Word: wolfs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Unfortunately, no single test can rule out the presence of dog genes. For instance, one scientist studying the remains argues that skull analysis requires the examination of many skulls of the same age and sex; in the case of an endangered species like the wolf, it could take years to accumulate a big enough sample. Concludes John Varley, the chief of research at Yellowstone National Park: "The best we can hope for is 80% certainty, and we are going to have to make a decision based on that...
Even if the biologists decide that the animal is a wolf, a crucial question remains: Was it a lone sojourner and thus of no great importance, or a member of a group that might colonize the park? A pack could have established itself if at least one male and one female migrated from the north and then mated in Yellowstone...
...Montana and Idaho, wolf populations have been kept low by disease, illegal poisonings and lethal encounters with cars. But Yellowstone could be a promised land. The 930,000-hectare (2.3 million-acre) park is surrounded by millions of hectares of wilderness, a panoramic spread of high plateaus, broad river valleys and forests that teem with elk and other wolf food. Abundant grizzly bears keep backpackers to a minimum. Hunters are allowed to move through the wilderness areas adjoining the park only during five weeks each fall, and killing a wolf could bring high fines and imprisonment...
...wolf pack has settled in Yellowstone, it could produce four to six pups annually, some of which could survive to disperse and colonize other parts of the park. "That's the way it happens," says Michael Hedrick, a wildlife biologist who monitored wolf packs on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. "First you get ambiguous sightings, then someone sees a family, and then the % floodgates open...
That possibility is what makes landowners edgy. Says Clifford Hansen, a former Wyoming Governor and Senator whose family grazes cattle in Grand Teton National Park: "I'm old enough to remember when ranchers paid a $150 bounty on the wolf, and in those times they would not pay that kind of money to counter a trivial threat...