Wolves in United States of America: GSE800 Attitudes to the Environment;

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Wolves in United States of America
Introduction
The research paper is a critical analysis of U.S.A wolves. An environmental problem that is discussed alongside, wolves is climate change. The effect of the later to the former is brought forth. The paper also explains why and for whom is climate change a problem to. Lastly, values and attitudes held by the general public towards the environment are discussed in details.
It is worth noting that wolves ranged across North America, till the arrival of European settlers. The settlers raised livestock; conflict then emerged between the wolves and the settlers leading to killing of wolves. Two species of wolves are found in North American as well as in United States of America-gray wolf plus a number of its subspecies and the red wolf. The former used to inhabit the entire U.S.A, Mexico and Canada, the later was found in southeastern of U.S.A (Mech & Luigi, 2007)
It is worth mentioning that the greatest threat facing wolves in U.S.A is conflict with human population especially over loosing livestock. Ranchers kill those wolves that attack their livestock. Nonetheless, another threat that is facing wolves is that of climate change, the central focus of discussion herein.
Mech & Luigi, 2007 documented that environment face a great challenge from those who do not seem to ‘see` the value it posses. For this reason, they attempt to convert nature into something else they deem to be of value. For instance, contraction of dams, residential houses, roads as well as other infrastructure, this negatively impact on living organisms-wolves.
Ecology of American Wolves
The two species of wolves found in U.S.A are the gray wolves and the red wolves. Wolfs constitute the largest numbers of the canine family. They stand at between 26 to 32 inches at the shoulders, 4.5 to 6.5 feet long from nose to tail weighing between 55 and 130 lbs usually males being heavier and taller as compared to females. Life expectancy is between seven to eight years in the wild but there are exceptions, some live for over ten years (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2010).
Wolves feed on ungulates such as elk, moose caribou deer, rabbits, beaver as well as other smaller preys. They similarly scavenge and can eat dead animals. In Alaska, there population is between 7,000 and 12,000, in the lower states, the population stands at approximately 5,000. Statistics show that in the entire world, their population is about 200,000, down from 2million in previous years.
As stated previously, wolves were common in the entire North America, conflict with human led to a sharp decline in their population. At present, their range has been restricted to Canada and the following states in U.S.A; Wyoming, Michigan, Idaho, Montana Wisconsin, Alaska and Minnesota.
Wolves inhabit almost all parts of the northern hemisphere, this include plains, mixed forest, hardwood surroundings, arctic tundra, softwood and savannah. The typical habitat for wolf in USA is the frozen tundra. They associate in such a way that at any given time, a group of between 4 and 7 are involved in day to day activity such as hunting and so on. In the group/pack a mother and a father usually termed as alphas lead their pups as well as other younger ones. The alphas responsibilities include tracking and hunting down the prey, choosing the site for their den as well as marking the territory.
The mating season for wolves is in either January or February. The gestation period is two months approximately 63 days. The litter size ranges from 4 to seven. The pups when born are blind and cannot defend themselves, it is worth noting that their parents care for them till they are about ten months old.
Environmental problems in U.S.A
At present there are various environmental problems facing all living organisms including wolves. According to Gibbons, 2006 top ten environmental problems include global climate change, pollution of habitats, air pollution, unsustainable agricultural practices, threat of diseases, poor water quality and lower water quality, habitat fragmentation, loss, as well as degradation, apathy and swelling human population. All these affect wolves in one way or another. The two environmental problems chosen for the study of U.S.A wolves include impacts human activities and climate change on wolves.
Impacts of human activities on wolves
Since the arrival of European settlers, everything changed for the American wolves. It is important to note that the rearing of livestock was where the problem began, during food shortages, wolves could feast on sheep. This made rangers respond by hunting down wolves. Additionally, they resorted to very brutal way of doing away with them-poisoning. Being practiced for a longer period, this drove wolves to near extinction calling for efforts to recover their population.
Human activities such as farming, deforestation, construction of road, conservation efforts among other led to more problems such as habitat degradation, loss and fragmentation which negatively impact on these animals. For instance, farming in prairies led to loss of their habitat. Additionally, activities such as farm clearance or range management by using fire has led to habitat destruction as well as death of some wolves as well as their prey, this led to food scarcity hence poor health of wolves which translates to lower rates of reproduction.
Effects of climate change on U.S.A wolves
According to Mosomane, 2006, to measure accurately the impact of climate change to living organism is not an easy task. Fortunately, there are some obvious indicators that usually help scientist establish such impact with some degree of precision; these include; species changes in their ranges as well as their ecosystem edges, changes in reproduction sequence and complexity in species interactions, reduction in species number, high rates of extinction among others. It has been shown and clearly supported that a pervasive diversity decline is linked to global climate change.
The effect of climate change on wolves can either be direct or indirect. This environmental problem is not only a problem to the wolves, those scientists trying to save them, but to all persons, the government, Non Governmental Organization as well as other organisms and the ecosystem in general. It is worth noting that wolves are predators and play a major role in controlling populations of their prey. Additionally if their population decline, the values brought forth by wolves such as recreation, life support, cultural, economic among others can no longer be enjoyed.
According to Mech, 2004 climate change do affect wolves especially those in tundra regions via three tropic levels which include vegetation, wolves and herbivores. Wolves do directly depend on various herbivores for food; this makes them healthy and thus reproductive. Climate change especially during summer which covers vegetation reduced the pry population by almost half. The decline in prey population means that the areas then stop supporting wolves` populations.
It has been also noted that climate change brings some very serious consequences such as floods. This is very detrimental to wolves especially the pups. Excessive water sweep them away drowning and eventually killing them thereby reducing their population size which is a key element in future survival of the species. Additionally, it is worth noting that slight increase in temperature especially in arctic regions causes melting of the glacier, the result can be death of young ones or displacement of these animals to regions that are not favorable enough (Vergano, 2005).
For those in savanna and other terrestrial ecosystems, excess rainfalls more often than not only kills the young one, but also trigger emergences of disease, destruction of the breeding sites as well as destroying available plants that act as food for herbivores leading to starvation hence death or migration of wolves.
A study carried out in 2007 involving wolves and moose population attests to the effects of climate change. It was established that the population of the two organisms in Isle Royale National park declined tremendously. Despite the fact that the wolves were responsible for the decline of moose, through predation, the population of the former also fell from 30 to 20. According to Vucetich, the decline in population of the wolves was due to lack of food (Mech, 2004).
It is worth noting that from 2000; over 1,000 moose inhabited the Island. From then, uncommon warm summers have led to a series of problems to the herbivores. Such temperature resulted to loss of appetite, escape high temperatures by seeking shelter. This means that the moose will forage less thus leaving them at a disadvantage when it comes to surviving in winter.
Similarly, increased temperatures seem to favor existence of ticks which leads to excessive infestation. These ticks make moose to be weak hence easily preyed upon leading to a rapd decline in population hence lower rates of replenishing their population that could later support the wolves. Vucetich adds that if the trend of increased temperature persists, then it will mean that moose will continue experiencing more trouble; this will translate to serious consequences to the wolves.
Having in mind that savanna and grassland ecosystem (prairies) is made up of C4 grasses and C3 trees, climate change...