The Animals

In the past 100 years, top predators have been systematically eliminated from the majority of contiguous US. (Prugh et al). The current ranges of many of these animals are much smaller than their historic range, which many times spanned the majority of the US.

Below are several examples of well-known Apex Predators in North America and their relative distributions

Range Expansion and Contraction of Carnivores in North America (Laliberte and Ripple)

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Gray Wolf

The Gray Wolf, also called the Timber Wolf, is a canine that historically lives in a wide variety of habitats in North America, like tundra, forest and grasslands. They usually live in packs of 2-15 individuals, but packs can sometimes grow as large as 30 wolves. Each pack only has one breeding pair, the alpha male and alpha female. Packs travel as far as they need to find food, thus a wolf's territory can range from 50 square miles to 1,000 square miles.

http://www.petandwildlife.com/wolves/wolf_species.htm

Life Span: 8-13 years

Diet: Wolves are carnivorous and prey on ungulates (hoofed animals) as well as smaller animals such as rodents. There has also been human/wolf conflict regarding wolf predation on livestock.


Major Threats: In the first half of the 20th century, wolves were actively hunted and functionally extirpated from almost all of the contiguous US. They were placed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973 but their populations were still in trouble due to the reduction and fragmentation of adequate habitat, increased urban sprawl and community reluctance to support wolf restoration. Due to the Wolf Restoration Project, an ambitious wolf restoration plan, wolves have been successfully reintroduced in several places across the Northern US (these locations are in places like the greater Yellowstone area and central Idaho). The current debate is what the next step in wolf conservation should be. Should wolves be delisted as an Endangered or Threatened Species under the ESA and their reintroduction viewed as a success or would this delisting negate decades of conservation work and result in a decline of wolf populations?
**In May 2011 wolves were de-listed from the ESA, however this issue is not completely resolved as there is still ongoing litigation 

Bears

There are several bear species and sub species in North America. They include the Black Bear, the Brown Bear and the Grizzly Bear (a sub-species of Brown Bear).

http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/black-bear/

Black Bears (like the one pictured on the left) can live in coniferous, deciduous, riparian and swamp territory. They generally are solitary except for the breeding season. They are smaller than grizzly bears and despite their name, can range in fur color from cinnamon-brown to black.

Life Span: 30 years
Diet: Black Bears are omnivorous and eat plants, roots, berries and small animals.

http://www.bearhuntinginfo.com/bear-pictures.php

Grizzly Bears (pictured right) are a larger bear than the Black Bear and can be identified by a signature hump between their shoulders. Grizzly Bears have been hunted to almost complete extirpation in the US, there are currently approximately 1500 Grizzly Bears in the US. They are solitary and territorial.

Life Span: 25 years
Diet: Grizzlies are omnivorous like Black Bears, in addition, they also consume fish and larger ungulates like elk.


Major Threats: Bears (grizzly bears in particular), have been reduced to about 2% of their historic ranges. Only about 1,200-1,400 grizzly bears are left in the US (Grizzly Bear, Defenders of Wildlife). They are most threatened by human-related conflict. Bears are attracted to garbage and pet food, especially as climate change reduces the availability of the naturally occurring food, but this contact with humans is usually poorly met, and the bear is often lethally removed. Brown bears are also accidentally killed by hunters who mistake them for black bears, which are legal to hunt.

Cougars

Cougars (Puma Concolor), also known as mountain lions, pumas or panthers, are the largest cat species in North America. They are solitary except when raising young and can reach 8 feet from nose to the tip of their tail. Cougars have territories, with the male territory being substantially larger, and they can travel up to 15 miles a day while searching for food.

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/josh3/MountainLion.html

Lifespan: 10-12 years for males, females usually live longer

Diet: Cougars are carnivorous and eat mostly deer, they also eat elk, mountain goats and other smaller animals. Like wolves, there have also been incidents of cougars attacking livestock.

Major Threats: Among the apex predators featured on this page, Cougar numbers are doing the best. Cougars are hunted for sport in 13 states, with each state individually managing the populations in their jurisdiction. However, this leads to an interesting conservation challenge, since Cougar hunting is not entirely illegal, overkill is a more prevalent problem and more difficult to combat. These large cats also suffer from shrinking and increasingly fragmented habitat due to ever growing human populations. In some cases, the two largest threats to cougar populations go hand in hand, and local human population density increases, so does the likelihood of overkill.