Every one to three years (depending on region) state and federal agencies survey and monitor gray wolf populations. These reports summarize the best available information on the status of gray wolves in specific regions in the United States.
Alaska is home to the largest population of gray wolves in the United States. Wolves occur throughout their historic range in Alaska and are found in diverse habitats, from the rainforests of the coastal southeast to the arctic tundra in the north. The state’s wolf population is healthy and stable, and Alaskan wolves have never been listed as endangered or threatened. Sustenance for Alaskan wolves is provided by more than a million moose, caribou, and Sitka black-tailed deer. Wolf hunting and trapping is not allowed within those portions of National Parks that existed prior to 1980—parts of Denali, Katmai, and Glacier Bay National Parks. Other small areas in Alaska are closed to harvests for various reasons.
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Historically, gray wolves were common throughout much of Washington, Oregon, and northern California, but wolf numbers began to decline as human populations increased in the latter half of the 1800s. By the 1930s, Wolves were believed to have been extirpated from the Pacific West. Wolves began to recolonize Washington and Oregon via dispersal from the northern Rocky Mountains and Canadian provinces in 2008. At the end of 2017, the combined minimum population estimate for wolves in both states was 252 wolves.
Gray wolves in Oregon were delisted from endangered status under the Oregon State Endangered Species Act on November 9, 2015, but continue to be a protected species in the state. Wolves in the Western Management Zone are federally protected as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. At the end of 2017, Oregon’s wolf population was estimated to be 124 wolves in twenty wolf groups, with at least twelve packs of four or more wolves.
Gray wolves across Washington are listed as endangered by the state, but wolves only occur in central and eastern portions of Washington. Federally, wolves in the eastern third of Washington have been delisted, but remain listed as endangered across the remainder of the state. There are three recovery zones in the state: Eastern Washington, Northern Cascades, and Southern Cascades/Northwest Coast. The minimum estimated wolf population in Washington increased by approximately six percent from 2016 to 2017 with 122 known wolves in twenty-two packs, including at least fourteen breeding pairs.
Gray wolves are federally listed as endangered in California. In the fall of 2011, a lone wolf from Oregon entered northern California, where wolves had been absent since 1924. California listed the gray wolf as a state endangered species in 2014, and in December 2016 the state developed a plan for the expansion of wolves from Oregon to California. An adult pair and five pups were detected by trail camera in northern California in August 2015, and a new adult pair with three pups was detected in 2017. In 2018, wolf OR-54, a two-year-old female, traveled 175 miles south from Oregon to Nevada County, California, the most southerly movement of a wolf into the state.
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By the 1930s, the gray wolf had been extirpated from the western United States. Wolves received legal protection in the northern Rocky Mountains under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Subsequently, wolves from Canada occasionally dispersed south, and in 1986, they began to recolonize northwestern Montana in Glacier National Park. In 1995 and 1996, sixty-six wolves from southwestern Canada were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho. In 2011, wolves in Montana and Idaho were delisted and managed under state authority, which allowed the hunting of wolves. In 2012, wolves were delisted in Wyoming but were federally relisted in 2014. In 2017, Wyoming wolves were again removed from the endangered species list on April 25, and in the fall of 2017 the hunting of wolves was allowed in northwestern Wyoming.
As wolves are delisted, states have transitioned from minimum wolf counts—which report only the number of animals detected, to population estimates—an attempt to estimate all wolves on the landscape at the end of the year. Such population estimates often have broad confidence intervals that include minimum counts on the lower end. Idaho and Montana have transitioned to population estimates along with minimum counts, while Wyoming continues to conduct minimum counts.
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The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) once roamed portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. But, as EuroAmerican settlement intensified across the Southwest in the early 1900s, wolves increasingly came into conflict with livestock. Because of these conflicts, extermination campaigns were waged, and by the 1970s, Mexican wolves was eliminated from the United States and Mexico. The last seven wild Mexican wolves in Mexico were captured between 1977 and 1980 and placed in captive breeding facilities. The Mexican wolf was placed on the federal Endangered Species list in 1976 and is the rarest sub-species of gray wolf in North America.
