The Science

Articles

In April of 2003, the Journal of Conservation Biology published a paper by Dr. Carlos Carroll and a group of colleagues that presents an exhaustive assessment of the capacity of Southern Rockies to sustain a wolf population.

The Carroll et al report represents the best available and most current peer-reviewed science on the subject of wolves in the Southern Rockies. Key findings of the report include the fact that the region could likely sustain a population of over 1,000 wolves under a reintroduction scenario, and that reintroduction appears to be the only way wolves are likely to regain a foothold in the Southern Rockies.

The report is available for download as an Adobe PDF by clicking here.

Reports

In August of 2000, Sinapu, the Sierra Club, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, and Defenders of Wildlife sponsored a three-day meeting to determine the potential of the region to support wolves, as well as some of the obstacles to wolf restoration that may be unique to the region. The workshop was conducted by a team from the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG)

Attendees at the meeting included renown wolf biologist Dr. Paul Paquet (Canada), Dr. Robert Wayne (University of CA, Los Angeles), as well as members of the livestock industry and conservationists involved with large carnivore restoration.

One major finding of the workshop: The Southern Rockies Ecoregion could support up to 2,000 wolves mostly on public land. That finding emerged from an analysis of the biological and social aspects of wolf restoration, and sophisticated modeling of landscape features that influence wolf survival (e.g., road density, prey distribution and abundance). A copy of the report is available by clicking here.

Please note: This file is a compressed Adobe PDF file. You will need a decompression program as well as the latest version of Acrobat Reader to access this file. Further, if you do not have a fast internet connection, think twice about accessing this file, as it is 6.2 MB!