Can The Gray Wolf Survive?

On a recent evening not long after dusk, Natalie Ertz stood in a meadow near the Grand Canyon’s north rim and howled like a wolf.

There was a good reason for the howl.

Ertz, the executive director of a nonprofit group called Wildlands Defense, was hoping to catch a glimpse of an animal that has been notoriously elusive here in recent days. Seen at least a dozen times by tourists and park rangers, the animal was assigned various possible identities: a Mexican gray wolf, a coyote-wolf hybrid, a wolf-dog hybrid, or a gray wolf from the northern Rockies.

Wolf biologists were tantalized—and stunned—by that last possibility. If it was a gray wolf, the animal had undertaken a spectacular journey, walking hundreds of miles across Utah or Colorado onto the Kaibab Plateau, which is just north of the Grand Canyon.

A gray wolf hadn’t been seen in the Grand Canyon area since the 1940s. The predator once roamed much of North America, but was hunted nearly to extinction by the mid-20th century.

But thanks to conservation efforts including reintroduction, the species has rebounded. Today, 1,700 gray wolves roam the West.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is expected to issue a decision as soon as this month on whether to remove gray wolves across the lower 48 states from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Back on the Kaibab, Ertz—who has tracked and monitored wolf packs in central Idaho for the past six years—howled again, mimicking the call of a younger animal alone and in need.

“It should be mournful,” she whispered. “Almost a distress signal, with no hint of aggression, less likely to be perceived as a threat.”

Three sorrowful howls floated in the distance, followed by the raucous yips of coyotes joining in the conversation. Ertz was ecstatic.

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