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Wolves—Wilderness IconExpands Range

During the dark days of wolf persecution the canoe country wilderness became the last critical refuge of the timber wolf inthe lower 48. Today human attitudes have become more tolerant and the wolf hasexpanded its range and population.

by Michael Furtman

FR

AN

K A

RK

O

spirit of the wild

raper Lake is a long placefrom anywhere, even by

canoe country standards.I awoke to a drab, drizzly

morning after a night of stormsso fierce we could only sleepafter reaching exhaustion fromsitting huddled on our foampads as defense against light-ning strikes. The roar of thestorm, both from wind andthunder, had been deafeningmaking the less-than attractivemorning nevertheless welcome.

I walked down to the westend of the island and surveyedthe scene. Sheets of half-fog,

half-drizzle limped across theopen water between us and themainland. Water dripped fromthe shore-hugging cedars,splattering in great rings on thenow calm lake. Not a prettyday to be sure, but I was thank-ful the storm had passed uswithout damage.

Apparently, so were thewolves.

On the main shoreline threewolves, wet coats plastered totheir bodies, scrambled amongthe boulders. Reaching a flatspot, they too looked out overthe lake. Then in one of those

magical moments that cause allof us to return again and againto canoe country, one wolfpointed its muzzle toward thegray dawn and howled longand loudly.

I try not to anthropomorphizeanimal behavior, but that howlseemed nothing less than amournful cry at being wet andmiserable. And I could sympa-thize.Canoe Country—A Refuge ForWolves

Not very long ago, if youwanted to hear a wolf any-where in the lower 48 states, it

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had to be done in the canoecountry. Driven by persecutionand poisoning from every-where else in their U.S. range,wolves held on in what becamethe Boundary Waters largelybecause of the area’s remote-ness and the constant influx ofwolves from nearby Canada—where populations were morestable.

According to Bill Berg,formerly a wildlife biologist forthe state of Minnesota, wolveswere bountied in Minnesotafrom 1849 (when they wereworth $3) through 1965 (a wolfpelt brought $35) when allbounties ended in the state.Although bounties generallydid not control populations ofother predators, they had animpact on wolves. By the early1900s wolves were rare insouthern and western MN andby the 1950s wolves were gonefrom those areas of MN.

But they still managed topersist in and near canoecountry, which became ahotbed during the next forty

years of wolf research. One ofthe earliest studies was doneby Milt Stenlund in the early1950s. Stenlund studied theSuperior National Forest innortheastern MN where theBoundary Waters is found.After extrapolation to the restof northern Minnesota,Stenlund’s data indicated apopulation of 450-700 wolves,most of which resided in12,000 square miles of themain wolf range.

Despite the annual taking ofabout 200 wolves per year bybounty trappers, wolf numbersremained stable for the nexttwo decades. By the time thebounty ended and wolvesbecame protected under theEndangered Species Act (ESA)of 1973, it is thought therewere approximately 500-700wolves left in the state. Afterthe bounty ended in 1965,wolves could still be legallytrapped and hunted year-roundin Minnesota. The MN DNRrecords indicate about 250wolves were killed annually

until 1974, when wolvesbecame completely protectedunder the federal EndangeredSpecies Act.

Few animals are as wellstudied today as is the wolf,but that wasn’t always true.After protection by the ESA,the wolves of canoe countryand surrounding woodlandsbecame the focus of an enor-mous amount of research.

Perhaps the most famous ofthese biologists is L. DavidMech. In the mid-1970s Mech,using his data from wolf densi-ties in three study areas andextrapolating it to the knownwolf range at the time, figuredthe wolf population exceededone thousand animals. Notlong after, during the winter of1978-79, the MN DNR usedfield personnel from severalresource management agenciesto report wolf sightings andmovements. This informationwas combined with resultsfrom four radio-tracking stud-ies, resulting in a state-widepopulation estimate of 1,235

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wolves. This figure persisted asthe official population estimatefor ten years. In the early 1980swork my Mech, Steve Frittsand Bill Paul identified areas ofnewly colonized wolf rangethat suggested range and popu-lation were expanding to thewest and south.

By 1989 when another surveywas completed, the wolf popu-lation in Minnesota had creptup to somewhere between1,500-1,750 animals living in233 packs, each pack averagingfive wolves. By the similar1998 survey, wolf numbers hadincreased to a remarkable 2,450individuals in 385 packs, andwolves had managed to re-populate habitats long emptyand much further south andwest in the state than believedpossible. Indeed, wolf coloni-zation spread not only throughMinnesota but into Wisconsinand finally to the Upper Penin-sula of Michigan. Wolves havebeen seen almost as far southas the Iowa border, but theirprimary range lies north andeast of a line drawn from about

Pine City to Warroad.A Remarkable Recovery

There are several reasonswhy wolves managed to rap-idly expand their range: theirown resiliency as a species,protection under the ESA andlogging. Yes, logging.

Once thought of as animals ofpure wilderness and predictedto never cross a four-lanehighway, wolves proved every-one wrong.

