfg.idaho.gov/ifwis/huntplanner/stats/?season=general&game=elk&yr=2024
Idaho Fish
and Game. n.d. “Wolf Management Status Timeline.” Idaho Fish and Game, accessed
December 8, 2024. https://idfg.idaho.gov/wildlife/wolf/recovery-reintroduction
Jones,
Emily. 2020. “Idaho’s wild wolves: A look back at the history of wolf
reintroduction.” Idaho Mountain Express, September 11.
https://www.mtexpress.com/news/environment/idaho-s-wild-wolves-a-look-back-at-the-history-of-wolf-reintroduction/article_0fac201e-f3bc-11ea-8388-ffec050da824.html
Kjorstad,
Elise. 2021. “Wolf packs don’t actually have alpha males and alpha females, the
idea is based on a misunderstanding”. Phys.org, April 26.
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females.html
Krol, Debra
Utacia. 2024. “Arizona’s Apache trout are taken off ‘threatened’ list after
work by tribe, agencies.” AZ Central, September 4.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2024/09/04/us-interior-secretary-deb-haaland-announces-arizona-apache-trout-recovery/75016593007/
The National
Law Agricultural Center. 2025. The National Law Agricultural Center, April 29.
https://nationalaglawcenter.org/fish-and-wildlife-services-proposes-rescinding-definition-of-harm-under-esa/
Randall,
Brianna. 2023. “The Endangered Species Act at 50 & What’s Next for
Wildlife.” National Wildlife Federation, September 27.
https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2023/Fall/Conservation/Endangered-Species-Act-50
Read, Marie.
2008. “Bosque Del Apache, New Mexico: A Bird Photographer’s Playground.”
Cornell Lab, July 15.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/bosque-del-apache-new-mexico-a-bird-photographers-playground/
The
Peregrine Fund. n.d. “California Condor.” The Peregrine Fund, accessed May 29,
2025. https://peregrinefund.org/projects/california-condor
U.S.
Department of the Interior. 2016. “Management of Wolves.” U.S. Department of
Interior, September 21. https://www.doi.gov/ocl/management-wolves
U.S. Energy
Information Association. 2025. “In 2024, the United States produced more energy
than ever before.” U.S. Energy Information Association, June 9.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65445
U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. n.d. “Bald Eagle.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
accessed December 7, 2024.
https://www.fws.gov/species/bald-eagle-haliaeetus-leucocephalus
U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. n.d. “Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.” U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, accessed February 5, 2025.
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/bosque-del-apache
U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. 2020. “Gray Wolf Final Delisting Determination Questions
and Answers.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, October 9.
https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2020-10/gray-wolf-final-delisting-determination-questions-and-answers
U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. 2023. “Proposed Delisting of Apache Trout.” U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, August 10.
https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2023-08/proposed-delisting-apache-trout
U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. n.d. “What is a 10(j) Rule?.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, accessed June 18, 2025.
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ESA-section10%28j%29-fact-sheet.pdf
Webber,
Tammy. 2025. “Proposed rule change on endangered species trigger alarm for
environmentalists.” Associated Press, April 16.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-endangered-species-act-habitat-protection-rule-a4c5663a5e49cc0325665edc338263b4
Wetzel,
Corryn. 2022. “Judge Restores Federal Protections for Gray Wolves in 44
States.” Smithsonian Magazine, February 15. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gray-wolves-headed-back-to-the-endangered-species-list-180979575/
Whittle,
Patrick. 2025. “Environmentalists say Trump’s energy order would subvert the
Endangered Species Act.” Associated Press, January 22.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-climate-change-oil-whales-turtles-9d068d755e8ac4060fd7381178d87421
World
Wildlife Fund. n.d. “What is the sixth mass extinction and what can we do about
it?.” World Wildlife Fund, accessed June 6, 2025.
https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-is-the-sixth-mass-extinction-and-what-can-we-do-about-it
