In the late 1970s and early 80s, the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia were the source of the wolves that naturally recolonized NW Montana. In 1995 and 1996 Alberta and B.C. were also the source of the wolves that were reintroduced to Yellowstone and to central Idaho.

There is much irony to this, because southern Alberta has now become a place where wolves disperse from Montana, only to be killed.

Unlike in the U.S., wolves are not protected in Albera, far from it. It's open season year round for landowners, and for 9 months of the year for anyone else. Poison is illegal, but shooting's okay. Wolves now regularly disperse northeast from the expanding population in northern Montana, but they rarely last long.

In 1993, three different females, all of whom had been radiocollared as pups by noted wolf researcher Diane Boyd, dispersed into Alberta from different US packs. Each became the founding alpha female of a new pack, but within 16 months, all had been shot. Of an estimated 1994 wolf population in the Oldman River drainage of 50 to 60 wolves, human-caused losses totaled at least 40, and possibly 44.

Things looked grim through 1995. Then in the fall of 1996 there began to be reports of wolves again in the area, especially adjacent to Waterton Lakes National Park which abuts the American Glacier National Park.

There was a large black male, a gray, a small gray and later, a near-white wolf. Just recently a rancher adjacent to the park arranged for a local hunting guide to come in and get rid of some wolves that were hanging around his ranch (they were probably locked in on a den site). They hadn't killed livestock. The result was that the big black male and the alpha female (carrying six unborn pups) were shot, so there are almost no more wolves in Alberta anywhere near the American border.

This saddens me. The Rocky Mountain Front north of Glacier National Park is just, if not more beautiful, than that to the south in the U.S., but on close inspection, the mountains are filled with natural gas wells, pipelines, roads and desulfurization plants. Wolves and grizzly bears are few. It's not wild country at all.

This illustrates the importance of the Endangered Species Act and the Wilderness Act. Things would be no different in my opinion, in Montana, Idaho, or Wyoming if there was no ESA. Folks are similar in both sides of the border, but the U.S. had the good fortune to pass the Wilderness Act and the ESA back in a time when politicians were greener and not so bought off by the special interests.