Smith: Voyageurs Wolf Project a beacon of facts on controversial species

Wolves arguably evoke the greatest range of emotions among humans of any wildlife species.

Awe. Fear. Respect. Hate.

You can find it all in just a few conversations in a Wisconsin watering hole. Or in an instant by scrolling social media.

Some of it has been around for hundreds of years and is even found in children's stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood."

Concern over the impact of gray wolves on human endeavors led to attempts to kill off the species in Wisconsin and other states. Wisconsin rules allowed gray wolves to be shot or poisoned year-round and provided a bounty for dead wolves into the 1950s.

By the 1960s wolves persisted in the Lower 48 only in northern Minnesota. But with protections, including the 1973 federal Endangered Species Act, the Minnesota wolves increased in number, dispersed and reoccupied parts of historical wolf range in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Wolves have done well for the most part in recent decades, even surprising many wildlife biologists by living in some areas previously considered marginal for or unsuited to the species.

Wisconsin now has about 1,000 wolves, according to a 2023 report from the Department of Natural Resources (a 2024 update is expected in the coming weeks).

Social science surveys in 2014 and 2023 showed good acceptance for wolves among Wisconsinites, including in wolf range and outside of it.

However such support is far from unanimous and management of the species remains controversial. Further, it's a frequent focus of litigation. One such lawsuit, filed in federal district court, resulted in the wolf in 2022 being placed under protections of the ESA in Wisconsin, Michigan and most other states.

That's where it remains in late summer 2024, meaning only non-lethal measures can be used to manage the species.

The battle over wolves isn't restricted to the courts. Debates over the species are constant in the public domaine, often sullied by misinformation.

That's not likely to stop.

But in the interest of adding science and facts to the discussion, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the Voyageurs Wolf Project . The project, led by Thomas Gable, has been collecting data and conducting research on wolves in northern Minnesota since 2015.

In my opinion it's the best source of contemporary wolf research and information in the nation. And it does more than produce data; it has highly-effective outreach and education components.

I recently spoke to Gable, who holds a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, about the project and some of its leading findings. The work takes place in a 902-square-mile study area spanning a portion of Voyageurs National Park as well as private property, timber company lands, national forest and state forest.

It relies heavily on tracking GPS-collared wolves to study their behaviors, including what animals they kill and eat, where and how long they live, what they die from, how many pups they have and how many young survive.

The project also obtains information from trail cams placed throughout the study area.

Most of the project's funding comes from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and about 6,000 private donors.

This summer nine people worked on the project. Their efforts included going to wolf dens, counting, weighing and microchipping the pups as well as traveling to and analyzing wolf kill sites and dead wolves.

A winter field season will begin later this year.

I asked Gable to present wolf facts and address misinformation often heard in the Upper Midwest. Here are excerpts from our conversation:

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 mapped the home ranges of the wolf packs in its study area. The map provides a visual lesson to a key wolf fact: packs live in home ranges and don't often overlap. This behavior not only helps avoid conflicts with other wolves but limits their population.

"The density of wolves can fluctuate according to how much food is available, yes," Gable said. "But in our work it has stayed in a range that has kept the population relatively stable."

Gable said in an area where wolves were recolonizing, similar to what occurred in Wisconsin from the 1970s to the 2010s, the wolf population is likely to show increases until it had filled the habitat. From there it would be more stable.

Many wildlife biologists have said in recent years the Wisconsin wolf population appears to be leveling off and may be reaching biological carrying capacity.

"Wolves are like any other animal - they are limited by the amount of food available," Gable said. "The idea they will increase continuously in number doesn't hold water."

Wolves don't do as well in mild winters

The winter of 2023-24 was the mildest on record in Wisconsin, according to the DNR's winter severity index. It was also mild in northern Minnesota, Gable said.

"When it's mild and there's not much snow, it benefits deer and disadvantages wolves," Gable said. "Data is still coming in, but this year it looks like the number of wolf pups produced is going to be low."

Wolves should be in peak condition coming out of winter. But this spring most adult wolves handled by VWP were "very lean," Gable said.

