Initially, the park was administered by a civilian staff. The U.S. Army managed the park from 1886 until 1918. The idea of the park was for it to be a place where men could hunt game animals such as deer,elk, and bison. Predatory animals were considered bad because they competed with man for the game. So men and wolfers set out to kill all the predatory animals in the park including wolves, cougars,and coyotes.
Wolves keep the game herds healthy by killing and eating the sick animals.
The men in the park kill for sport and the wolves only kill for survival. The main way to kill wolves was to poison carcasses and let the wolves eat them. Sometimes, if a den was found, the wolfers and park staff would put dynamite in the den and blow the wolves up. The advantage of denning was that you could kill more wolves at a time than you usually could and you could get the pups before they were adults. They succeeded in killing twelve wolves.