page_title: List of gray wolf populations by country
section_title: North America
hierarchical_section_title: List of gray wolf populations by country / North America
caption_attribution_description: A 130 pound wolf watches biologists in Yellowstone National Park after being captured and fitted with a radio collar on 1-9-03.
context_page_description: The global grey wolf population is estimated to be 300,000. Once abundant over much of North America and Eurasia, the grey wolf inhabits a smaller portion of its former range because of widespread destruction of its habitat, human encroachment of its habitat, and the resulting human-wolf encounters that sparked broad extirpation. Considered as a whole, however, the grey wolf is regarded as being of least concern for extinction according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Today, wolves are protected in some areas, hunted for sport in others, or may be subject to extermination as perceived threats to people, livestock, and pets
  Wolves tend to quickly adapt to change, and are often referred to as an indicator species; a species delineating an ecoregion or indicating an environmental condition such as a disease outbreak, pollution, species competition or climate change. Wolves do not seem to be able to adapt as readily to expanding civilisation the way coyotes do. While human expansion has seen an increase in the latter's numbers, it has caused a drop in those of the former.
context_section_description: Canada has over 60,000 wolves, which are legally considered a big game species, though they are afforded protection in 3% of Canada's territory. The Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon have 5,000 wolves each, British Columbia has 8,500 wolves, Alberta 4,200, Saskatchewan 4,300, Manitoba 4,000-6,000, Ontario 9,000, Quebec 5,000 and Labrador 2,000. Canada currently has no livestock damage compensation programmes. In the fall of 2012, the government of British Columbia was considering a cull of the wolf population in some areas. In the winter of 2015 the government of British Columbia began undertaking a cull of up to 184 wolves in an effort to combat dwindling caribou populations in the South Selkirk Mountains and the South Peace region. The cull, like ones before it, is opposed by some environmental groups.
  On 12 March 2012, a Labrador wolf, mistakenly thought to be a coyote, was shot in Newfoundland. It was the first confirmed Labrador wolf in Newfoundland since ca. 1930.
  The United States as a whole has up to 18,000 wolves, about two thirds of which are in Alaska. They are increasing in number in all their ranges. Usually, however, wolves in the United States  are mostly seen during the winter months in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and portions of Washington, Idaho, northern Oregon, northwest Wyoming, and Montana, as the majority of wolf populations migrate from Canada to the Northwestern states & some of the Midwestern and Great Lakes States during the winter months for the competition over eating bison, elk, white tailed deer and other large ungulates, disputed between other carnivores such as grizzly bear, cougar, and coyote. Wolf recovery has been so successful that the United States Fish & Wildlife Service removed the western gray wolf from the federal endangered species list on March 28, 2008. Due to the controversy over wolf shootings, a coalition of environmental groups sued the federal government to put the gray wolf back on the Endangered Species list.
  On July 18, 2008, a federal judge ruled in favor of renewed endangered species protection.
  Alaska has a stable population of 10,500-12,000 wolves, which are legally hunted from August to April (in deer-rich areas) as a big game species.
  Minnesota has a population of 4,100 wolves, which are legally protected, though they are occasionally culled for depredation control. Minnesota used to have control over its wolf population, but this was revoked by a federal appellate court on August 1, 2017, making wolf management the charge of the federal government. The court decided to retain the state's minimum population of 1,600 animals. It has been argued by state officials that management should remain in the hands of the state, allowing for the wolf to be removed from protected status, since the population has exceeded recovery goals for more than 25 years.
  Both Wisconsin and Michigan have  healthy populations of 750 each. On December 19, 2014, all wolves in states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota became protected again under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
  The Northern Rocky Mountain states (Wyoming, Idaho and Montana) have an approximate population of 1,657 wolves in 282 packs (including 85 breeding pairs).
  Two gray wolves were captured in north-central Washington state in July 2008, one of which was a nursing female. This is the first evidence of reproducing wolves in the state since the 1930s. As of the end of 2014, Washington has at least 68 wolves in 16 packs with 5 breeding pairs.
  In northeast Oregon, also in July 2008, wolf howls were heard by biologists who identified at least 2 adults and 2 pups. This was the first confirmed breeding pair in Oregon. By December 2011, Oregon's gray wolf population had grown to 24. One of the Oregon gray wolves, known as OR-7, traveled more than 700 miles (1,100 km) to the Klamath Basin and crossed the border into California. Wolf OR-7 became the first wolf west of the Cascades in Oregon since the last bounty was claimed in 1947. Oregon's wolf population increased to 77 wolves in
caption: A radio collared wolf in Yellowstone National Park
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