Did you know that all dogs, from tiny Chihuahuas to massive Great Danes, share a common ancestor with wolves?
Between 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, humans and wolves began forming a unique bond. Early wolves, likely drawn to human camps by leftover food, began to live alongside us. Over time, these wolves adapted to life with humans, becoming the incredible variety of dogs we know today.
Despite their differences in size, shape, and temperament, dogs still carry traces of their wolf ancestry. Their social structures, loyalty, and even some behaviors, like howling, are indicative of their ancestry.
This connection serves as a reminder of how deeply intertwined humans and animals are—and why it’s vital to protect wild wolves, the majestic ancestors of our best friends.
Join the movement to protect wolves at TeamWolf.Org!
Today, on Endangered Species Day, Team Wolf’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Peter Kareiva, had a letter published in The Wall Street Journal making one thing clear:
Wolves are not driving America’s cattle crisis.
In response to a WSJ editorial suggesting that weakening Endangered Species Act protections for wolves could help lower beef costs, Dr. Kareiva pointed to the data: wolf kills account for less than 0.01% of livestock losses nationwide. The leading causes of cattle death are disease, weather, calving complications, digestive problems, and other non-predator factors—not wolves.
Yes, wolves can kill cattle. When that happens, ranchers should be fairly compensated. But using wolves as a scapegoat for high beef prices ignores the real forces affecting ranchers and consumers.
Marc Roston’s follow-up letter sharpened the point even further: the most recent comprehensive USDA data show that non-predator causes accounted for nearly 98% of adult cattle deaths and nearly 89% of calf deaths. Wolves were responsible for a tiny fraction of losses in a national cattle market of tens of millions of animals.
He also raised a critical piece of the ledger that anti-wolf politics often leaves out: wolves can create real public benefits. A peer-reviewed 2021 study found that wolf presence reduced deer-vehicle collisions in Wisconsin counties by 24%, with economic benefits far exceeding verified wolf predation costs.
That is the bigger picture.
On Endangered Species Day, this is exactly the conversation we should be having. The Endangered Species Act is not a political bargaining chip. It is one of the most successful wildlife laws in the world, and it works when decisions are grounded in science—not scapegoating.
Wolves are not the problem. Weakening protections for endangered and recovering species is.
Read the LTE and take action at the link in our bio!
🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨
Wyoming is cutting its regulated wolf hunt in half after canine distemper drove the state’s wolf population to its lowest level in two decades.
But the deeper problem is not only the disease outbreak. It is what the outbreak exposed: Wyoming has been keeping wolves dangerously close to the minimum number required to avoid federal protections. This is a trend we see across the Northern Rockies.
At the start of 2026, the state counted just 253 wolves and 14 breeding pairs. In the trophy game area around Yellowstone, Wyoming had exactly 10 breeding pairs — the minimum required under its delisting agreement.
One outbreak was enough to show how thin that margin really is.
Outside the regulated so-called “trophy zone,” wolves are still classified as “predators” across 85% of the state, where they can be killed year-round without a license. The change in hunting limits does not impact if wolves can be killed in these parts of the state.
Real recovery means resilience. It means genetic health, stable breeding pairs, and enough wolves on the landscape to withstand disease, politics, and human pressure. Until states can exhibit responsible stewardship of wildlife, federal protections must be strengthened.
Wolves deserve the chance to thrive — not survive at bare minimum numbers.
Take action for wolves now at TeamWolf.Org!
After decades of recovery work, one of the rarest wolves in North America is finally gaining ground—and still, lawmakers and border wall construction are putting that progress at risk.
In Arizona, lawmakers advanced a bill that would block the state from transporting Mexican Gray Wolf pups into Arizona for cross-fostering, a critical tool used to improve genetic diversity in the wild population. During debate, one lawmaker invoked Little Red Riding Hood as if a centuries-old fairy tale were evidence—reducing Mexican Gray Wolf recovery to fearmongering instead of science.
Meanwhile, a radio-collared Mexican Gray Wolf recently crossed from New Mexico into Chihuahua, Mexico—the first documented crossing of its kind in decades. That should be a hopeful sign. Instead, conservationists warn it could be one of the last if border wall construction seals off the Bootheel corridor, cutting through a cross-border landscape that is critical to lobo recovery.
Mexican Gray Wolves are still fighting a genetic bottleneck. All modern Mexican Gray Wolves descend from just seven wolves successfully bred through a binational recovery program, and today’s wild populations in the U.S. and Mexico remain small, isolated, and vulnerable.
Recovery needs to be guided by science, not fear, nor politics.
BREAKING: According to a new report by @theyellowstonian , a draft agreement between federal agencies could reopen public lands to the use of these indiscriminate poison devices on behalf of the livestock industry. The Trump administration appears poised to bring back “cyanide bombs”, deadly M-44 sodium cyanide devices once banned across 245 million acres of Bureau of Land Management lands because of the devastating risks they pose to wildlife, pets, and even people.
These devices do not distinguish between a coyote, wolf, fox, domestic dog, or endangered species. They eject sodium cyanide directly into an animal’s face when triggered. M-44s have killed countless non-target animals and sparked national outrage after a 14-year-old boy in Idaho accidentally triggered one in 2017, poisoning himself and killing his dog instantly. Conservation groups fought for years to secure protections against these devices on public lands — and now those safeguards may be dismantled.
