Pre-industrial emblem
60Heraldry, materia medica or first-fish law met the gray wolf before film.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Speed66
Intelligence83
Range75
Resilience62
Cultural impact85
Ecological role94
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Did wolves recover everywhere?
Global LC hides Mexican wolves, some European growing pains, and US delisting fights. Resilience here is mid-high because many Holarctic populations rebounded -- not because conflict ended.
What happened in Yellowstone in 1995?
Fourteen wolves from Canada were released (more in 1996). Elk behaviour and riparian vegetation became a long argument, not a cartoon instant forest.
Is the trophic cascade settled?
Early popular accounts over-simplified. Later work kept wolves important and added drought, human hunting, and beaver. The cascade is a research programme, not a poster.
Who was Aldo Leopold here?
A forester who had killed wolves and later wrote the mountain-as-ethics essay (1949). The US environmental canon still starts many wolf talks there.
What is Isle Royale?
A closed wolf-moose system studied since 1958. Inbreeding and later genetic rescue (2018-) made it a lab of isolation.
Are wolves more intelligent than big cats in this atlas?
Pack coordination and canine social cognition sit high. Gorillas and elephants still outrank them. Scores are relative, not IQ certificates.
IUCN: Least Concern (global)
Gray wolf culture is local: the same silhouette is a licence in one country and a logo in another.
Status bars are editorial -- they track how loudly this type spoke in English-language media and law, not a best-species score.
Status through time
Industrial take
53Canneries, ivory, longlines or shikar scaled the take.
Cinema and logo
77A film, book or NGO mark often outran the field paper.
Statute and listing
65ESA, CITES, IWC or national parks made the type a legal object.
Live-cam and tourism
67Streams, jeeps and auctions are the present tense of attention.
Portrayals
Seton story1899
Lobo as a moral.
Leopold essay1949
The green fire dying.
Yellowstone live-cams2010s
Packs as a tourist serial.
ESA litigation2011-
Wolves as a court animal.
Fairy taleongoing
Pigs and grandmothers as cultural impact, not diet.
EU farm news2020s
A lamb as a ministry statistic.
Rituals
Howl surveys
Biologists still stimulate and count replies.
Yellowstone wolf weeks
January watchers pay for a radio-collar rumour.
Compensation forms
Europe and the US West treat a dead sheep as paperwork.
Sayings
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