Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)
Denali National Park, Alaska
Canon 7D
Canon 100-400mm lens @ 400mm
1/320 sec @ f5.6
iso 500
© Teklanika Photography 2014
“Evanescent”
August 11, 2012
Larger Wolf Packs Less Successful in Hunting Elk
courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune
by Brian Maffly
A few weeks ago Yellowstone National Park officials discovered the carcass of one of the park’s deadliest wolves, an aging male that scientists knew to be an aggressive bison hunter.
Wolf No. 495 died naturally, but his body bore bruises consistent with injuries inflicted in an encounter with large game, according to Dan MacNulty, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at Utah State University.
The wounds found on No. 495 help explain MacNulty’s latest findings that wolves’ hunting success bears little correlation to the size of the hunting party beyond four wolves. Wolves hunt in groups because taking down large hoofed animals is not only challenging but dangerous.
But if the attack party exceeds four animals, the chance of success levels off, according to research MacNulty and colleagues published this week in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
September 20 – 30, 2011
Some new shots, as well as a few older ones that I’m finally getting around to processing.
Lone Wolf Goes the Distance
courtesy of KTUU.com
by Ned Rozell
Somewhere in the rolling tundra east of Deadhorse, a lone wolf hunts. The 100-pound male will take anything it can catch, or find – a ptarmigan, a darting tundra rodent, a fish, the scraps of a carcass, or, if lucky, a moose calf or caribou. Hunger is a common companion, but the wolf somehow survived when his mate probably died of it last winter.
That event may have triggered the lone wolf’s incredible summer journey from south of the Yukon River to the crumbling shores of the Beaufort Sea. The wolf has traveled about 1,500 miles in four months, according to biologist John Burch, who works for the National Park Service.
Burch has studied wolves and the things wolves eat since the mid-1990s at Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Last November, he was part of a team that helicoptered to Copper Creek, a remote tributary of the clear-running Charley River. There, he tranquilized a healthy male wolf and fitted it with a satellite radio collar. The collar transmits GPS coordinates from the wolf every few days, which has allowed Burch to follow the wolf¹s trans-Alaska trek this summer.
Burch would have preferred that the wolf remain near Yukon-Charley, 2.5 million acres where the Yukon flows into Alaska. The wolf’s collar is expensive and would give useful information about one of a dozen wolf packs
that use the preserve as part of their home range. But the lone male is telling the biologists a different story about wolf behavior – what happens when a pack breaks up.
August 15 – 31, 2011
Wolf Recovery Leader Not Your Average Bureaucrat
courtesy of High Country News
by Ray Ring
Ed Bangs has long been a lightning rod for the controversy around the return of wolves to the U.S. Northern Rockies. Based in Helena, Mont., he led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf-recovery effort from 1988, when the region had only a few naturally occurring wolves, through the reintroduction of Canadian wolves in 1995 and ’96, until his retirement in June 2011. During those years, the number of wolves in the region increased to more than 1,700. A plethora of lawsuits, alarmist headlines and political maneuvers culminated with Congress removing most of the region’s wolves from the Endangered Species List (an action also being challenged by lawsuits) just as Bangs retired.
Throughout the wolf battles, people on all sides of the issue respected Bangs for his unusual frankness and good humor. HCN’s senior editor, Ray Ring, talked with the 60-year-old biologist on July 1 about his lifelong interest in wildlife and his reflections on wolves and human society in general.
Keystone Species: How Predators Create Abundance and Stability
courtesy of Mother Earth News
by Douglas Chadwick
Long reviled as beasts of waste and desolation, wolves — along with other keystone predators — actually bring ecological stability to the habitats in which they live.
After an absence of half a century, wolves came back to Glacier during the 1980s, trotting across the border from neighboring Canadian wildlands. Suddenly, this Rocky Mountain landscape held more carcasses of deer, elk and moose, and those of us who frequented the slopes began to discover a few scavenging grizzlies later and later into the frozen season. One valley, with prime wintering grounds for hoofed herds, hosts a big male silvertip grizzly that I’m not sure ever holes up to snooze anymore.
