Wolf Reintroduction Programs Helped Yellowstone Packs Flourish

Visitors at Yellowstone National Park may get lucky enough to hear the howling of wolves in the distance at the park. However, those moonlight nights were once silent, after the natural population of wolves had diminished to such low levels that the beloved creatures were practically extinct in the national park.

But years of effort from park rangers, experts, and conservationists have helped boost wolf populations in and around the park, bringing the numbers up significantly.

In fact, these days you may not even be aware that a massive reintroduction project was introduced to Yellowstone to help bring wolves back to the area after several man-made problems drove them out.

You can learn more about the wolf management system, including the park's introductory program, which gives you a good idea of how the native wolves of Yellowstone were nearly lost to history forever before being carefully brought back by policy changes and a core group of invested organizations.

According to the National Park Service, expansions that took place in the 1800s almost completely decimated the wolves of Yellowstone. This was largely due to how human-wolf encounters increased as agricultural and housing development started to eliminate the prey wolves fed on, forcing them to come into direct conflict with people.

Settlers then began to mass-slaughter the wolves — as well as other animals like bears, elk, cougars — until the mid-20th century, when almost no wolves remained.

However, in the 1970s, experts found proof of wolves in Yellowstone, and in the 1980s, wolves slowly began their own process of bringing back their packs.

By the 1960s, humans finally became involved, and the National Park Service began to educate and emphasize the importance of having wolves in the wild, which contributed to the success of the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

Finally, in 1987, the real work began, and the USFWS Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan began reintroduction efforts.

After 1987, reintroduction work was expanded under the Endangered Species Act, and in 1994 Yellowstone had approval to introduce gray wolves back into the park.

According to the National Park Services wolf ecology informational page, Yellowstone has between 83 and 123 wolves in the park. They can be found in various parts of the expansive swath of land, especially in the northern part of Yellowstone, and are most active during the hours of dusk and dawn.

You'll find only gray wolves in Yellowstone Park, and they are one of the first to be listed as endangered, according to Wikipedia. As of 2023, there were an estimated 11 packs in the park, which included 124 gray wolves.

As their numbers have grown, so have their sightings, which many people flock to see at the park each year.

And while they may never have populations as prolific as they did before the western expansion, the numbers have been climbing since reintroduction efforts began.