CAMP RIPLEY, Minn. (AP) — Brian Dirks stands on a gravel road lined with dense forest, a radio antenna in his outstretched hand.
He
punches the frequency of his target into a receiver hanging from a
strap over his shoulder, aims the antenna toward an overgrown swamp and
listens, ignoring the low booms of artillery fire in the distance.
For
a few minutes, nothing. Then Dirks hears what he's been waiting for: a
faint but distinct sound that tells him the young male gray wolf is
nearby. With a couple of readings, a compass and a map, Dirks can use
simple geometry to pinpoint the wolf's exact location.
A Humvee
rumbles by, and Dirks steps to the side of the road to let it pass.
Here, working with and around the military is a way of life.
The
research began 16 years ago after gray wolves were first spotted in
Camp Ripley near Little Falls, the St. Cloud Times reports (http://on.sctimes.com/NuPQn7).
The
53,000-acre military training facility is also a wildlife refuge.
Although some areas are heavily used for troop training, much of its
vast forests, swamps and hills have little, if any, human activity.
This
is the southern edge of the range for gray wolves, which were hunted,
trapped and poisoned until fewer than 700 remained in Minnesota by the
1970s. In 1974, they were federally protected as an endangered species.
Since
then, wolves have made a steady comeback. Wolf tracks were first
discovered at Camp Ripley in 1993, and pup sightings were reported soon
after.
Federal officials wanted to know how the protected wolves
were affected by military exercises, and whether training activities
would need to be restricted. In 1996, the U.S. Department of Military
Affairs began funding the Department of Natural Resources to capture
some of the wolves, fit them with radio collars and release them so they
can be monitored and tracked.
The study has provided researchers
with valuable knowledge about the size of the packs, how far wolves
travel and how they coexist with humans.
Since the start of the
study, 41 of Camp Ripley's wolves have been captured and collared,
although few are still alive. Researchers are currently monitoring four
collared wolves.
In January, gray wolves near the western Great
Lakes were removed from the federal endangered species list. The DNR
adopted a plan to manage the wolf population in Minnesota and is working
out details for a hunting season this fall that will allow 400 wolves
to be harvested. Wolf hunting won't be allowed at Camp Ripley, but the
animals sometimes leave the camp's borders.
The recovery of gray
wolves is good news for the researchers who have spent years studying
the animals' movements. They say the focus of the Camp Ripley wolf study
might change, but its importance won't diminish.
"The program's really been successful," said Jay Brezinka, Camp Ripley's environmental supervisor.
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They nicknamed Wolf No. 18 "Lucky," because he seemed invincible.
Captured
in 2001 and fitted with a radio collar, Lucky was the alpha male of a
wolf pack living on the northern end of Camp Ripley.
He survived mange, porcupine quills and injuries that caused him to lose several toes.
His luck ran out in January 2006, when he left the camp and was killed by a car on Minnesota Highway 371.
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Throughout
the study, there consistently have been at least two wolf packs on the
camp, one in the northern part and one in the southern part near Miller
Lake, said Dirks, the DNR animal survey coordinator who oversees the
study.
The packs number six to eight wolves each. The pups tend to
stay with the pack for one to three years, then strike out on their
own, Dirks said.
The camouflaged animals can be difficult to spot
from the ground, especially in Camp Ripley's dense underbrush, so
researchers often use airplanes or helicopters to locate them from the
air.
One of the biggest surprises has been the wolves' remarkable
tolerance for humans, despite truck traffic and loud artillery fire that
frequently shakes buildings miles from the camp.
"Wolves didn't
care," said David Mech, senior research scientist with the U.S.
Geological Survey, who helped establish the program. "It was certainly
contrary to what anyone would think."
The packs often build dens
within the camp's impact areas, which are closed to humans due to the
risk of unexploded artillery shells.
"That showed just how
tolerant wolves can be if people leave them alone," Mech said. "The
point is they really don't require the wilderness that we used to think
they did. They just require to be left alone."
Having wolves on camp hasn't affected military training at all, Dirks said.
