GRADE LEVEL: Grades 9-12

TIME ALLOTMENT: Three 45-minute class periods

OVERVIEW: In the nineteenth-century Western frontier, the wolf was considered a menace – perpetually hunting farm animals and threatening frontier livelihoods. It was not unusual for bounty hunters to be hired to rid communities of this scourge. But one such bounty hunter, Ernest Thompson Seton, was influential in changing popular perspective on wild animals. Seton was hired to kill wolves – but one particular wolf, named Lobo, challenged Seton’s hunting abilities and piqued his more naturalistic interests. As his chase of Lobo stretched on, Seton came to believe that future generations of animals like the wolf should be protected. His focus became less on destruction and more on conservation. Seton was instrumental in spearheading environmental movements in the United States.

In this lesson, students will first learn about the “success stories” of species whose protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 saved them from extinction. They will then engage their knowledge of US History during the latter half of the nineteenth century to brainstorm reasons why so many of our wild species’ populations declined dramatically during this period. Students will use segments from NATURE’s The Wolf that Changed America to explore nineteenth-century attitudes toward wolves in the western United States, and will learn of the groundbreaking efforts of Seton to change the popular view of the American wilderness and to launch organizations concerned with the environment. In the Culminating Activity, students will use web resources to research conservation organizations active today, sharing their findings with the class.

SUBJECT MATTER: Life Science, Biology, Environmental Science, U.S. History

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will be able to:

• Describe how Ernest Thomas Seton and his pursuit of Lobo the wolf changed America’s view on predatory animals;
• Describe how public opinion on animal management and endangered species protection has changed from the 19^th century to today;
• Understand the history of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and name some of the species the Act has helped protect;
• Name a list of modern-day conservation organizations and describe their initiatives.

STANDARDS

National Science Education Standards

Content Standard C: Life Science

As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of:

THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF ORGANISMS

• Human beings live within the world’s ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors are threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

As a result in their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of:

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN LOCAL, NATIONAL, AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES

• Humans have a major effect on other species. For example, the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use-which decreases space available to other species-and pollution-, which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water.

US History Standards

National Center for History in the Schools

Era 6
The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

STANDARD 1: How the rise of corporations, heavy industry, and mechanized farming transformed the American people.

Standard 1D: The student understands the effects of rapid industrialization on the environment and the emergence of the first conservation movement.

Therefore, the student is able to:

• Explain the origins of environmentalism and the conservation movement in the late 19th century.

MEDIA COMPONENTS

NATURE: The Wolf That Changed America, selected segments.

Clip 1

“1893 New Mexico”

Clip 2

“The wolf problem”

Clip 3

“Trapping Lobo”

Clip 4

“Seton’s Legacy”

Access the streaming and downloadable video segments for this lesson at the Video Segments Page.

Web sites

The following are major US and international organizations active in the field of environmental conservation. Students will research these organizations in the Culminating Activity (or substitute others of your choice).

• Conservation International

• EarthWatch Institute

• Greenpeace

• National Audubon Society

• Nature Conservancy

• Sierra Club

• Student Conservation Association

• World Wildlife Fund

MATERIALS

For the teacher:

• Video Organizer Answer Key (PDF) (RTF)
• Computer with audiovisual projection system for showing video clips

For each student:

• Video Organizer (PDF) (RTF)
• Conservation Organizer (PDF) (RTF)
• Access to computer with Internet connection

PREP FOR TEACHERS

Preview all of the video segments and Web sites used in the lesson.

Download the video clips used in the lesson to your classroom computer, or prepare to watch them using your classroom’s Internet connection.

Bookmark the Web sites used in the lesson on each computer in your classroom. Using a social book marking took such as del.icio.us or diigo (or an online book marking utility such as portaportal) will allow you to organize all the links in a central location.

Make copies of the Video Organizer and Conservation Organizer for each student, and copy the Answer Key for yourself.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY

1.      Tell the students that you are going to write a list on the board. The students’ task is to try to deduce what the items on the list have in common.

