Are Wolves The Pronghorn's Best Friend?

Wildlife Conservation Society (2008, March 4 ) _Are Wolves The Pronghorn's Best Friend?

ScienceDaily.Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303145300.htm

As removing the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act, a new study cautions removing the gray wolf may affect another species, the pronghorn. The study said that fewer wolves mean more coyotes.which decreases the number of pronghorns because there are so many coyotes.According to the story, wolf packs keep coyote numbers in check, while feeding on pronghorn fawn themselves. After the study, they could see that fawns have higher survival rates when wolves are present on the ecosystem. The result showed that only 10percent of fawns survived when there were a little wolves, but the coyotes densities were higher. in are where number og wolves were higher, 34 percent of pronghorn survived. wolves reduced number of cayotes by killing them outright of by causing them to shift to safer areas. At present, there are about 300 wolves in Wyoming and 700 in Idaho. If delisting occurs, Wyoming and Idaho have announced their intention to reduce wolf number by 50 percent and 80 percent. " this study show just how complex relationships between predators and their prey can be. It's an important reminder that we often don't understand ecosystems nearly as well as we think we do, and that our efforts to manipulate them can have unexpected consequences" said Berger.

who- Wildlife Conservation Society

what- a new study of how it affects the pronghorn and coyotes by removing the grey wolves.

where-Wyoming and Idaho

when- Mar. 4, 2008 ( around)

why-To see if removing the wolves are better thing to do.

I think removing the grey wolves were wrong thing to do because it affected many other species too. By removing the wolves, the population of coyotes increased, which decreased the population of Pronghorn. As we can see in the result of the study, only 10 percent survived when there was less wolves. when there were a lot of wolves, 34 percent of Pronghorns survived. By looking at this result, we can see that not removing the wolves, gives more survival rate to Pronghorns. Even if the Wolf pack reduces the population of coyotes too much, we can always make it better by reducing the wolf number by 50 percent and 80 percent. In many other ways, I think letting the ecosystem runs by makes things go better. I certainly do not think it is good idea to remove a one ( or several) species out of it's ecosystem because they are connected to each other in many other ways.