[petey]

1980s - Discussions of northern Rocky Mountain grey wolf recovery focus on Yellowstone, central Idaho, and northwestern Montana.

1982 - Montana biologist Diane Boyd completes her thesis on a migrant wolf on the North Fork of the Flathead River near Glacier National Park; during the late 1980s several wolf packs will establish themselves in this region of the United States.

1982 - Arizona wildlife manager David E. Brown publishes The Wolf in the Southwest, which documents the eradication by the federal government of the southern Rocky Mountain gray wolf and Mexican wolf in Arizona and New Mexico.

1983 - Film version of Never Cry Wolf is released.

1985 - Retired professor Alston Chase alleges in his controversial book Playing God with Yellowstone that the National Park Service secretly tried to restore wolves to Yellowstone.

1986 - Eight red wolves arrive at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in coastal North Carolina; after acclimatization they will later be released, with mixed results in terms of adaptation and survivability.

1986 - L. David Mech begins study of arctic wolves in Canadian high Arctic.

1988 - Wolves killed in northwestern Montana by federal agents after livestock depredations.

1988 - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report concludes White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico is a suitable location for Mexican wolf restoration. Army raises objections but drops them in 1991, while livestock interests continue to oppose this. Other sites discussed include Big Bend National Park in Texas, the Gila Wilderness Area in New Mexico, and several wilderness locations in Arizona.

1990s - Wolves are confirmed in Washington, Idaho, and North Dakota.

1991 - Two red wolves arrive at Cades Cove, Tennessee, to be prepared for release in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Red wolves have also been released by this time in Florida, Mississippis, South Carolina, and Alabama in various study projects. (A total of thirty-five red wolves are alive in captivity by 1991, including those in North Carolina.)

1992 - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director John Turner endorses a blue-ribbon report recommending restoration of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park; the environmental assessment process further studies the potential effects of reintroduction on other species, including the threatened grizzly bear (to be completed in May 1993).

1992 - The film Dances with Wolves portrays wolves in a positive light and wins several Academy Awards.

1992 - Rick Bass publishes The Ninemile Wolves, which examines the impact of a newly formed wolf pack near his home in northwestern Montana.

1992 - Polls indicate two of out three Montanans favor natural recovery of wolves in the state.


Wonder what the poll says now? ha ha