Use the drafts to finish the final paper of grey wolf.

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Grey (also spelled gray) wolves are currently listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in the western two-thirds of Washington State (this is the state decision to treat it as endangered). Though state Endangered Species protections remain statewide, wolves have been federally delisted in the eastern third of Washington State. Grey wolves are listed as endangered under state law because they were nearly wiped out a century ago by settlers. In the last decade, however, grey wolves have started to re-establish themselves in Eastern Washington due to recovery efforts in nearby states and dispersal from Canada and thus the Federal Government delisted them in 2011. 

Given that their mandate is unclear, the affected county governments in the Eastern third of Washington State would like to take a position that is well researched and thought out. You have been hired as an external, non-biased consultant to a consortium of county governments from the Eastern part of Washington State. You are asked to prepare a recommendation on how to proceed regarding whether the state protection status should be increased, decreased, or stay the same. Please provide details with your recommendation and the reasoning behind your decision. Keep in mind recent developments at the federal level as you make your state Endangered Species protections recommendation.

Running Head: AN OVERVIEW OF GREY WOLF 2

AN OVERVIEW OF GREY WOLF 2

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Introduction

Grey wolves play a significant role in keeping the ecosystem healthy. Moreover, they can act as a buffer to the changes in climate. Their presence in the park makes it easy to preserve the deer and elk population. In addition, the carcasses of their prey add more nutrients in the environment and thus lead to the flourishment of plants (Newsome et al., 2016). Grey wolves are an endangered species that need to be protected. Saving the wolves means saving both complex and fragile ecosystems that most species rely on. The preservation of national heritage is the pride of every community/country.

The Impact of grey wolves in the Ecosystem

Apart from boosting the ecosystem, grey wolves are of great significance in boosting the ecotourism opportunities. For instance, the introduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park in the United States led to an exploration to individuals in and outside the United States. One of the amazing things is that wolves in rare cases target to eat livestock even when they are extremely hungry (Mech, 2017).

It is important to note that grey wolves are predator animals. This means that they go hunting for their prey. When there are no grazing animals for them to hunt, they end up hunting for sheep, horses and even cows. Sometimes, it is very difficult to determine whether the loss of livestock is as a result of wolf hunting especially in the process of compensation.

State Law Protecting Gray Wolves

There is an inconsistent legal protection for wolves. The act of Congress 2011 that led to the issuance of a delisting rule, the wolves were not listed among the endangered animals in Montana, Wyoming, some parts of Washington, and Idaho (Salvatori et al., 2020). In Washington, the gray wolf has been identified as one of the endangered species and receives protection under the state law of RCW77.15.120. The law protects them from killing, being possessed, any form of malicious harassment, and hunting. The penalty of illegal killing of gray wolves is $5,000 or being jailed for one year.

References

Mech, L. D. (2017). Where can wolves live and how can we live with them?. Biological conservation, 210, 310-317. Retrieved from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320717301441

Newsome, T. M., Boitani, L., Chapron, G., Ciucci, P., Dickman, C. R., Dellinger, J. A., … & Ripple, W. J. (2016). Food habits of the world’s grey wolves. Mammal Review, 46(4), 255-269. Retrieved from

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mam.12067?casa_token=cRflAAIVEqkAAAAA:Y1jjT8sgmMIwdbcPYBPvT8NjVoDr9EmyQrL99ceMELYnh7dR9GG7k6FwbzDYmvuSgQjkYBeVg2rMSFQa

Salvatori, V., Donfrancesco, V., Trouwborst, A., Boitani, L., Linnell, J. D., Alvares, F., … & Ciucci, P. (2020). European agreements for nature conservation need to explicitly address wolf-dog hybridisation. Biological Conservation, 248, 108525. Retrieved from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632071931674X

Running head: GREY WOLF

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GREY WOLF 3

Grey Wolf project Step 2 Draft

Zhenxuan Gao

Grey Wolf Project

Science is of great importance in the society. The scientific knowledge which is currently accepted by the scientific community offers a theoretical explanation of the real world. In order to decide what is acceptable in the scientific world, the community needs to undertake a process of public review to ensure that it is acceptable in science. The public process is referred to as public science which has undergone validation process which is acceptable in the scientific knowledge. The professional scientist includes process of consensus-making in a process involve their private science. Scientist engage in this process on a daily basis. Some of the things that are involved in this process involve intuition, curiosity and creativity. Private science remains unreported (Urquhart et al., 2019).

