Yes, I believe they were introduced and have bred, not sure how long ago but it wasn't that long ago..


Wys
x

Hi, do you mean that wolves are taken away or something else? not sure but it would be interesting to know...

Wys
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That's extremely childish and just plain nasty ClaireandDaisy

Please can we keep this thread nice and friendly, else it will be locked, and that would be a shame

Ben & Wys:

Yes, they were introduced originally and have bred very successfully. There are now several large packs I believe in Yellowstone, but it is incorrect to say this environment is unnatural. It may be quite true that people (stupidly) are feeding them hamburgers, but this does not detract from the fact that these wolves are living wild and naturally ... and in a situation which is the most natural ... because they are not being persecuted by man. Wolves have no other predator except for man. The unnatural explosion worldwide of the human species has put a tremendous strain on the wild wolf, because until the start of this explosion, man and wolf lived in harmony.

So what we see in YS is how wolves were meant to live ... in large packs, numbering as many as 50 individuals, with alpha male and female as Pack Leaders, with the lower ranks performing all the necessary tasks to keep harmony within the pack.

This is not me manipulating DM's words to suit my argument. This is what DM says about Yellowstone:

"When more than 1 female breeds in a pack, the females may become more competitive, so it is probably appropriate to refer to the original matriarch as the alpha female and to her daughters as "betas". He then goes on to say "While it is not incorrect to use alpha when applied to packs of multiple breeders, it would be possible and even desirable to use less loaded terminology. For example, the top-ranking female could be called the dominant female or the matriarch, and her breeding daughters, the subordinates".

Mech has a problem with the word "alpha", because he goes on to say that the public's perception of a wolf pack (due to this terminology) is of an aggressive assortment of wolves consistently competing with each other to take over the pack. Which is of course totally erroneous.

It is also totally erroneous to say that Mech does not believe in the reality of alpha male and alpha female, he does, it is the wording he does not like. In addition to this, the sad state on Ellesmere Island where the living was so poor that the wolves could not thrive sufficiently to build up a proper pack, led to him to revise his original opinions.

I've got this lovely image in my mind of Julie Walters playing Mrs Overall in that lovely sitcom ... what was it called? Cleaning Ladies, or something like that !

No, I am clear that I am talking about Ellesmere Island. It is up near the north pole, and therefore living is very harsh. You could say that THAT is an artificial situation, because wolves have been driven there by man. The situation in Yellowstone is far more like the conditions wolves would have enjoyed before the white man discovered America. The northern american indians lived in harmony with their wolf brothers, they did not persecute them.

IMO it is a right ******'s muddle !

Don't think that the wolves were driven there; some bones from den sites were radio carbon dated to be over 300 years old; indicating continual use of the den for centuries. I don't agree that their situation is artificial -wolves live like this all over the tundra from Alaska to the North West Territories.

They go out of the park, they kill livestock; they get shot. This is the 'non essential' clause in the governments program for the release of ALL wolves in the US.

Correct is possibly not a good word, Wys. Perhaps "natural" would be nearer the mark. Wolves do not have any predators, other than man. And until the arrival of the white man, the native american indians lived in harmony with their wolf "brothers". They did not persecute them, as we did here in the UK for instance, such that they became extinct here. The wolf has really only been persecuted in such a way since the advent of christianity, when the wolf for some reason became the Devil Incarnate ... literally. The wild savage beast, eating babies and grannies, is just a myth promulgated by religious fanatics. In reality, the wolf is a timorous, almost cowardly, animal, avoiding confrontation wherever possible.

Aside from the religious nutters, when man turned from the Hunter Gatherer way of life towards farming with penned livestock presenting an irresistable meal for a pack of wolves, then the new farmers would defend their herds and their flocks, thus coming into confrontation with the wolf. Man, by settling down and claiming land as his own, started off the long persecution of the wolf. However, many if not all of the northern american tribes lived in harmony with wolves, "harvesting" them no doubt for their warm skins, but only taking the weak, the elderly and the sick.

The fact that in a successful pack of wolves, living where the hunting is good, there is an Alpha male and female, with the lower ranks doing all the work, is proof positive that this is the true way of wolves. Before man's persecution, the wolf had NO predators, the world he inhabited was his oyster, and he had the pick of places to live, hunt and thrive.

Yes, this is true Wolfdog ... because man has driven them there !! By driven, I mean forced them out by taking their hunting grounds and persecuting them. Wolves would much rather live where the living is easy, the only reason they are found on hostile places like Ellesmere Island is because they are left in relative peace there. Were a huge oilfield discovered there, or a gold mine, doubtless that would be the end of wolf habitation on Ellesmere Island !