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Extensive hunting and trapping of wolves in America over the last century and a half have dramatically reduced wolf populations resulting in genetic bottle necking and weakening of the gene pool from lack of diversity in mating partners. Recent years have seen efforts to reintroduce wolves to habitat they had traditionally occupied before European contact such as Yellowstone National Park. This has resulted in tension and friction between Federal officials and ranchers with land bordering the park as wolves don't recognize borders and inevitably will prey on the occasional cattle. This move was deemed necessary as the overall health of the park was thrown out of balance by the elimination of established wolf populations in the first place. The wolf is a precision predator and though it will opportunistically take down young and or healthy animals ei." Elk" it mainly predates on the very old and sick in the herd surgically removing the threat of disease spread ei. "Chronic Wasting Disease" thereby helping to maintain healthy "Ungulate" herds. The elk herds had unchecked growth and were becoming an increasing problem as well as increasing the chance of disease spread. This principle of precision predation has been demonstrated in all ecosystems occupied by these creatures such as the high Arctic where they maintain the healthy balance of Caribou herds via the same principle. Farley Mowatt lived for awhile in the domain of Canis Lupis Arcticus and debunked the myth that the wolves were decimating the great caribou herds and showed in fact they were helping to stop the disease spread that was really responsible by preying on those sick individuals. Though wolf populations have been reduced over the last century and a half here in Canada also they have enjoyed larger more stable populations and extensive habitat. so it was widely assumed that they were also extremely genetically healthy like there Pre European contact populations. An extensive study of hundreds of wolves throughout the whole range of haplotypes in Canada has revealed that in fact though the populations and individuals are considered to be healthy they are genetically a shadow of their former selves a mere 300 years ago debunking the idea that Canada remains a healthy repository for wolf species. These findings show that even lower level enviroment encroachment and industrial and agricultural contamination of the food chain can have detremental effects on these species.
