Wolves were once the most widely distributed mammal on the planet. With their exceptional ability to adapt, wolves occupied almost every habitat except tropical jungles. But with the arrival of humans, wolves numbers diminished. Systematic eradication programs were aimed at top predators; this, along with over-hunting of prey populations and habitat loss due to population encroachment, wolves were eliminated from most of the contiguous United States by the 1940s. In 1973 wolves were finally put under the protection by the Endangered Species Act, and just recently wolf populations are increasing due to wolf recovery and reintroduction projects.

Within the continental United States, gray wolves once ranged from East Coast to West Coast, and from Canada to Mexico. Today only about 2,200 wolves live in the wild in Minnesota, fewer than twenty on Lake Superior's Isle Royale, about 120 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, 120 in Wisconsin, and about 240 in the northern Rocky Mountains...