"The wolves have adapted to living on the camp really well," he said. "We're lucky if we see one."
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Wolf No. 16, known as "Sue," was captured and collared in 2001 when she was a year or two old.
In April 2002, she left Camp Ripley and headed northeast, following the shore of Lake Superior into Canada.
The following September, she was found shot to death in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
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What
researchers have learned is that once they leave Ripley's boundaries,
the wolves are much less likely to survive. Many of the monitored
animals have been shot, trapped or hit by a vehicle.
Illegal
shooting has been the biggest mortality factor, Dirks said. About half
of the dead, collared wolves recovered by researchers had been shot.
"Truth is, when they leave camp, they're moving into a much more hostile environment," he said.
Wolves
have the "problems of success," Brezinka said. Due to their recovery in
areas with higher population density, there's more likely to be
conflicts with humans.
"The wolf is an animal that you love or you hate," Brezinka said.
Hunting
of wolves won't be allowed within the camp. But researchers realize
that some of the wolves from the Ripley packs — including those with
collars — might be shot outside the camp borders.
The DNR's plan
divides the state into two management zones. In northern Minnesota,
killing a wolf will be legal if it's posing an immediate threat to pets
or livestock. In the rest of the state, the animal doesn't have to be
posing an immediate threat.
"There will be some people who will take that fairly liberally," Dirks said.
Still,
Dirks is convinced that gray wolves needed to come off the endangered
species list, and he has no doubt that the population will continue to
thrive.
He notes that wolves surpassed the state's population goal
of 1,500-1,750, and there are now an estimated 3,000 gray wolves in
Minnesota.
"That's a recovered population," Dirks said. "They're well established in the state."
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Wolf
No. 11, a female, left Camp Ripley alone in March 1998 and headed
eastward. She wore a satellite collar that allowed researchers to track
her movements beyond the camp.
To their astonishment, the wolf made it all the way to Green Bay, Wis., before eventually circling back and returning to Ripley.
Over six months, she traveled a total of 2,641 miles. It was the longest journey by a gray wolf ever documented.
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The
Camp Ripley program isn't the largest research study of gray wolves, or
even the lengthiest. Researchers have studied the wolves on Isle Royale
for more than 50 years, Mech noted.
Still, the study has provided
valuable insight into how wolves live, die and can co-exist with
humans, the scientists say. It's also confirmed the importance of large
tracts of undeveloped land as habitat for wolves, Mech said.
"Any
kind of wild areas that are large enough to sustain wolves become
reservoirs for them, and it helped establish the population in the
area," he said.
The study has generated publicity over the years,
including a National Geographic crew that filmed footage about the
wolves last year for a documentary about the Mississippi River. The
researchers occasionally have allowed the media and even school groups
to observe a capture, when they tranquilize the wolves to check their
health or replace their collars.
Still, misconceptions about the
study persist. Some people think the DNR is responsible for planting the
wolves at Camp Ripley, Dirks said, rather than just monitoring them.
However,
there have been very few complaints from nearby landowners about the
wolves killing livestock or pets. Dirks speculates that's because with
plenty of deer on the refuge, there's little need for the wolves to seek
food elsewhere.
With the de-listing of wolves comes a shift in the program, but it won't be the end of the study.
The
federal government wants to continue to monitor the progress of the
wolves' recovery and the impact of de-listing for the next five years.
Because they won't be actively hunted, the Ripley packs will serve as a
sort of control group for researchers to compare to wolves in areas
where hunting is allowed, Dirks said.
Having collared wolves will
be of value in helping researchers understand the interaction between
hunters and wolves and how easy or difficult it is to shoot one, Mech
said.
After the five years is up, the focus probably will shift to
studying another plant or animal — possibly red-shouldered hawks or
Blanding's turtles, Dirks said. Studies on black bears and fishers are
already under way.
The researchers at Camp Ripley already are looking ahead and hoping for similar success.
"It provides us another opportunity to target another species," Brezinka said.
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Information from: St. Cloud Times,
source