Each generation of wolves,pioneering into what for themwas new habitat, began toencounter more and morehuman artifacts—homes,highways, cities. Rather thanretreating back to the wilder-ness, they instead adapted.Wolves today routinely crosshighways, even the interstatebetween Duluth and the TwinCities, as they hunt or seek outterritories or mates.

While that surprised manypeople, perhaps it shouldn’thave. It is interesting to notethat of the large predators onthe planet, the wolf’s naturalrange (before it was widely

eliminated) was second in sizeonly to that of humans. In otherwords—they had, over thou-sands of years, already demon-strated they could indeed moveinto and succeed in just aboutany habitat that provided themfood.

Key to that successful move-ment back into long-abandonedhabitats was the protection ofthe ESA. In 1974 wolves inMinnesota became completelyprotected and listed as “endan-gered.” In 1978 their status waschanged to “threatened” toallow the killing of problemwolves; wolves which hadmoved into areas with farmsand ranches and were verifiedas having killed livestock.

At times, as many as 200 ofthese wolves were killed peryear by federal trappers, yet thewolf population continued togrow about 6% per year. Thereason is simple. Wolves cansustain an annual harvest ofabout 30% per year and stillincrease in numbers; it takes anannual harvest of about 50%for the population to actually

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decline. Killing such a largenumber of wolves can only bedone using methods from thepast, which no one wouldcondone today—unregulatedpoisoning and aerial shooting.

Finally, probably the bestthing that ever happened towolf recovery outside theBoundary Waters is logging.

Though wolves do just fine inpure wilderness, with the firesuppression that has occurredthe last 100 years in the Bound-

ary Waters, the forest in thewilderness had little chance toregenerate. Since the wolf’sprimary food source are ungu-lates—hooved animals such asmoose and deer—and theseanimals do best in youngforests, the wolf numbers incanoe country are actuallyrelatively small given the largesize of the area. Furthermore,they tend to live in largerpacks, with bigger territories.The territories are large be-

cause moose live at pretty lowdensities; that is, there aren’tmany around so wolves need toscour a large area to make aliving.

But in the 1970s a lowly treecalled the aspen, or popple,long considered little morethan a weed by the timberindustry, came into high de-mand. Young aspen also hap-pens to be very good winterforage for both deer and mooseand regenerates rapidly. Afterlogging, the young forests inthe Superior National Forestoutside of the BWCAW becameprime deer habitat. And withthe deer, came the wolves.

Coupled with some mildwinters, deer numbers in-creased rapidly. According toBerg, in Minnesota each wolftakes the equivalent of 18 to 20adult-sized deer per year onaverage. Based on this average,wolves kill the equivalent ofabout 40,000 deer per year,compared to deer hunters who,until 1995, took 60,000-80,000deer across the entire wolfrange. But the winters of 1995-96 and 1996-97 set records fortheir severity, and deer num-bers decreased by about half.Consequently, deer hunterstook about 25,000 deer in 1996in the Minnesota wolf range,while wolves (whose numbersremained unchanged) contin-ued to take about 40,000 deer.

When prey populationsfluctuate dramatically, predatornumbers usually follow, andwolf numbers stabilized (orslightly decreased) followingthe deer decline, albeit tempo-rarily. The winters of 1997-98through 1999-2000 were amongthe mildest on record, therebyallowing the deer and wolfpopulations to again increase.By 1999 the deer hunter har-vest had increased to 73,000deer, and the wolf scent stationindex (DNR’s annual index ofwolf population) rose to a newrecord in Minnesota.

What is truly interestingsince the crash of the deer herd

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in the late 90s is the whitetailpopulation rebounded to pre-crash numbers within fouryears, despite the fact that wolfnumbers were at an all timehigh. These results prove thepoint that it isn’t the predatorthat controls the prey popula-tion, but the other way around.Today the DNR actively en-courages hunters to take morethan one deer in many parts ofthe wolf-deer range becausedeer numbers exceed availablehabitat. In other words, bothwolves and human hunters areexperiencing abundance with-out unmanageable conflict.A Bit Of Biology

Despite tales of 150-poundwolves, the truth is a lot ofwolves in canoe country, andthe rest of the region, aren’toften any bigger than youraverage Labrador retriever.

Long legs tend to makewolves look big, but you’d behard pressed to find a femalewolf that weighs more than 80pounds and most are nearer to60. Males are larger—biologistscall this sexual dimorphism—and although they can tip thescales as high as 120 pounds,most will weigh well under100.

Grab your tape measure andrun it down the length of yourGolden Retriever. The numberyou came up with, probablysomewhere between five andsix feet from the tip of the tailto the end of the cold blacknose, is likely to be close to thelength of a wolf. At the shoul-der a wolf will measure 26 to32 inches.

Of course, it really shouldn’tcome as any surprise that themeasurements from wolves andlarge dogs are pretty close. Thewolf and the dog are actuallythe same animal. Hard tobelieve when you look at aPekinese, but even within thatlittle dog is every gene that isin the wolf. Our dogs look sodifferent from wolves becausewe have made them that wayby selectively breeding for

certain traits. However, all dogshave descended from wolves,probably wolves of Middle-Eastern descent, since that’swhere the first archeologicalremains of domestic dogs arefound. Genetic testing revealsno other source of material indogs—there are no coyotegenes, no fox genes—nothingbut wolf genes.