For wolves and other predators, this is another escalation in the ongoing war against native wildlife. At a time when ecosystems are already under pressure from habitat loss, climate change, disease, and aggressive predator control policies, reintroducing cyanide bombs sends a chilling message: public lands are being managed for livestock interests, not ecological health or biodiversity. Predators are not disposable. Wolves are keystone species — and poisoning the landscape to eliminate carnivores threatens entire ecosystems, not just individual animals.
Indiscriminate lethal control destabilizes ecosystems and often fails to provide long-term solutions to livestock conflict. Yet instead of investing in proven nonlethal coexistence methods, federal agencies appear ready to revive one of the cruelest wildlife control methods ever deployed on American public lands.
The “God Squad” is not a metaphor. It is a federal committee with the power to override the Endangered Species Act.
Officially called the Endangered Species Committee, this rarely used body can allow federal projects to move forward even when they put endangered species at serious risk.
Now, it has approved a sweeping Gulf oil-and-gas exemption after federal reviews had already identified risks to imperiled wildlife, including the Rice’s Whale.
The troubling part is not only that protections were waived, but that the normal process appears to have been treated as an obstacle rather than a safeguard. If the law’s most extraordinary exemption can be triggered so easily, the result is a precedent that puts imperiled wildlife at greater risk whenever powerful interests want a shortcut.
The Endangered Species Act only works when it is durable, transparent, and grounded in science.
Defend it at TeamWolf.Org!
#MemeMonday is back...we know how that thrills you!
Things have been heavy—wolves are facing real threats, from policy rollbacks to misinformation to political attacks dressed up as “management.”
But sometimes the movement needs a little levity too.
So take a break from the doom scroll with a few wolf-world memes... are we sensing a theme here?
Science. Coexistence. Ecosystems. A little Miranda Priestly energy.
That’s all. 🐺
Take action for wolves at TeamWolf.Org.
🚨 FINAL HOURS 🚨
This is your last chance to sign on to Team Wolf’s USFWS letter for Colorado’s Gray Wolves.
We’re urging supporters to speak up for stronger reporting, real accountability, and nonlethal coexistence—not lethal control disguised as management.
Add your name, share this post, and help us make sure USFWS hears that wolf recovery must be guided by science, transparency, and coexistence.
Sign on now at TeamWolf.Org!
Did you know that in 77% of the cases where a wolf pack is dissolved, the dissolution was preceded by the death of a breeder wolf? The pack was more likely to dissolve if the mother died or if the death occurred just before or during breeding season.
Wolves of dissolved packs often struggle to find new packs and put them at higher risk of death. When pack leaders die of natural causes, it is less likely to result in the pack dissolving than when the death of the leader is human-caused.
If this is the impact that the death of one wolf can have, imagine the catastrophe that the slaughter of up to 90% of the wolf population in the Northern Rockies could have on the remaining 10%.
Join the fight— become a part of #TeamWolf today at TeamWolf.Org!
Image courtesy of@ilcp_photographers and Florian Schultz
California’s Gray Wolves are steadily reclaiming their place on the landscape.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has released its latest Quarterly Wolf News Update offering a new look at the state’s growing wolf recovery story—including known packs, recent depredation investigations, compensation payments, and coexistence outreach.
CDFW also updated their wolf activity map, showing continued movement across northern California’s forests, high country, and valley edges. The message is clear: Gray Wolves are establishing territory, reclaiming some of their historic range, and weaving themselves back into the ecosystems they once helped shape.
California is now a critical test of what modern wolf recovery can look like. With science-based management, strong coexistence tools, and protection from political rollbacks, Gray Wolves can return in a way that supports both working landscapes and wilder, more resilient ecosystems.
Wolves belong here. Help protect their future at TeamWolf.Org!
Yellowstone’s “age-old dance” between wolves and grizzlies was on full display this week.
In Yellowstone National Park, wildlife photographer @wildloveimages_julieargyle captured a dramatic standoff between a grizzly bear and a wolf over a bison carcass along the Yellowstone River. Several wolves from the Wapiti Lake pack and multiple grizzlies were drawn to the carcass, with one wolf moving in close enough to test the bear’s patience. The grizzly roared, bared its teeth, and swiped toward the wolf—but the two never made contact, and neither animal was injured.
Biologists say these clashes are not unusual around carcasses, but actual fights are rare because both species risk serious injury. Grizzlies are often dominant in one-on-one encounters, while wolves rely on speed, persistence, and pack dynamics to grab quick bites when they can. As longtime Yellowstone wolf biologist Doug Smith put it, “Wolves try to steal bites and bears are stronger. It’s an age-old dance.”
Help protect this dance by raising your voice for endangered species today at TeamWolf.Org!
🚨 ACTION ALERT 🚨
There's just a few dats left to sign on to Team Wolf’s USFWS letter calling for coexistence with Colorado’s Gray Wolves.
As USFWS reviews wolf management in Colorado, our comment urges stronger reporting, real accountability, and a clear commitment to nonlethal coexistence—not lethal control under the guise of management.
It takes less than a minute to add your name. Share this post and sign on now at TeamWolf.Org.