Wolverines, with their unsurpassed nose for leftovers, can find more meals now as well. So can wintering bald eagles and golden eagles, along with northern ravens, which often follow wolf packs on the prowl. Wildlife biologists tracking the wolves discovered them taking over fresh kills made by mountain lions. In many cases, the packs seemed to be honing in on the sight of circling ravens or the birds’ excited calls in order to find the stealthy cats and drive them off their prize. Before wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, cougars had expanded their range to include broad valley bottoms. After the wolves’ return, the cougars retreated to the steeper, more broken upland terrain they had normally hunted.
Scientists Debate ‘Magic Number’ of Wolves Needed for Species’ Survival
courtesy of The Missoulian
by Rob Chaney
One of the biggest arguments left unresolved by last year’s wolf lawsuit was the most obvious: How many wolves are enough?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the gray wolf off the endangered species list in 2009, with the caveat that at least 150 wolves and 15 breeding pairs endure in each of the three states in the northern Rocky Mountain population (Montana, Idaho and Wyoming). Recent surveys found at least 1,700 wolves in that area – more than enough to justify delisting.
But a coalition of environmental groups sued the government, claiming those numbers were wrong. To survive and thrive, they argued, the population needed at least 2,000 and preferably 5,000 wolves.
FWS biologists said they used the best available science to pick their number. Coalition members cited the well-established rules of conservation biology to justify their threshold. While the scientists dueled, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy decided the case on a technicality and Congress reversed him with a budget rider.
Wolves in the Northern Rockies are now delisted, but almost nobody’s happy.
Continue reading “Scientists Debate ‘Magic Number’ of Wolves Needed for Species’ Survival”
Rebel, Rebel
courtesy of the Missoula Independent
by Erika Fredrickson
Black Wolf Yields a Wild Hero
In the next few weeks—from May 7 through May 14—the 34th annual International Wildlife Film Festival screens 100 films that attempt to tell wildlife stories that are both entertaining and accurate. Among those, The Rise of Black Wolf is at the top, as a film that tells a good, solid story without resorting to melodrama. The Montana-made documentary, by Emmy Award-winner Bob Landis, follows almost the entire life of one wolf as he breaks from his pack and lives to be nine-and-a-half years old—one of the oldest wolves documented in Yellowstone National Park. This particular black wolf, known by scientists and wolf enthusiasts as Black Wolf, Casanova, and 302M, has been the protagonist in other Landis films, including In the Valley of the Wolves, and was monitored by the Yellowstone Wolf Project because of his unique behavior.
Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of Anti-Wolf Rider
courtesy of the Center for Biological Diversity
Challenge Says Congress Illegally Lifted Wolf Protections in Northern Rockies, Pacific Northwest
The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a challenge in federal district court in Missoula, Mont., arguing that a congressional rider requiring removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains is unlawful because it violated the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution. The rider was attached to last month’s must-pass federal budget bill by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and marked the first time an animal or plant has been removed from the endangered species list by Congress.
“The wolf rider is a clear example of overreaching by Congress that resulted in the wrongful removal of protections for wolves,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The rider is not only a disaster for wolves but for any endangered species that a politician doesn’t like. Congress has set a terrible precedent that we hope to overturn.”
Brisk Sales of Permits for Planned Idaho Wolf Hunts
courtesy of Reuters
by Laura Zuckerman
Permits for planned wolf hunts sold briskly in Idaho on Thursday, as most wolves in the Northern Rockies were officially removed from the endangered species list and conservationists sued over the unprecedented removal of protection by Congress.
The end of federal protection means that the roughly 1,200 wolves in Idaho and Montana will be managed by state wildlife agencies. The two states are seeking to kill hundreds of wolves, mostly through public hunting to begin in the fall.
Hunters were lining up in Idaho to purchase “tags” priced at $11.95 to help fill a hunting quota expected to be set at 220 of the state’s 700 wolves. Montana is likely to set the same quota for its 550 wolves.
Salazar Presents National Strategy for Wolf Recovery
courtesy of The Idaho Statesman
by Rocky Barker
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wasn’t satisfied Thursday with simply carrying out Congress’s mandate that he take gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains except for Wyoming off the endangered species list.
Salazar used the occasion to propose delisting in the Western Great Lakes and to unveil a national strategy for wolf recovery that wildlife groups have been pushing for many years. That strategy is bold and challenges the way many people have looked at the issue in the past.