2. Begin writing the following list of species from the column on the left on the board (don’t share the rest of the chart yet). Allow the students to make guesses at any time as to how the species are related (the correct answer is that they are species whose protection under the Endangered Species Act allowed for their recovery – they are Endangered Species Act “success stories”).

(source: 100 Success Stories for Endangered Species Day 2007, http://www.esasuccess.org/reports/, 3/31/2009.)

3.      Explain the list you wrote on the board – these are all species whose protection under the Endangered Species Act has led to recovery. Share some of the data from the right two columns of the chart as examples of the recovery.

4.      Explain that the facts you’ve shared track the population since the 1960s and 1970s, when data became available as the government passed laws to protect species. But going back further in time to the 19^th century, some of the species that are exceedingly rare today were once extremely common. Species populations have changed dramatically from the 19^th century to today (for example, the now-extinct passenger pigeon was once one of the most abundant birds in North America, with a population that may have reached 6 billion individuals. During the 19^th century these numbers declined dramatically, and by 1900, the bird was extinct in the wild).

5.      Ask the students to brainstorm a list of factors that might have led to these species’ decline from the 19^th century to today. What was going on in late 19^th century America that would have led to these dramatic declines in species’ population? (This was an era of westward expansion and intense development of industry and agriculture on a grand scale. Also, attitudes toward species other than humans were generally very different. There was largely no public concept that species should be protected – and no laws or governmental agencies that tried to protect animals or plants other than humans. Excessive hunting and rampant habitat destruction had an adverse effect on many, many species.)

Proceed to ACTIVITIES

Excerpts from the NATURE episode “The Wolf that Changed America”

Downloadable QuickTime versions of the video segments:
(Note: To download a video, right=click on the video title and click “Save Link As…’ or “Save Target As…”. On a Mac, press the CTRL key and simultaneously click the mouse, then save the link.)

Clip 1

1893 New Mexico

Clip 2

The “wolf problem”

Clip 3

Trapping Lobo

Clip 4

Seton’s Legacy

Wyoming Game and Fish Department Web site
http://gf.state.wy.us/wildlife/wildlife_management/grizzly/conservationdev.asp
Update on Yellowstone grizzly bear’s population delisting process.

Windows Into Wonderland
http://www.windowsintowonderland.org/bears/index.htm
Go on an electronic field trip to discover the grizzly bears of Yellowstone. Take a look at the bear’s habits and habitat, and then learn about the history and challenges of bear management.

The Grizzly Bear
http://www.nwf.org/wildlife/grizzlybear
This site provides facts and figures from the National Wildlife Federation. Select from an extensive list of articles about grizzly behavior and human and bear interactions.

Yellowstone: Bear Country!
http://www.yellowstoneparknet.com/wildlife/bears.php
This site offers a list of dos and don’ts from Yellowstone Park Travel Guide. Learn how to avoid running into grizzlies and find out what to do if you spot a bear.

Yellowstone’s Bears
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/bears.htm
Browse through reports on grizzly sightings and read articles on the bear’s seasonal food habits and hibernation behaviors.

Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee
http://www.igbconline.org/
Learn about the federal government’s grizzly bear conservation strategy.

NPR: Grizzly Bears to Come Off Endangered List
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=5013084
NPR covers the delisting issue.

Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/willcox.asp
Find out more about Louisa Willcox’s work to protect grizzly bears. For more on the delisting controversy, go to http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/bears.asp.

The Endangered Species Program
http://endangered.fws.gov/
Access the entire text of the Endangered Species Act, view the list of threatened and endangered species, and find out about recovery programs.

Bear Identification Test
http://gf.state.wy.us/bearid/
Could you ID a grizzly in the wild? Take this test from Wyoming Game and Fish and find out.

Bears.org
http://www.bears.org/
Learn about other bear species such as the polar bear and the giant panda.

Related Episodes:

NATURE: Showdown at Grizzly River
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/grizzlies/
Visit a river teeming with salmon — and grizzlies! Then learn about bear cubs’ growing pains.

