The Tumultuous History and the Future of Wolves in America

After Colorado made another deposit of wolves last month, ranchers, hunters and many others wasted very little time in voicing their displeasure with the decision. Following a first-of-its-kind ballot measure, the state has been bulldozing its way through every bit of the promise they made in 2020 that would see them install between 30 and 50 new wolves over the next few years.

And while all eyes are fixated solely on Colorado at the moment, the truth is, wolves have long since been a contentious issue here in America - long before our great country was established.

Sharing the land for hundreds of years with Native Americans, wolves and humans worked in a sort of harmony. Long before annual wolf surveys, reports of attacks or depredation events made national news, native tribes lived among the wolves and held them in high regard. Known for their hunting prowess, many tribes, including the Blackfoot, Lakota and Cheyenne, learned to hunt from wolves and believed that human lives and those of wild canines were closely intertwined.

It’s believed that prior to European colonization, North America was home to anywhere between 250,000 and as many as 2 million wolves. With those kinds of numbers, the wolf was the most widely distributed land mammal, aside from humans, on the continent. 

And despite their reign, the wolf’s dominance on the landscape was about to be challenged by a new set of arrivals. 

As European settlers began to arrive in droves, they brought with them trade, industry and livestock - things that were unknowingly set to bash against both wolves and existing populations of humans alike.

It didn’t take long before clashes with humans and their livestock began to take a toll on the wolves of the New World. Before long, bounties were levied for their heads (and pelts), the earliest of which was documented in the colony of Massachusetts in 1630 - long before the inception of the United States of America.

Fast forward 150-years-or-so and and we’ll find ourselves not only with a society that has vilified wolves, but also a federal government that incentivized wolf killings. Americans became so damn proficient with the dispatching of wolves, that we were sent to countries like Japan to aid in their wolf removal efforts. 

Without any guardrails in place, wolves went the way of the buffalo and were driven to the brink of extirpation in just a few centuries. With a population reduced to just hundreds of animals, wolves were driven into Michigan and Minnesota as they attempted to take refuge from bounty and market hunters. 

Hiding in place, wolves were officially granted federal protections by way of the Endangered Species Act in 1974, paving the road that would lead us to eventual recovery and possible reintroduction efforts.

Before any state agency was able to get approval for actual transplants, the wolves started to reintroduce themselves to the Lower 48 all on their own. Meandering down from Canada, what was soon dubbed the Magic Pack was a completely new pack of northern gray wolves that crossed the border into Glacier National Park in Montana. By 1990, the Magic Pack had company, as other packs made the trek across the northern border, and soon gave birth to the new generation of western American wolves. 

Likewise, wolves in the Great Lakes area continued to flourish and soon spread into other states including Wisconsin. With wolves re-establishing territory in both Washington, Montana and the Great Lakes region, the public’s appetite for more seemed to grow in congruence with the newly-formed populations.

Amid incredible public pressure and debate, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that they would be relocating 31 gray wolves from the Canadian wilderness into Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Serving as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the decision to reintroduce wolves to western states 30 years ago would spark a debate that still rages on today.

Current estimates suggest that there are about 19,000 wolves roaming free across America - including Alaska’s estimated 11,000 wolves. As we enter an era of resurgence for an animal that comes with so much baggage, it has proven difficult to unpack the effects that unchecked populations of wolves will have on the future of hunting, farming and ranching across the country.

With Colorado steamrolling imported wolf reintroductions and Great Lake States holding fast to their ESL protections, conflicts remain on the rise. As the natural world begs for balance between all creatures that inhabit the landscape, including humans, the question of many biologists, advocates and outdoor enthusiasts lies in how to give credence to what arrived ahead of us, while balancing the world we have created around them.

In this issue:

1) Where are all of America’s distinct wolf populations: We’ve got about seven distinct populations of wolves that pop up in different regions of the country.

2) Which states allow wolf hunting: Depending on which news source you subscribe to, you might find it surprising that wolf hunting does exist in some states. While few in numbers, these states do offer a viable blueprint that many others could soon (and perhaps should) follow.

3) The future of wolf hunting in America: With hunting seasons proving to be successful in some states, those with healthy (and growing) populations will be forced to make a move whether they like it or not.

Distinct Wolf Populations Today

Here in the good old U-S of A, we’ve got seven distinct populations of wolves spread across the country. Some of those populations are newly imported packs and others are what remain from some of the earliest federal protection efforts or some combination of the two. 

Alaska

The outlier when it comes to wolf populations is Alaska. Given the sheer size of the state and its wide open spaces, it’s no surprise that the state now holds an estimated 11,000 wolves.  Frontier State wolves have never sought (or needed) federal protections and their range encapsulates roughly 85% of the Alaskan terrain. 

Northern Rocky Mountains

Heading back into the Lower 48, wolves situated in the Northern Rocky Mountain states of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana make up for the third-largest population of Canis lupus in the country. With just under 2,600 wolves calling these three states home, breeding populations here were solidified in the 1990s and remain in place today.

PNW

With under 500 wolves officially calling Washington, Oregon and California home, these arrivals are believed to have been established around the same time that neighboring Idaho and Montana gained new arrivals from Canada. The first sightings were situated close to the Canadian border in the Cascade Mountains and still hold the largest population of wolves among these three states with an estimated 260 wolves.

