It’s possible that wolves make people feel the widest range of feelings of any animal.
Fear, awe, respect, and hate.
Everything you need to know can be found in a few talks at a Wisconsin bar. Or in an instant by Facebook scrolling.
Some of it has been around for a very long time. You can even find it in children’s books like “Little Red Riding Hood.”
People in Wisconsin and other states tried to get rid of gray wolves because they were thought to be a threat to human activities. In Wisconsin, gray wolves could be shot or poisoned all year, and until the 1950s, there was a reward for dead wolves.
By the 1960s, wolves were only found in northern Minnesota in the Lower 48 states. But with protections, like the government Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Minnesota wolves grew in number, spread out, and moved back into parts of their old range in Wisconsin and Michigan.
In the last few decades, wolves have mostly done well. In fact, many wildlife scientists were surprised to see them living in places that were thought to be poor for or not suitable for the species.
A report from the Department of Natural Resources in 2023 says that Wisconsin now has about 1,000 wolves. An update for 2024 is due in the next few weeks.
In 2014 and 2023, social science polls showed that Wisconsinites, both in and out of wolf range, had a positive view of wolves.
But this kind of support isn’t universal, and control of the species is still up for debate. It’s also often the subject of lawsuits. With the help of a lawsuit brought in federal district court, the ESA was used to protect the wolf in Wisconsin, Michigan, and most other states in 2022.
That’s where it stays until late summer 2024, which means that the species can only be managed with non-lethal methods.
There is a fight over wolves going on outside of court. There are always public debates about the species, and a lot of the time, they are tainted by false information.
That’s not going to end.
I’d like to bring up the Voyageurs Wolf Project, though, because it adds science and facts to the conversation. Since 2015, Thomas Gable has been in charge of the project that has been studying and collecting data on wolves in northern Minnesota.
I think it’s the best place in the country to find up-to-date wolf research and knowledge. It does more than just collect data; it also has very useful parts for teaching and outreach.
I recently talked to Gable, who has a PhD from the University of Minnesota, about the project and some of the most important things it found. The study area is 902 square miles and includes private land, timber company fields, national forests, and state forests. It includes a part of Voyageurs National Park.
GPS-collared wolves are used to study their habits, like what animals they kill and eat, where and how long they live, what kills them, how many pups they have, and how many of their young survive.
Trail cams set up all over the study area also give the group information.
A lot of the money for the project comes from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and from about 6,000 individual donors.
Nine people worked on the project this summer. One part of their work was going to wolf dens and counting, weighing, and microchipping the pups. They also went to wolf kill sites and looked at dead wolves.
Late this year, the winter football season will start.
I asked Gable to talk about the facts about wolves and clear up some myths that everyone in the Upper Midwest hears. Here are some parts of what we talked about:
Wolf pack sizes are typically five or fewer
Gable said some people think all wolves live in very large packs, say 10 or more animals. But in fact over the last 12 years of the VWP the average pack size has ranged from a low of 3.1 to a high of 5.5 wolves per pack. In 2023 it was 4.2.
This data is similar to pack sizes reported by the Wisconsin DNR in its annual wolf reports.
Wolves don’t increase in number “exponentially”
The VWP has made a picture of the study area that shows where the wolf packs live. Packs of wolves live in home areas that don’t usually overlap. The map shows this important fact. This behavior not only keeps them from fighting with other wolves, but it also keeps the number of them down.
“The density of wolves can fluctuate according to how much food is available, yes,” he said. “But in our work it has stayed in a range that has kept the population relatively stable.”
Gable said that if wolves were to move back into an area, like they did in Wisconsin from the 1970s to the 2010s, the number would likely grow until the habitat was full. It would be safer from there.
In the past few years, many wildlife scientists have said that the number of wolves in Wisconsin seems to have leveled off and may have reached its biological carrying capacity.
“Wolves are like any other animal – they are limited by the amount of food available,” he said. “The idea they will increase continuously in number doesn’t hold water.”
Wolves take advantage of human-placed food, including bear bait
Gable called wolves “generalist carnivores” that eat mostly deer, beavers, and other animals, but will also eat food left out for them by people.
By the end of summer, bear hunters have put traps in the VWP study area. Old nuts, dried fruits, donuts, cookies, and bread are often used as bait.
“Not exactly the kind of food wolves generally eat,” he said. “I also don’t know how useful it is for them.” But in dire times, desperate steps must be taken.
Gable said that late summer and early fall are hard for wolves because there isn’t as much food around at those times. It is easiest for wolves to kill deer when they are fully grown, since that is when they eat them.
At this point, most wolves are pretty thin because they are losing body mass and are looking for anything that will keep them from going hungry and dropping weight.
This time of year, they spend a lot of time looking for anything that will help them stay living, Gable said. This is a main reason why bear hunters in Minnesota and Wisconsin often see wolves on trail cams set up at bait spots.
Wolves and people who hunt deer work better together.
In the Upper Midwest, one of the most important arguments is about how wolves affect deer numbers and hunting for deer. Gable said that people often say that wolves are “decimating” the deer population in Minnesota and that to fix the problem, the wolves should be killed.
From 2012 to 2022, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources collected information about deer hunting in northeastern Minnesota. The Voyageurs Wolf Project looked at this information, which included the number of shooters and deer killed.
The researchers looked at deer hunter success rates from the three most recent wolf hunting and trapping seasons in Minnesota (2012–2014) to see if killing wolves had an effect on those rates.
They also looked at wolf and deer populations from data VWP has been collecting in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem since 2015 to see if deer hunter success was lower when there were more wolves.
The big takeaways according to VWP were:
1). The number of deer hunters in northeastern Minnesota has declined substantially through time and with it, the number of deer harvested. Thus, using the number of deer harvested as a metric to assess the impact of wolves on deer and deer hunting is a “terrible idea,” Gable said. Deer hunter success is a better metric to use because it accounts for the changing number of hunters through time.
2). Deer hunter success was highest before wolf hunting/trapping seasons in 2012-2014 in Minnesota and hunter success decreased dramatically during 2012 to 2014 despite killing up to 16% of the wolf population annually.
3). Deer hunter success and wolf population size were both positively correlated with the size of the deer population. In other words, hunters kill more deer and there are more wolves when there are more deer.
4). Deer hunter success is positively correlated with wolf population size. When there are more wolves around, hunters are more successful. Again, this is because hunter success and wolf populations both increase as deer populations get larger.
5). Wolves are not the primary reason for changes in deer populations or deer hunter success. Indeed, one of the most important factors driving deer population change is winter severity. The VWP assessment showed 2014, 2022, and 2023 were years when deer hunter success and deer populations were at their lowest and all were long, snowy winters.
Wolves live in territories of about 60 square miles
Gable said that while it has been seen for dispersing wolves to move hundreds of miles, most wolves live in much smaller areas. The smallest pack in the VWP study had a home range of 53 square miles in 2023, and the biggest had a home range of 76 square miles.
To learn more about the Voyageurs Wolf Project, go to www.voyageurswolfproject.org or like its Facebook page.
Great Lakes Wolf Symposium
It will be held in Ashland from October 15th to 17th. People who study wolves, people who work with wildlife, and members of the public will all be there.
There will be talks and displays at the event about the ecology, management, protection, education, and policy of wolves.
Many people think that David Mech, a senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, is the best wolf researcher in North America, and he will give the keynote speech.
Mech also started the International Wolf Center and is its vice chair. He also works for the International Union for the Conservation of Species as a wolf expert.
The Timber Wolf Alliance is in charge of the conference, which will take place at Ashland College in Ashland. Go to www.northland.edu to find out more.