Unlike our dogs which comeinto heat twice a year, wolvesremain true to the prototype.

That is, their breeding cycle istimed so they give birth in thespring only, thus allowingpups the full summer and fallto achieve enough growth anddevelopment to survive theirfirst winter. That means mostbreeding takes place in Januaryor February, and following atwo-month gestation, pups areborn.

Like the animals they preyupon, winters are the hardesttime of year for wolves too, and

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mortality rates increase duringwinters. But unlike deer andmoose, who have a harder timeduring severe winters, wolvesactually do better in the canoecountry (and elsewhere in thenorth) when the snows aredeep because they can moreeasily capture prey.

Wolves are considered ma-ture at one year of age, butactually start hunting with thepack at six months. Until thattime, other pack members—notjust the parents—actively bringfood back to the pups. Oftenthis food is carried inside thewolf and regurgitated for thepups upon return. Although awolf has the potential to live aslong as any dog, a five or sixyear old wolf is actually quiteold; few in the wild live pastten. Life is tough in the woods.

What you’ve heard aboutonly the lead male and femaledoing the breeding (the Alphapair) is true. Through acts ofaggression, the “top dogs”reinforce their position so they

can have exclusive reproduc-tive rights in their pack. Ifanother wolf wants to breed, itcan challenge a leader or leaveto try to start its own pack.Both come with dangers. Alphafemales have been known tokill even their own daughterswho sought to displace them.Moving out is risky too becausefinding a mate and establishinga territory is difficult. Anencounter with a neighboringpack could lead to a quickdeath, as wolves defend theirpacks aggressively against allintruding canines.

While a pack can have as fewas two wolves, most wolf packsoutside of the canoe country(which will feed on thesmaller, more abundant white-tailed deer) tend to have four tosix individuals. Wolves in theBoundary Waters and Quetico,where moose are the mainprey, often form larger packs ofabout a dozen members.

While it has long beenthought this pack-prey size

ratio was based on the numberof animals needed to takedown the prey, it may not be assimple as that. Even when alarge pack kills a moose, theactual killing may be done byjust a few pack members. Itmay be the larger packs foundamong moose-hunting wolveshas to do with the amount offood an individual prey speciescan provide. A moose, at fourto eight times the size of a deer,can feed significantly morewolves at a time.

Wolf packs change in indi-vidual make up too. If youwere to start with a pack of tenwolves today, in ten years, it isvery likely not one of theoriginal ten wolves wouldremain, even if the pack re-mained the same size. Wolvesdie, some disperse and, insome cases, new wolves fromoutside the pack may be al-lowed in.

The notion that one old, wisewolf leads a pack for years andthat the pack social structure

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would fall apart if the alphapair were killed, simply isn’ttrue. There is always anotherwolf, waiting in the wings, toassert itself and move into aposition of dominance.Wolves And People

A few years ago a friend ofmy wife from her hometown ofMilwaukee called. Seems theywere planning a trip to north-ern Minnesota to go camping,and she was worried about thewolves eating her kids. I toldher not to worry.

That’s a fairly easy statementto make. While there have beena few rare instances in whichwolves have attacked peopleelsewhere—often in caseswhere the wolves were dis-eased, had been acclimated topeople because people hadbeen feeding them or whereprey was exceptionally low.The fact is, wolves really wantnothing to do with us.

If is safe to say that at no timeor place in the world have

more people and more wolveslived in such close proximityas they do today in northernMinnesota. While wolves dokill some livestock and dogs,they have proven to be adept atstaying away from people.There are many humanswho’ve lived their entire livesin the north country and neverseen a wolf, despite the in-creasing numbers.

Still, wolves, like bears areformidable predators deservingof respect. Visitors to the canoecountry have little to fear fromthem but should a chanceencounter occur, it is wise togive them their space. Morelikely, though, a visitor willonly be on the receiving end ofa chorus of wolf howls, asound that even in canoecountry is not common.

It may come, as it did for me,on a quiet morning on a remotelake. Perhaps instead you willhear it rise from some distantridge as you sit with friends

around a cheery campfire. Inany case, it will not be some-thing you will soon forget; longafter the bug bites and sorebacks of your canoe trip havebeen forgotten, the wildness ofthat call will linger in yoursoul.

That you heard it while inthe wilderness is also notinsignificant. While wolves inMinnesota outside the canoecountry are now flourishing,their future bright, they arethere only because of wilder-ness. Without wilderness, therewould have been no refuge forthem during the dark days ofwolf persecution. Withoutwilderness, there would havebeen no reserve of wolves toonce again pioneer back intocountry they once called home.

If wolves are not just wilder-ness dwellers any longer, it isonly because wilderness gavethem a critical refuge whilepeople developed a greatertolerance for the big predator.

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