The Life of Animals | Great Plains Wolf | The Great Plains wolf (Canis lupus nubilus), also known as the Buffalo wolf, is the most common subspecies of the gray wolf in the continental United States. Like all wolves, the Great Plains wolf is a very social animal that communicates using body language, scent marking and vocalization with an average pack size of five to six wolves.
The territory size for the Great Plains wolf depends on the type and density of prey. The historic range of the Great Plains wolf was throughout the United States and the southern regions of Canada. In Wisconsin and Michigan, the Great Plains wolf was eradicated by the mid- 1960s.
In 1974, the Great Plains wolf in the Great Lakes region became fully protected as an endangered species. By 1978, Minnesota's wolf population had increased enough that the wolf was reclassified as threatened in Minnesota. The estimated population for Great Plains wolves for 2004 in the United States was over 3,700 wolves. Minnesota 3,020