Books:

Craighead, Frank. For Everything There Is a Season: The Sequence of Natural Events in the Grand Teton-Yellowstone Area. New York: Falcon, 2001.

Craighead, Frank. Track of the Grizzly. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1982.

Craighead, John et al. The Grizzly Bears of Yellowstone: Their Ecology in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, 1959-1992. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995.

Olsen, Lance. Field Guide to the Grizzly Bear. Bozeman MT: Sasquatch Books, 1992.

Schneider, Bill. Where the Grizzly Walks: The Future of the Great Bear. New York: Falcon, 2003.

As the grizzly bears of Yellowstone settle into their winter hibernation, the debate concerning their future will remain decidedly active. A formal proposal to remove the grizzlies from the federal government’s list of endangered species is expected in 2005. But the proposition is an extremely complicated one, fraught with controversy.

When Lewis and Clark explored the West in the early 19th century, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 grizzlies roamed the land between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Plains. Awed by the formidable grizzly, Lewis wrote, “Captain Clark & Drewyer killed the largest brown bear this evening which we have yet seen. It was a most tremendous looking animal, and extremely hard to kill.”

Lewis’ words underscore what was and remains the primary cause of grizzly bear decimation — human and bear interaction. In 1975, it was thought that only 200 to 300 grizzlies populated the Yellowstone area, prompting the Fish and Wildlife service to list them as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Nine thousand square miles of land in parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana were established as a recovery zone. As a listed species, the grizzlies benefit from ESA defenses such as the restriction of their transport and sale, and protection from federal or business activities that could adversely affect them. Federal funds are also given to wildlife agencies to study and recover the bears

Yellowstone National Park. Now, roughly 30 years later, some people say the bears no longer need ESA protection because they’ve met required population, distribution, and reproduction targets. “There are about 600 bears in Yellowstone now, and their population is increasing about four percent each year,” says Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Steps towards delisting the grizzly began years ago, but two recently released documents mark the final steps toward an official proposal. The first document is the “Conservation Strategy,” an agreement released in 2003 by federal and state agencies on how to monitor and manage the grizzly population once it’s delisted. The second is the “Draft Environmental Impact Statement ” (DEIS), released in 2004 by the Forest Service. It addresses how the six national forests in the Greater Yellowstone Area will manage grizzly habitat upon delisting.

These documents have been met with fierce resistance from delisting opponents who say the plans fall short of fully protecting the bears. Louisa Willcox, Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC’s) wild bears project points to one example: “One third of the Yellowstone grizzlies are living outside the recovery zone. If you want to keep these bears alive, you need to extend habitat.” Groups such as the NRDC and the Sierra Club say the DEIS calls for managing the bears on an “island” when it should be protecting all occupied habitat and connecting it to other ecosystems where the bears can access seasonal foods, breed, and escape natural disasters.

Doug Honnold, an attorney for EarthJustice, says the “Conservation Strategy” also relies too heavily on state management, leaving the bears susceptible to ranching and hunting interests. Delisting opponents are also concerned with such factors as vulnerable food sources, housing development, and the financial interests of logging, mining, and oil businesses.

Defenders of delisting, however, say that the “Conservation Strategy”, years in the making, will uphold the management and protection of the grizzlies. “It’s taken 24 years to even consider recovery and delisting because we’re too meticulous,” says the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Servheen. “In the case that the bear population suddenly starts dropping, we can quickly place them back under the ESA with an emergency measure.”

“The ESA requires Fish and Wildlife to recover animals and produce a plan to sustain that, which they’ve done for the grizzlies,” adds Charles Schwartz, head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. “What’s not on the ESA, however, is a whole series of ‘what ifs.’”

But some claim these “what ifs” are becoming a bit too real, citing such cases as the recent lease of 175,000 acres of Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest for oil and gas development. Much of this land is roadless and prized for its wildlife. In September 2004, public outcry and pressure from Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal temporarily prevented the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management from the leasing the land until public concerns are further evaluated.