Scientific knowledge is of great importance in the decision making process for the society. There is mutual responsibility for scientists to present their knowledge to the public. The public are also required to seek appropriate expert knowledge and also consider the implications that could be brought about by this knowledge. There exists an interplay between science and ethics which is considered to be one of the most important consideration during the decision making process. Science could be regarded as a process where there is a rational inquiry into an incident, event or process in a means to understand why certain behaviors are present and why things behave in the manner they are. Ethics is seen as a process of rational inquiry where people decided on issues of right which is regarded as something good and wrong as applied to them and their actions by science. It is important to point out the fact that all scientific knowledge is as a result of human creation (Urquhart et al., 2019).

Reference

Urquhart, R., Kendell, C., Geldenhuys, L. et al. (2019). The role of scientific evidence in decisions to adopt complex innovations in cancer care settings: a multiple case study in Nova Scotia, Canada. Implementation Sci 14, 14 (2019).

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-

019-0859-5

Running Head: GRAY WOLF NATURAL HISTORY 1

GRAY WOLF NATURAL HISTORY 2

Gray Wolf Natural History

Zhenxuan Gao

Gray Wolf Draft Step 3

Behavioral adaptations of gray wolf

The wolf can be heard when it is almost 10 miles away since it has a way which it can communicate even from a very long distance. Sometimes it can howl and this in most cases it is calling all others so that they can pack together. The howling in most cases it acts a way of protecting the territory and forming social bonding.

Physical adaptations

There are many special adaptation for the grey wolf for instance it has a coat which is made up of woody and this acts as an insulation. It has long guard hairs and this is to keep their hairs out of moist. It has large paws which its uses it to pad and the claws are used in spreading and providing better support in snow. It has a vision which is very sensitive, (Werhahn, et al, 2018).

Hunting strategies

Their size makes them a very impressive carnivore and their predatory skills can be said to be improved by haunting in packs which they forms it to be a very complex social structure. They are very cooperative when it comes to hunting and this makes them to bring down many preys which includes moose and bison which are the size of each individual gray wolf, (Miao, et al, 2017).

Population dynamics

The population for grey wolf has been changing drastically there was a time which they were referred to as endangered species but this has since changed and the agency removed them from the category as at now they are at 6000 animals in a population.

Interactions with other species

It has positive interactions with pother species and this has had positive impacts to the ecosystem. This is for instance their carcasses when they die they acts as nutrient s and they provide food for other animals, (El-Kenawy, et al, 2020)

Habitats, impacts and water needs in the ecosystem

They have variety of habitats which ranges from Tundra, grasslands and deserts. And their water need in most cases is minimal and that the reason why they prefers to eat large mammals so that they will not be needing water so much. Therefore their water I got from the prey and it is as well produced when there is chemical oxidation of food.

References

El-Kenawy, E. S., & Eid, M. (2020). Hybrid gray wolf and particle swarm optimization for feature selection. International Journal of Innovative Computing Information and Control, 16(3), 831-844.

Miao, B., Wang, Z., & Li, Y. (2017). Genomic analysis reveals hypoxia adaptation in the Tibetan mastiff by introgression of the gray wolf from the Tibetan Plateau. Molecular biology and evolution, 34(3), 734-743.

Werhahn, G., Senn, H., Ghazali, M., Karmacharya, D., Sherchan, A. M., Joshi, J., … & Macdonald, D. W. (2018). The unique genetic adaptation of the Himalayan wolf to high-altitudes and consequences for conservation. Global Ecology and Conservation, 16, e00455.