Behind Washington state  is Oregon with 178 wolves followed by California, who established three new wolf packs in 2024, with around 50 wolves.

Colorado

Having attracted more attention regarding their wolf packs over the past 12 months, than perhaps the 10 years prior, Colorado is currently a hotbed for controversy as they are smack-dab in the middle of reintroduction efforts. Despite their challenges, Coloradans went to the voting booth in a historic ballot measure that, for the first time, put the management of wildlife into the hands of state residents. 

Winning the measure by a slim margin, state officials wasted no time getting busy with wolf reintroduction efforts. While their fervor was admirable, it came to a screeching halt last year as state biologists were forced to literally pick up their mess and capture the entire Copper Creek pack that was released just months prior.

With depredation of chief concern, ranchers hurled bills at the state to the tune of over $580,000 for damages they claim are the direct result of these new transplants. With a pack of wolves in captivity, the state made good on their new year’s resolution and quickly gathered up 15 wolves from British Columbia, got them across the border and released them into the wild in a very hush-hush, fly-by-night operation.  In addition to the Canadian imports, officials also released what was left of the Copper Creek pack into the wild in early January 2025 as well.

Today, the topsy-turvy population of wolves, including the latest imports sits at around 29 animals.

Mexican Grays in the Southwest

The smaller subspecies known as the Mexican gray wolf or simply lobo Mexicano, was perhaps closer to complete extirpation than their cousins to the north. Open hunting seasons and poisoning techniques drove this subspecies to the brink of extirpation during the early 1900s. At that time, the U.S. and Mexican governments made a pact to not only list the canines on the ESL, but to round up the remaining lobos and place them into captive rescue centers. 

This effort, which saw the coalition capture four males and one pregnant female, is what is believed to have saved the species from extinction. Of those that were born and bred in the captive rescue facilities, they were later released back into Arizona and New Mexico in 1998 and are the direct ancestors of the estimated 257 Mexican Grays that still inhabit those two states.

Carolina Reds

The red wolf is the only other species of wolf in the United States and just so happens to be the world’s most endangered. Once a common occurrence through the Southeastern United States, these wolves have been reduced to a small population of just 16-18 animals located in eastern North Carolina. With a historic range that once spread from Texas to New York and as south as Florida, the recovery of the species has been an on-going battle since the 1970s.

In addition to the 16-or-so wild specimens, there are 241 red wolves currently housed in captive breeding facilities in North Carolina.

Western Great Lakes

Outside of Alaska, the bulk of the country’s wolves are found in the western Great Lakes region. Spread across Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, estimates peg the current population at just under 5,000 animals. Minnesota is currently home to nearly 3,000 of those wolves, followed by Wisconsin’s 1,000 wolves, one of which made headlines last fall after a 19-year-old hunter killed one after feeling threatened while duck hunting.

Michigan is home to roughly 762 wolves in addition to 30 wolves found on Isle Royale National Park.

States That Allow Wolf Hunting

Depending on which news source you subscribe to, you might be under the impression that it is still unlawful to hunt wolves anywhere in the Lower 48. With stringent ESL protections, it’s not hard to lump all wolves into those that still remain under federal protections. The truth is, some of the healthiest populations of wolves that we have here in America are those that are managed by the states in which they reside.

Rather than being placed under the perpetual blanket of the ESL, these states lobbied for the removal of ESL protections once population goals were met. Where some states are forever moving the goal posts, states like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Alaska are taking a more hands-on approach to wolf management that includes hunting and trapping.

In an effort to provide the balance the natural ecosystem needs so badly, each state uses annual monitoring to ensure that population levels remain above the prescribed minimum recovery criteria. In Wyoming, for example, wolves have been above minimum recovery levels for 21 years in succession, further solidifying the sound reasoning behind recent delisting efforts.

What the Future of Wolf Hunting Looks Like

If by this point you are surprised to hear that there are some who would rather watch the world burn than allow for a wolf hunting season, you haven’t been reading in between the lines enough. Holding on to their ESL protections like Charlton Heston hangs on to his rifles, there is a whiny yet powerful underbelly that has a grasp on a select few states and their wildlife management as it pertains to wolves.

Refusing to give an inch, groups that oppose the state management of wolves (read: hunting) flung a flurry of lawsuits at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after they delisted wolves in 2020 after 45 years of protection. It took less than a year for the lawsuits to ‘influence’ the feds to re-list gray wolves, leading us to where we sit today.

With three times the population of Montana’s wolves in Michigan alone, the fact that Great Lakes wolves remain under federal control at this point, is purely political. 

With three times as many wolves as Montana, Michigan’s wolves are arguably one of the most robust populations of wolves in the contiguous United States followed closely by Wisconsin who has just about as many wolves as Montana. 

With conflicts on the rise, the pressure is mounting, particularly in the western Great Lakes to, once again, delist wolves and return them to state management. With recovery levels well exceeded, the common sensical argument remains in favor of bringing back a wolf hunting season. 

With the very same administration that removed protections back in 2020 now back at the helm, things are looking favorable for a return to science-based wolf management - or at least some semblance of it. 

The future of wolf hunting, particularly among the largest population in the Lower 48, remains up to those we’ve voted in to represent us. The successful blueprint has been established and is currently being administered in the western portion of the country with tremendous success.

Now that we are aware of the solution, the question remains, at which point will we use it?