Reintroductions of Mexican Gray Wolves to the wild began in 1998, and focused on the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. The wolf reintroduction and dispersal area was greatly expanded in 2015. The United States population has grown to at least 114 Mexican wolves in the wild, with an additional thirty wolves in Mexico. On November 2017, the US Fish and Wildlife Service established a new recovery plan for Mexican wolves with the goal of 320 or more wolves in the United States and 200 or more in Mexico over a period of at least eight years.
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The red wolf (Canis rufus) is one of the world’s most endangered canids. Once common throughout the eastern and south central United States, red wolves were decimated by the early 1900s because of intense controls and loss of habitat. The red wolf was designated a federally endangered species in 1967, and again under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. In 1973, the US Fish and Wildlife Service began efforts to locate and capture as many red wolves as possible. Of these, fourteen became the founders of a captive breeding program. In 1980, the USFWS declared red wolves extinct in the wild. By 1987, enough red wolves had been bred in captivity to begin a restoration program. Four pairs of red wolves were reintroduced into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern North Carolina. Today, roughly thirty-five red wolves roam in eastern North Carolina as a non-essential, experimental population (NEP), and more than 200 red wolves are maintained in captive breeding facilities across the United States.
In April 2018, the US Fish and Wildlife Service published a new Species Status Assessment of the most current scientific information, and a five-year review for the red wolf. The Service will reduce efforts to recover red wolves in eastern North Carolina, as it searches for new sites for reintroductions. North Carolina 2018: 35 red wolves, with 3 known breeding pairs
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By the early 1960s, gray wolves were nearly eradicated from Michigan and Wisconsin, and only a small number existed in northeastern Minnesota along the Ontario border. The Minnesota wolves have since repopulated extensive portions of the state, and they spread across northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan after they were federally listed as endangered in 1974. Because of improving status, Minnesota wolves were down-listed to threatened in 1978. All wolves in the region were down-listed to threatened between 2003-2005, and delisted between 2007-2009, however lawsuits triggered relisting. Wolves were again delisted on January 27, 2012, and public harvests of wolves occurred in Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2012, 2013, and 2014. In Michigan, a public harvest occurred in 2013.
Wolves were relisted on December 19, 2014, and currently, wolves are listed as federally endangered in Wisconsin and Michigan, and threatened in Minnesota. No public harvests have occurred since 2014, and lethal controls for depredation management have only occurred in Minnesota. Dispersing wolves from this region have been detected in North Dakota, South Dakota, Manitoba, Ontario, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Kentucky, as well as portions of southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. In Michigan, all breeding wolf populations are found in the Upper Peninsula with only two confirmed dispersal wolves in Lower Michigan. Wolf population data in Wisconsin are minimum counts; in Michigan, estimates of minimum population; and in Minnesota, estimates of actual population.
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To view slide presentations from the 2015 Midwest Wolf Stewards Conference, click here.
In the thirteen-state Northeast Region, the northern forest ecosystem, there is a 41,000 square-mile area of forest from the Adirondack Mountains of New York east through most of Maine. It contains suitable habitat for gray (Canis lupus) or eastern wolves (Canis lycaon). The original wolf in the area may have been either or both of these species. A couple dispersers have been detected, but no breeding packs have been found. In recent years, there has been a significant educational effort by private conservation groups to develop interest in wolf recovery and to consider options for potential recovery. Any gray wolves in the area would be considered federally endangered.
No Past Stats
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) occur across eighty-five percent of Canada and estimates place the population at 50,000-60,000. Wolves are harvested in seven Canadian provinces, two territories, and the Nunavut Region. Wolves are only absent in the agricultural portions of southern Canada and the Maritime Provinces. In 2015, the smaller eastern wolf (Canis lycaon) had a minimum population of 236 mature individuals in and around Algonquin Provincial Park in eastern Ontario and adjacent areas of Quebec. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) assessed eastern wolves as threatened in May 2015, but they are listed as a special concern under SARA (Species At Risk Act), the Canadian Endangered Species Act. Eastern wolves were designated as threatened by the Province of Ontario in June 2016.
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