The biggest change is that gray wolves that wander into 29 eastern states will no long be protected by the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s scientists determined that gray wolves, canis lupus, never really lived there.
Instead, the agency will begin a status review of the wolf they say did live there, the canis lycaon or Eastern Canadian wolf. This smaller version is similar to red wolves that have been reintroduced to the Southeast. Some scientists say this subspecies used to live in Maine, the Adirondacks and even the Catskills famous for Borscht belt comedians like Henny Youngman who might have said, “take our wolves…please!”
Wyoming Elk Researchers to Give Talk About Study
courtesy of The Ravalli Republic
by Perry Backus
Wyoming researchers looking for the cause behind declining pregnancy rates in a Yellowstone National Park elk herd will talk about their study this week in Hamilton.
Sponsored by the Ravalli County Fish and Game Association, the talk begins at 6 p.m. at the Bitterroot River Inn.
“When dealing with wildlife management, you can never have too much information,” said association president Tony Jones. “We’re hoping that some of the things they learned may transfer over to what’s happening here.”
Last winter, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks started an ambitious study in the Bitterroot Valley looking the relationship between elk and predators.
“Big game numbers here are doing the same thing that they’ve seen in Wyoming,” Jones said. “We want to get a better handle on why our big game numbers are on a fast decline … when you have wolves and lots of them, it’s easy to say they are the problem. Sometimes it’s not the wolf that’s doing the bulk of the damage.”
Montana FWP Wants Quota of 220 Wolves this Hunting Season
courtesy of KULR8.com
by The Associated Press
Montana officials are proposing to allow 220 gray wolves to be shot during the state’s second wolf hunting season this fall.
The figure is the highest proposed quota yet in the state — up from 186 in the canceled 2010 season and 75 in the inaugural wolf hunting season in 2009. The Independent Record in Helena reports Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say the new quota will result in a 25 percent reduction from the estimated 2010 population of 566 wolves in the state.
Stranded Colorado Conservationists Seek Donors For Bus Motor
courtesy of CBS 4 Denver
by Paul Day
A Colorado man who provides safe haven for unwanted wolves found himself stranded in unfamiliar territory while traveling on an educational tour in Wyoming.
“Our bus died, our motor had a catastrophic failure,” said Kent Weber, founder of Mission Wolf in a phone call with CBS4.
Weber, his wife Tracy Brooks, and three wolves were headed to the West Coast when disaster struck.
“We had to put our bus on a tow truck with the wolves in it and get towed 3 or 4 hours into Salt Lake City where we’re sitting right now,” Weber added.
Since Easter the Mission Wolf delegation has been camped out at Smith Power Products, a diesel engine repair center. They eat and sleep on the bus.
The three wolves — Magpie, Abraham and Zeab have pretty much made themselves home.
“These are unusual wolves,” Weber said. “They were born in captivity and enjoy meeting people.”
Fish & Wildlife Seeks Accounts of Eastern Wyoming Black Wolf
courtesy of trib.com
by the Associated Press
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants people to report any more sightings of a black wolf that appears to have wandered a couple hundred miles east of Yellowstone National Park.
An officer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services agency photographed the wolf Saturday not far from the Belle Ayre coal mine about 10 miles southeast of Gillette.
The wolf wore a radio collar but its gender is unknown. Mike Jimenez, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wyoming wolf recovery coordinator, said anybody who sees the wolf should call him at 307-733-7096.
Male and female wolves tend to disperse far from their home packs between 1 and 3 years of age. That’s probably what this wolf is doing, Jimenez said Wednesday.
“It’s difficult to say whether this wolf will stick around, or whether it’s dispersing, and it could be miles away a week from now and nobody ever sees it again. We don’t know,” he said.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Initiates ‘Flex’ Plan for Wolves in Wyoming
courtesy of New West
by Brodie Farquhar
Wyoming and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are exploring an idea whereby Wyoming could gain state management over wolves, retain the wolf’s dual status of trophy and predator and reduce wolf numbers outside of Yellowstone, down to 10 breeding pairs and 100 animals.
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead spoke of the plan’s details during a Tuesday press conference.
