17 Mayo 2017 09:50
'People take matters into their own hands and feel they are above the law and they kind of flaunt the fact that they can do what they want to do and there's no repercussions.'
After park officials offered $5000 for any information leading to a conviction, a wolf advocacy group matched the reward with another $5000. All this to catch the killer of a 12-year-old she-wolf – one of three white wolves in the park – who has left behind 20 pups and an alpha male with whom she had been for over nine years.
Officials at the world's first national park had to put the wolf down after hikers found the animal suffering in the northern edge of the park, near Montana. Marc Cook, from the Montana group Wolves of the Rockies, believes that the killer is someone who was angry about the reintroduction of wolves to the park over 20 years ago. In part, his suspicion is based on the fact that the wolf was not taken as a trophy, which would have been expected had the killer been a typical hunter.
'People take matters into their own hands and feel they are above the law and they kind of flaunt that fact that they can do what they want to do and there's no repercussions,' said Marc Cook, president of the Montana group.
Some hunters and farmers object to the wolves – now numbering around 100 – living in the park. This is because the wolves prey on big-game animals, such as elk, which are popular with hunters, and occasionally kill cattle on grazing land near the park boundaries. The wolves can legally be shot if they stray outside the park, but in this instance the white wolf was well within Yellowstone's borders, around 70 miles from where it could have been legally killed.
In nearby Wyoming a federal appeals court ruled in March that wolves could be removed from Endangered Species Act protection. Environmentalists had previously persuaded a judge to put wolves back on the endangered list in Wyoming back in 2014. However, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found Wyoming adequately addressed those concerns and wolves were taken off the endangered list on April 25. This meant they could be shot on sight in the American state.
'The wolves in Yellowstone National park are highly valued. They are globally recognised and local communities that depend on tourism benefit greatly from their presence. Returning the wolves to their natural habitat has a beneficial effect on the whole ecosystem,' says Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife.
The white wolf had been extremely popular among photographers. She will never be photographed again.