I have a few pieces in the works, but I can’t seem to scrape together enough quiet time to finish them up. Ah well, it’s that time of year. So I thought I’d update and share a softly hopeful piece I wrote a few years back for a coalition consisting of 30 conservation orgs working for wolf recovery across the United States. (Interesting aside: I originally wrote this piece for the website of our then-funder, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.1 Leo has hidden depths, it appears.)
Life for a wild wolf can be harsh, and it often comes to a violent end, often at the hands of humans. Wolves are the nightmares of European myths and Disney films, but their perceived villainy is at odds with their natural desire to avoid human contact.
Anti-wolf hysteria operates in a vacuum regarding how powerful an ally this species could be, if only we’d step aside and let them do their jobs (and as any wolf advocate soon realizes, the biggest obstacle there is the cattle ranchers’ political lobby). Given what I’ve learned of these immensely intelligent beings (the wolves, not the ranchers’ lobby), I will defend their freedom to roam free and expand their ranges until my last breath. Luckily, I am far from alone in that sentiment.
Partnering With Wolves
We are enduring the sixth mass extinction of life on our home planet. The Guardian UK recently reported on a study showing that 96% of all mammals remaining on earth are humans and livestock. Only 4% are wild mammals. Just since 1970, it is estimated we have killed off 60% of vertebrate wildlife. 40% of insect species face extinction. Scientists have stated that life will need 10 million years of evolution to recover from the onslaught of humanity on the wild world.
These numbers are horrifically difficult to read. On top of this, we are heating our atmosphere to the point at which large swathes of our home may become uninhabitable. And these twin crises — the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis —are interlinked and self-perpetuating in ways we don’t fully understand.
But there is good news here, too: we are not alone in this battle. If we let it, the rest of life on earth will work with us to avert disaster.
Wolves as Partners in Fighting Climate Change and the Biodiversity Crisis
The gray wolf is a keystone species, without which its ecosystem “arch” falls in a jumble of nonfunctional rocks. It’s an apt analogy: the near-collapse of parts of Yellowstone National Park’s ecosystems after wolves were eradicated last century has become common knowledge.
A series of studies emerging from Yellowstone has explained how some of the park’s damaged ecosystems began to recover once their keystone was reintroduced. It’s a beautiful fact that indeed, ‘rewilding’ missing carnivores can restore ecosystems.
Wolves increase biodiversity. In Yellowstone, for example, the return of wolves led to changes in elk behavior that allowed streamside willows and aspen to regenerate. This in turn allowed for the return of songbirds, beavers, fish, and frogs. Wolves also feed their fellow species by leaving partially uneaten prey atop the winter snowpack, and thereby providing a feast for perhaps hundreds of other species from grizzlies to insects to fungi. Wolf-driven processes increase the complexity and health of their ecosystems.
Gray wolves can also contribute to climate stability. As a general proposition, functional ecosystems store more carbon. Beyond that, in some temperate forest ecosystems, the loss of wolves has meant the loss of new trees. Predator scientist Dr. Bill Ripple and others showed that when wolves were absent from Yellowstone, elk browsed all the young trees and shrubs from certain areas, leaving a 70-year gap in tree recruitment. His team found similar results in other North American parks where wolves had been absent for a time.
What’s more, wolves create conditions for beavers to thrive. Beavers alter the flow of water through an ecosystem, slowing its flow and providing rich habitat for a complex array of species. Too, beavers build wetlands and ponds, which can lock away a great deal of carbon.
We know that millions of wolves once roamed the North American continent. Now, only 5,000-6,000 grace the mainland U.S., where many hundreds of thousands once practiced their particular brand of ecosystem services.
Many vibrant, carbon-sequestering ecosystems have been lost. A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change estimates that rebuilding wolf, beaver, and other North American wildlife populations in a process called trophic rewilding could lead to globally significant atmospheric carbon uptake and storage.
A map of historical gray wolf distribution (shaded gray area) versus current range (bright green) is stark. But dark green areas shows zones to which wolves might still return and thrive, and serve again as ecosystem engineers of the highest order.
From Wolves to the “Warning to Humanity”
Emerging from a deep dive into climate and biodiversity data, Dr. Ripple penned the now-famous “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, A Second Notice.” It traces worsening trends in key metrics and calls on the world to decarbonize the economy immediately and to protect and restore natural systems.
Dr. Ripple sent the draft paper to 40 colleagues, hoping a few would sign on. By the time it was published, over 15,000 scientists from around the world had endorsed the warning, which went on to make international headlines and has become one of the most-cited papers ever published. It calls on leaders and citizens worldwide to make immediate and drastic changes in policy and behavior.
But at this critical juncture, when we are literally out of time and must try every potential method to stem ecological collapse, there are continual efforts to completely remove endangered species protections from wolves, exposing them to indiscriminate eradication again. (And wolf opponents are not shy about stating their avowed desire to once again eliminate wolves from the U.S.) Again, a mere 5,000-6,000 gray wolves remain here to do the work that hundreds of thousands once performed, and many, many habitats are still empty of wolves.
So much more than a wolf numbers game, delisting decisions turn wolf management over to state fish and game agencies. Although many states across the western U.S. have made headlines for their “green” governors and forward-thinking climate policies, most of our state fish and game departments remain mired in unenlightened, unscientific thinking about predator management, particularly in states where wolves no longer receive federal protections, such as Idaho and Montana. Rather than viewing keystone predators as partners in restoring healthy ecosystems for the benefit of all species, including humans, most “manage” wolves by killing them, or by licensing hunters to do so, or by looking the other way when wolves are poached.
In a time of urgent, spiraling conservation crises, this is a terrible way to manage our precious and dwindling wildlife resources, especially when viewed in light of their potential to help us dig out of the climate hole we’ve dug.
Now defunct, as it was absorbed into the Earth Alliance a couple of years back.
Thank you for the beautiful piece. Loved it.
Great work, Rebecca. I love the reminder that rewilding is a partnership rather than a human-centered task. Thanks for this.