“We’re trying to get out of this stalemate,” Mead said.
The key to the plan, which was originally suggested by USFWS, is what Mead called a “flex line” adjustment to the current boundary line separating trophy wolves in and immediately around Yellowstone, and the rest of the state where wolves are regarded as predators and can be shot on sight.
Wolves to Come Off Endangered List Within 60 Days
courtesy of The Associated Press
Federal wildlife officials say they will take more than 1,300 gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list within 60 days.
An attachment to the budget bill signed into law Friday by President Barack Obama strips protections from wolves in five Western states.
It marks the first time Congress has taken a species off the endangered list.
Idaho and Montana plan public wolf hunts this fall. Hunts last year were canceled after a judge ruled the predators remained at risk.
Protections remain in place for wolves in Wyoming because of its shoot-on-sight law for the predators.
US Wolf Recovery Coordinator Ed Bangs to Retire
courtesy of The Helena Independent Record
by Eve Byron
Ed Bangs, who for 23 years led the effort to reintroduce and recover healthy wolf populations in the northern Rocky Mountains, is retiring from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June.
As the federal agency’s wolf recovery coordinator, Bangs was the face of the polarizing wolf reintroduction, conducting thousands of international, national, state and local interviews and holding hundreds of highly charged meetings, all to explain the effort as part of a massive public outreach effort. At various times, depending on the stage of the reintroduction, he was heralded as a hero while simultaneously being denounced as a wolf lover or hater, depending on people’s perspective.
Yet somehow he managed to charm many on both sides of the wolf wars, with a mix of humor tinged with a reputation for fairness.
Fish & Wildlife Service Announces Gray Wolves in the Western Great Lakes have Recovered
courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service
by the US Fish & Wildlife Service
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) today announced a proposal to remove gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes area – which includes Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin – from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife because wolves have recovered in this area and no longer require the protection of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Wolves in the Western Great Lakes area have exceeded recovery goals and continue to thrive. Wolf numbers total more than 4,000 animals in the three core recovery states. Minnesota’s population is estimated at 2,922 wolves; there are an estimated 557 wolves in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and another 690 in Wisconsin. Each state has developed a plan to manage wolves once federal protection is no longer needed.
“Wolves in the Western Great Lakes have achieved recovery,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Acting Director Rowan Gould. “We are taking this step because wolf populations have met recovery goals and no longer need the protection of the Endangered Species Act. We are asking the public to review this proposal and provide us with any additional information that can help inform our final decision.”
Congress Measure Against Wolves seen as Precedent
courtesy of The Idaho Statesman
by Matthew Brown – Associated Press
The White House is poised to accept a budget bill that includes an unprecedented end-run around Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in five Western states – the first time Congress has targeted a species protected under the 37-year-old law.
Lawmakers describe the provision in the spending bill as a necessary intervention in a wildlife dilemma that some say has spun out of control. Sixty-six wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies from Canada in the mid-1990s; there are now at least 1,650.
But legal experts warn the administration’s support of lifting protections for the animals opens the door to future meddling by lawmakers catering to anti-wildlife interests.
Minnesota Wolf-Depredation Program on Verge of Extinction
courtesy of The Duluth News Tribune
by Sam Cook
The federal program that controls wolf depredation in Minnesota is operating “day by day” in the wake of Friday’s budget agreement in the U.S. Congress. That agreement effectively eliminated funding for the USDA’s Wildlife Services program, which in Minnesota is based in Grand Rapids.
But the program has been ordered by its regional director to keep investigating wolf complaints and killing problem wolves while alternative sources of funding are sought, said John Hart, district supervisor in Grand Rapids for USDA’s Wildlife Services.
“We’ve been struggling to keep our heads above water, and this is kind of the final straw,” Hart said. “Beginning Oct. 1, with the new federal fiscal year, there will be no USDA money for wolf control.”
The Wildlife Services Program investigates wolf complaints and lethally traps or shoots wolves that have attacked livestock or pets. In 2010, Hart’s office investigated 272 wolf complaints and lethally trapped or shot 192 wolves.