"We feel the spine and pelvis for every wolf we catch and rate its fat reserves on a 1 to 5 scale," Gable said. "Most were not in great condition, they were definitely lean coming out of what should be their best time of the year."

Wolf populations are quite resilient

Gable said some people think wolf populations are fragile. However the species has shown great resiliency even when subjected to relatively high levels of mortality.

"We know wolves they can sustain substantial levels of human-caused mortality," Gable said. "Things happen in the population and they respond by increased pup production."

Gable said a Montana Fish and Wildlife Department report estimated a wolf population could sustain 27% human-caused mortality before the population would decline. His work with the VWP places it at about 25%.

"That's not an argument for them to be killed but a statement about their resiliency," Gable said. "The ultimate driver of the number of wolves on the landscape is the amount of prey or food available."

Wolves take advantage of human-placed food, including bear bait

Gable described wolves as "generalist carnivores" that prey mostly on deer, beaver and other animals but will readily eat human-placed food.

In late summer in the VWP study area that includes bait placed by bear hunters. The bait often includes old nuts, dried fruits, donuts, cookies and bread.

"Not exactly the kind of food wolves generally eat," Gable said. "And I don't know how much value they get from it. But desperate times call for desperate measures."

Gable said late summer and early fall are tough times for wolves because prey availability is at its lowest in the annual cycle. Their primary food source, deer, are in their best physical condition and most difficult for wolves to kill.

Most wolves at this time are quite thin, losing body mass and looking for anything to slow starvation and prevent weight loss. They spend a lot of time scavenging this time of year for whatever they can find to stay alive, Gable said. It's a primary reason bear hunters often see wolves on trail cams placed at bait sites in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Deer hunters and wolves do better together

A leading debate in the Upper Midwest pertains to the impact of wolves on deer populations and deer hunting. Gable said it's often stated wolves are "decimating" the deer population in Minnesota and that wolves should be killed to resolve the issue.

The Voyageurs Wolf Project examined data collected by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources from 2012 to 2022 regarding deer hunting, including the number of deer hunters and deer harvested, in northeastern Minnesota. The researchers compared deer hunter success with data from Minnesota's three most recent wolf hunting and trapping seasons (2012-14) to see whether killing wolves had any noticeable impact on deer hunter success, and data on wolf and deer populations based on data VWP collected in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem since 2015 to assess whether 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.

Lone wolves account for 15 to 20% of the population

Most wolves live in packs but some are also known as "lone wolves." They could be younger wolves dispersing and looking for a new territory or older, displaced wolves, for example.

Previous research in Minnesota estimated 15% of that state's wolf population was lone wolves. But recent work by the VWP in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem found 19.6% of the population was made up of lone wolves, Gable said.

Most wolf pups don't make it

The life of a wolf pup comes with long odds. Gable said 70% of wolf pups in the VWP haven't lived to be 1 year old.

In 2022-23 the study found an average of 1.7 pups per pack made it; but 18% of the packs didn't produce a pup.

Wolves live in territories of about 60 square miles

Gable said while dispersing wolves have been documented to travel hundreds of miles, most wolves live in a home range that is much smaller. In 2023, packs in the VWP study had an average home range of 60 square miles; the smallest was 53, the largest was 76.

For more information on the Voyageurs Wolf Project, visit its website at www.voyageurswolfproject.org or its Facebook page .

Great Lakes Wolf Symposium

Wolf researchers, wildlife managers and the public will gather Oct. 15 to 17 for the Great Lakes Wolf Symposium in Ashland.

The event will include presentations and displays on wolf ecology, management, conservation, education and policy. It will feature a keynote address by David Mech, senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and considered by many as the foremost wolf researcher in North America. Mech is also founder and vice chair of the International Wolf Center and the advisor for wolves to the International Union for the Conservation of Species.

The symposium will be hosted by the Timber Wolf Alliance and held at Ashland College in Ashland. For more information, visit www.northland.edu .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Smith: Voyageurs Wolf Project a beacon of facts on controversial species