Amidst these intense debates, there are points on which several parties agree. The first is the need for the Yellowstone grizzlies to be connected to other grizzly ecosystems. Many favor a plan to open a corridor through grizzly territories in Yellowstone, other parts of northwestern United States, and Canada. For the linkage to work, the grizzlies would have to return to one of their ancestral homelands — the Bitterroot ecosystem of central Idaho and Western Montana, from where they were driven out of in the early 1900s. While a proposal to reintroduce grizzlies there was nixed by the Bush administration in 2001, it is still a plan that many hope to implement.

Another critical element, upon which many agree, is the need for funding. An estimated $3.5 million will be needed each year to fund research, public education, monitoring, and other grizzly-related items. Current funding is roughly $2 million. If the bears are delisted, federal funds, including those provided in ESA Section 6, will be lost. “That’s the 64 million dollar question — how are we going to pay for this?” says Willcox. One idea is to establish a conservation endowment trust to be funded by Congress, but a definitive strategy remains unclear.

Funding or not, the drive to delist forges ahead. Other species have been delisted from the Endangered Species Act without a fight, but not the Yellowstone grizzlies. They’re the most studied grizzly population in the world. And aside from a population in Northwest Montana, they’re the last grizzly stronghold in the United States. They now have the dubious distinction of being unwitting players in a struggle between science, politics, and business that, at its core, revolves around territory.

*The Forest Service’s DEIS was open to public comments from August 13th, 2004 to November 12th, 2004. A delisting rule is expected in mid 2005, and a final rule by the end of 2005.

–Irene Roxanne Tejaratchi

It was a sight that became an icon of American tourism: A shaggy brown grizzly bear ambling down a roadside in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, surrounded by gawking adults and wide-eyed children leaning out car windows. Indeed, as NATURE’s The Good, the Bad, and the Grizzly shows, “bear jams” had become a significant problem on Yellowstone’s roads by the 1960s — even as the magnificent mammals edged close to local extinction.

Luckily, the Endangered Species Act helped save Yellowstone’s grizzly bears from that sad fate. But that doesn’t mean the great bears are out of the woods. Yellowstone’s grizzlies continue to be a source of fascination and controversy, and despite their growing numbers the bear’s future is still in doubt.

Not Your Average Bear

When President Ulysses S. Grant created Yellowstone National Park in 1872, the area was renowned for its beautiful scenery and spectacular geysers. But the park’s grizzly bears soon became one of its best-known attractions. By the late 1800s, dozens of nearly tame bears were gathering at garbage piles near park hotels to gorge on leftovers. Often, humans stood by and watched the spectacle. In the early 1900s, motorists began reporting bears ambling along park roads begging for handouts. The bold carnivores would sometimes approach stopped cars, pushing their snouts into windows.

Not surprisingly, such close encounters occasionally turned dangerous. Between 1931 and 1959, each year an average of 48 park visitors were injured (sometimes fatally) by bears. During this period, plenty of bears were killed in motor collisions. As the bear and human injury toll mounted, park officials began to consider ways of returning bears to their wild ways. In 1970, they took action, enacting tough new rules against feeding bears, closing garbage dumps, and installing bear-proof trash cans. It worked. Soon, bear-caused injuries dropped to less than one a year.

While people were safer, the bears were not. Hunting and habitat loss had driven local bear numbers to record lows. In 1975, federal officials declared Yellowstone’s grizzlies “threatened,” estimating that about 200 to 300 bears remained in the park and on surrounding lands. Soon, biologists were working hard on plans for the bear’s recovery.

A grizzly tries to catch cutthroat trouts

An Amazing Rebound

Today, that effort has paid off. Biologists believe that 500 to 600 bears now live in the Yellowstone region, and populations continue to grow. As a result, federal biologists, park officials, and others are now considering the removal of the bear from the endangered species list — an idea that has prompted plenty of controversy. (See Delisting the Grizzly.)

Some conservationists say that the grizzly bear’s future is still uncertain. They argue that in order to survive, bears need plenty of food and room to roam — two things that could be in increasingly short supply in the future.