Latest Studies on Yellowstone National Park’s Wolf Packs Shows Stable Population
courtesy of the National Parks Traveler
by Beth Pratt
National Parks Traveler Contributing writer Beth Pratt recently caught up with Douglas Smith, who has been studying wolves for more than 30 years and who currently leads the wolf project in Yellowstone National Park. He is the co-author of Decade of the Wolf, a book that details the historic wolf restoration in Yellowstone. The two talked about the current status of wolves in the park and their impact on elk populations.
Do you think the population has stabilized?
“To a degree, and I guess the message from this trend is “less is more.” The wolves for many years overshot the capacity of the ecosystem, and now we are seeing a balance—a balance of all parts not just wolves. When wolves weren’t in Yellowstone the system was out of whack because there were tons of elk and tons of coyotes and other things suffered as a result. Now there’s greater balance among both plant and animal species.”
“I imagine this is more what Yellowstone was like before it got changed because of European humans. From research we know when you have a full suite of carnivores, you have lower densities of the main prey species, but you also have really resplendent and luxurious vegetation. Because without predators the herbivores are mowing it all down. In the lower 48 we eradicated wolves before we knew what they did, so we have these erupting game populations that exceed what a healthy ecosystem can sustain.”
Many have been critical of the wolves for reducing the elk population and don’t see a decrease in elk as a positive development.
“It’s incredibly painful dealing with people who don’t like wolves and say they have devastated the elk herd. And it’s difficult to talk to people who just want Yellowstone to be an elk farm. Yes, with carnivores you have fewer animals to hunt. But this is the way it was in Yellowstone before we interfered and we need to know what it was really like and be honest about it. I’m not saying I am in favor of predators being everywhere, but what’s happening here is a system being restored to balance.”
“When we start killing predators because we want more animals to hunt, it becomes agriculture. It’s like spraying weeds. Is that what we want the forests and the landscapes of the West to be, a big farming operation? An author I read recently said when wolves go, wilderness goes and I agree. I don’t want the world to be so highly manipulated that we have no place where wild nature can just be.”
“I hunted elk for four days this year and I didn’t get one and I am not disappointed. So I had four great days in the wilderness hunting and I did not take a shot. And I will do it again next year and if I don’t get one I am okay with that. I don’t live on elk. It’s a recreational pursuit. I don’t need to kill an elk to feed my family and I would say there are very few people who do.”
‘Wolfer’ Author to Discuss Hunting Predators, Appreciation for Reintroduction
courtesy of The Missoulian
by Perry Backus
Carter Niemeyer didn’t set out to become an expert on wolves. For the first 26 years of his career, the author of “Wolfer, A Memoir” was the man behind the gun who killed predators that threatened livestock.
This week, Niemeyer will tell that part of his story in appearances around Missoula. He’ll also let people know how he learned to appreciate the need to bring wolves back to the American West.
Right out of college, Niemeyer moved to Montana from his home state of Iowa and used trapping skills perfected from childhood to kill coyotes, foxes and black bears as a government trapper for a little-known agency called Animal Damage Control. When wolves began crossing from Canada into Montana and ranchers started complaining about predation of sheep and cattle, Niemeyer was called upon to investigate livestock deaths. A nonprofit group called Defenders of Wildlife compensated livestock owners for animals that officials like Niemeyer confirmed were killed by wolves. Livestock producers wouldn’t be paid without confirmation. The results of the investigations were often the difference between life and death for wolves. That conflict often led to face-to-face confrontations with people on both sides of the wolf issue.
Niemeyer was not a rubber-stamp kind of guy. His detailed forensic investigations with their meticulous scientific notes and refusal to back down from furious landowners and environmentalists caught the attention of officials preparing to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Niemeyer became part of the team that captured the Canadian wolves that became the nucleus of the packs that roam the Northern Rockies today. Along the way, he gained respect and understanding about the predator and the polarizing effect it had on the human population. Niemeyer saw there were two sides to this story and his search for the middle ground cost him friends and respect with Animal Damage Control officials (now called Wildlife Services).
He left the agency in 2000 for a job overseeing wolf recovery in Idaho for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By the time he retired in 2006, Neimeyer had handled more than 300 wolves. “Not once did any of us ever have a close call,” he said Monday from his Boise, Idaho, home. “We weren’t stalked. We weren’t chased. There were no problems at all.”
