20 years ago, 4 wolves were released in Idaho. What if it never happened?

On Jan. 14, 1995, Moon Star Shadow, a 90-pound, silver-tipped black male, stepped out of his cage at Corn Creek and urinated, marking his new territory in Idaho. He and three other wolves released at the edge of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness were the first of 66 wolves brought to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park from Canada in 1995 and 1996. By 2009, the wolf population had grown to more than 1,500 in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and today has spread to Washington, Oregon, Utah and even California and Arizona. Congress delisted the populations in Idaho, Montana, northern Utah, western Oregon and western Washington in 2011, which removed them from protections under the Endangered Species Act and led to wolf-hunting seasons. Today, more than 600 wolves are thought to live in Idaho and the haunting howl of a pack of wolves is an almost common sound in Idaho’s backcountry, pleasing the people who pushed to restore them. Idaho hunters and trappers now harvest hundreds of wolves every year, but many complain that traditional elk-hunting areas are no longer as productive because wolves kill, move or stress the big game. Ranchers now have the right and the means to kill wolves that attack their livestock, but they remain bitter that they aren’t compensated for losses that can’t be definitively linked to wolves. Ranchers also say elk and other big game are streaming out of the backcountry to raid their pastures and haystacks as they get away from the wolves. But what if the federal government had decided not to reintroduce wolves to Idaho and Yellowstone in 1995?...more