Male grizzlies need territories that cover 813 to 2075 square miles. While female bears’ home range varies from 309 to 537 square miles. But a building boom is beginning to enclose the lands around Yellowstone, as newcomers build homes and businesses, and mining firms are increasingly targeting the area for exploration. All this development increases the chances that bears will come into conflict with people or be killed in collisions with cars and trucks. Wildlife biologists can often solve these problems by moving bears to wilder areas. But sometimes these endeavors are not successful and problem bears are euthanized.

Bear biologists are also concerned about the grizzly food supply. In particular, they point to possible problems with four key food sources: the seeds produced by whitebark pine trees; Yellowstone cutthroat trout, which live in the region’s cold waters; army cutworm moths, which the bears dig out of high-altitude soils; and bison carcasses.

In recent years, deadly bark beetles and a disease known as blister rust have been decimating whitebark pines. While not all bears feast on this high-fat snack, some rely on them to provide the energy needed to get through the winter.

The cutthroat trout, which the bears snatch from the waters where these fish spawn, are threatened by the lake trout, a non-native predator, as well as by whirling disease, a neurological illness. The disease has already killed off cutthroat living in one major tributary of Yellowstone Lake.

The cutworm moths cover vast distances during their annual migrations between Yellowstone’s rocky peaks and the fertile fields of the Great Plains. But their numbers may be reduced by pesticide spraying in agricultural areas.

Grizzlies don’t typically kill bison, but they will feed on their carcasses. Some conservationists worry that Yellowstone’s bison population could be reduced by policies that allow some of the grazers to be captured and killed if they leave the park. Bison herds have also been affected by brucellosis, a devastating disease that has forced wildlife managers to kill infected animals.

Supporters of delisting say that these challenges can be overcome and even if the grizzly is taken off the list, state governments have promised to protect the bears and their habitat. They also note that, through more than a century of conflict and controversy, the bears have shown a remarkable and inspiring ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Although the gray wolf remains an endangered — and therefore protected — species, wolves nevertheless face the same risks as any other animal species. Outside Yellowstone National Park, humans continue to be the greatest threat to the wolf; ranchers may kill wolves that attack their livestock, and hunters shoot them for sport. Despite their protected status, many people in the surrounding communities continue to harbor animosity toward the animals and view them as nothing more than a nuisance.

Within Yellowstone, wolves are shielded from these particular dangers, but “there are many other natural threats,” says biologist Mike Jimenez, the leader of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wolf Recovery Project. “It’s not a free ticket.” Wolves can be kicked by the elk they are hunting, be injured in fights with grizzly bears, or, most commonly, get hurt during fights with other wolves. “The main cause of death among wolves is fighting each other,” Jimenez says.

However, he notes, “this is a sign of a very stable population,” and a way for the population to preserve a sustainable size. Unlike prey species such as elk, which can exist in enormous herds of many thousands of animals, large predators such as the gray wolf have small populations spread over very large territories. For example, Yellowstone is now home to 120 to 125 wolves in about a dozen packs, spread over more than 2 million acres. This, says Jimenez, reflects the natural carrying capacity of the region. Too many wolves can throw the ecological balance of the system out of whack just as easily as no wolves at all.

Disease is also an issue for the gray wolf — albeit a very natural one. Two years ago, canine distemper ravaged much of Yellowstone’s wolf population. “That year, two-thirds of the pups, which are the most vulnerable to the disease, did not survive,” Jimenez says. Distemper is not unique to Yellowstone; in the 1990s, many wolves in Montana were afflicted with the disease, which biologists suspect may have spread from domesticated dogs. (Wolves and domesticated dogs share a similar ancestry and many of the same diseases.) Parvovirus, another common dog disease, has also cropped up in the gray wolf. Mange, a skin disease that causes animals to literally scratch off large patches of their fur, has been a problem for at least one pack within Yellowstone, and for a few of the 15-odd packs outside of the park. Although the diseases can prove fatal to the animals that are afflicted, their occurrence is “well within the norm,” Jimenez says. “The population is healthy.”