"This is our home too."

"WHAT GOOD IS THE WOLF"

To quote Barry Lopez, "OF WOLVES AND MEN":

"The wolf is tied by subtle threads to the woods he moves through."

 
What Mr. Lopez is trying to say is that the wolf plays a key part in nature. Lets see what the wolf brings to the big picture.

• The wolf controls the population of other animals.
  
  
  • Wolves generally kill the weak, the old, and the young. If the wolf did not do this, the deer and the caribou and the moose and other large animals would damage the forest by over populating and eating the plants and trees.
    
    
  • Sometimes wolves will kill an animal in prime condition. Sometimes the wolf will kill more than it needs to eat. Both of these actions are very rare and are usually easy to explain.
    
    
• Wolves build dens to have pups. Once the wolves abandon the den, which means leave it for good, it is often used by porcupines and other smaller animals for shelter.
  
  
• The fur shed by the wolf is used by birds to build nests.
  
  
• The raven is a type of bird that eats the remains after the wolves have stopped eating. The coyote, the fox, and many other animals also eat after the wolves are done.
  
  
• The wolf has been seen chasing a rabbit and then giving up the chase. The rabbit is so tired after this chase that it is easy for the owl to get for food. Nothing goes to waste.
  
  

The raven, shown in the picture above, will follow wolf packs and wait for them to get some food. The ravens will then circle around, and after the wolves have finished eating, the ravens will eat.

A quote from L. David Mech, "The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species":

"Once I saw several ravens, an eagle, and a wolf all sharing the same deer."

Wolves will protect their food, but not always. This is obvious from what David Mech saw.

It has been shown that when wolves are removed from an area, there still may be food for the other animals due to the bobcat, lynx, bear, and other animals. However, when wolves are removed from an area, the big game do suffer major bouts of starvation and disease.

The Eskimo and the Indian understood that when the wolf is around, the herd of large animals such as deer and moose and caribou, will be strong. Without the wolf, these animals become weak and diseased.

Photo from International Wolf Center


Above is a pack of wolves living on Isle Royale. Isle Royale is a small Island just north of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in Lake Superior. No one has been allowed to hunt these wolves or the moose that live on the island.

Before the wolves came across the lake in the winter to the island, the moose would grow wildly in population, eat most of the plants on the island, and then starve to death. This cycle kept happening until the wolves arrived.

Since the wolves have arrived, the moose population is steady and the moose appear to be very good health . The moose no longer starve. Disease does not run rampant through the herd, the wolf has seen to that.

Isle Royale now boasts the largest number of wolves and moose per square mile in the world. Nature is working as it should.

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