The Evolution of Predator Control Policy in the National Parks

Abstract

The policy of protecting all predatory animals in the national parks of the United States has resulted from decades of practical experience. The first national park, Yellowstone, was established in 1872. One of the objectives was complete protection of wildlife, but there was seldom any effort to apply this guardianship to the larger carnivores. Since the primary objects of concernwere the hoofed mammals, especially the deer, antelope, and bighorn, their enemies were killed. However, as conditions and public sentiment changed, doubts of the necessity of stringent predator control arose. With increasing perception of the interrelationships of animals, the policy of control was greatly modified until, today, predator control is rarely employed and then only to prevent extirpation of vanishing prey species. The history of predator control in the parks holds much of value for the ecologist who is interested in the evolution of opinion animal relationships. Whether based research or current belief, predator management has been greatly influenced by superficial observation, personal bias, exigencies of the occasion, and group pressures. Control methods have varied, tending of late decades toward those of greater selectivity. Even the species included in official lists of predators have varied. Numerous at first, these became fewer with the passing years particularly by exclusion of the smaller carnivores. In this account, Yellowstone National Park instances must frequently serve to illustrate policies and events. Not only was that park established long before any others, but the available early records for it are far more complete. In considering information from all of the early records, however, it must be remembered that they were frequently based upon random observation, personal belief or hearsay, and were rarely made by trained biologists. For the first six years of Yellowstone's existence, the failure of Congress to appropriate funds for administration prevented the Superintendent, N. P. Langford, from living in the area or doing anything for its maintenance. During this period, poaching hunters and trappers pursued their turbulent course of extracting personal sustenance and profit from the wildlife. In 1878, however, an appropriation for administration was made and P. W. Norris went to Yellowstone as resident Superintendent. Like all frontiersmen and wilderness sojourners of their day, the early superintendents exercised sporadic and haphazard control of wolves, cougars, and other carnivores. Self-protection and guarding of personal possessions, as food supplies, had been the original objective. Occasionally a predator was shot to prevent it from killing game, the actuating motive being to save the future food on the hoof or to prevent the cruelty attributed by the human mind to destruction of prey by the predator. In his report for 1879, Norris de-