Thursday, February 28, 2013
A Video from the Endangered Wolf Center
The howl of one of the most endangered wolves in the world, the Mexican
gray wolf. This beautiful song once filled the air throughout the
Southwest United States and down into Mexico. Today, only about 75
Mexican gray wolves can be found in the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona.
This critically endangered species needs your help.
To learn more visit endangeredwolfcenter.org. You can see more videos and photos on our Endangered Wolf Center Facebook page, and we hope you will 'like' us while you are there.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
The Hidden Lives of Wolves
February 26, 2013
From 1990 to 1996, Jim and Jamie Dutcher lived in a tented camp on the edge of Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness, where they observed and studied the behavior and social hierarchy of a pack of gray wolves, known as the Sawtooth Pack. Their new book, “The Hidden Life of Wolves documents that experience.
Accompanied by Jim Dutcher’s photography, the book strives to dispel the myth of wolves as violent creatures and introduces a new perception: wolves as social animals.
Earlier this month, Hari Sreenivasan caught up with the Dutchers and talked to them about their adventure living with the wolves, their unprecedented access to the animals and their efforts to bring awareness to wolf hunting. Watch the conversation in the video below.
And watch more in this video on the Dutchers by National Geographic.
For more on the story of the gray wolf, Miles O’Brien reported on the debate over wolf hunting in Montana in September 2011 after gray wolves were removed from the endangered species list. He interviewed cattle ranchers, hunters, conservationists and scientists about the animal. You can watch that here:
Watch Cowboys vs. Gray Wolves: Predator Once Again Prey on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
Catching Wyoming wolves: Hard even on a good day
Wyoming
Game and Fish Department personnel fit chemically immobilized wolves
with radio collars outside of Jackson. From left to right: Mike Boyce,
large carnivore biologist; Bill Long, Jackson game warden, and Mark
Bruscino, large carnivore section supervisor.
JACKSON -- The helicopter maneuvered through trees before settling on hip-deep snow in a small meadow.
Biologists Ken Mills and Bob Trebelcock jumped out, sank into the snow and started their trudge straight up the hill. They had to move fast.
A wolf had been darted and possibly tranquilized. Before it knocked out, it ran into the woods. It would be their job to find it.
Splitting up, wearing orange flight suits and carrying wolf collaring kits, Mills ran one direction and Trebelcock the other. They’d need to first locate tracks in the fresh snow and then follow them.
The situation wasn’t ideal. Most captures are in open meadows. But, catching and monitoring wolves isn’t easy, especially the last wary few.
Even on the best of days it requires a helicopter, crew and fixed-wing airplane. Then packs need to be in the open. If one of the wolves in a pack has a collar, biologists can usually find the group. If not, it’s like looking for needles in a haystack.
If they found the wolf, it would be one of the final captures of the first season the Wyoming Game and Fish Department managed wolves. The agency can now monitor more than a quarter of wolves in Wyoming with radio collars. Officials say the data is critical as agencies and the public adjust to the first species in Wyoming to lose federal protection and then be hunted.
Monitoring after the feds
Until Sept. 30, Wyoming never really managed wolves. Wolves were essentially killed to extinction in the state by the early 1900s, and when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service brought them back in 1995, the agency assumed complete management control.
In September, after years of lawsuits, plans and meetings, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced delisting in Wyoming. More than a dozen groups have sued either on their own or together, though none sought an injunction to stop last fall's hunting season, and Wyoming biologists have continued monitoring wolves.
The delisting agreement requires Wyoming to keep 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside of Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation. It expects Yellowstone and the reservation will keep about 50 wolves and five breeding pairs.
But now, instead of all wolves falling under one agency, wolves in Wyoming alone face five managers: Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the National Elk Refuge, the Wind River Reservation and the Game and Fish Department.
Each agency has its own goals and guidelines.
Grand Teton National Park, for example, monitors wolves for movement, food choice, distribution and reproduction, said Jackie Skaggs, spokeswoman for the park.
The National Elk Refuge is working on similar studies and also how their presence on the refuge affects elk behavior, according refuge biologist Eric Cole.
Game and Fish Department biologists are focused mostly on monitoring for numbers to ensure they meet the delisting requirements.
“That’s our primary focus in the short term, and we will have to do that each and every year,” said Mark Bruscino, Game and Fish’s large carnivore section supervisor.
“But radio collars also give us data on movement, habitat use, den site selection, are useful in resolving conflicts with wolves.”
In January 2012, officials estimated about 192 wolves lived in northwest Wyoming in the trophy game areas. The goal before hunting season was to end 2012 with about 170 wolves and 15 breeding pairs in that area. Preliminary data shows numbers will be close, and final estimates will be out by April -- in time to plan 2013’s hunting season.
To catch a wolf
Out of Wyoming’s 30 to 35 documented packs, the Pacific Creek Pack near Jackson has proved one of the most elusive. With 13 members, it’s large and smart, said Ken Mills, large-carnivore biologist with the Game and Fish Department.
The department captures most of its wolves with a net gun. A “mugger,” as they’re called, shoots a net over a wolf from a helicopter, jumps out, pins the wolf’s neck to the ground, puts a collar on it and takes samples. The wolves are never tranquilized and the procedure takes about 10 minutes. It’s more efficient than darting a wolf, transporting it to a handling station and then flying it back into the woods. But it’s also more expensive.
A wolf in the Pacific Creek Pack rolled out of its net in January and ran away. Biologists tried several more times with tranquilizer darts only to come up empty.
Montana and Idaho, now three years into managing their wolves, are developing systems for monitoring that don’t involve collars. Wyoming may go that direction one day, but for now, biologists view radio collars, which give precise locations, as the best option, Mills said.
“The stakes are so high for us to be absolutely sure we have an accurate count,” he said.
Very high frequency, or VHF collars, last about four years, and the collar and process by air cost about $2,500 per wolf, Mills said.
Collaring amounts to about a third of the state’s $300,000 yearly wolf management budget. Much of the rest goes to livestock damage payments and has never been entirely used.
Without collars, biologists must find wolves by flying over thousands of acres of mountainside scanning for the animals, finding tracks on the ground or following reports from people.
Even with collars, biologists still sometimes find themselves looking for tracks.
Mills and fellow large-carnivore biologist Bob Trebelcock followed paw prints through deep snow in mid-February. An uncollared wolf had joined with a collared wolf from another pack, likely to mate and start a pack of its own. A fixed-wing airplane found the signal from the collared wolf, then called in the helicopter to dart the one without a collar.
The wolves’ tracks wove through the trees, first together and then separate. Mills followed them for nearly an hour before deciding the dart had either not injected the anesthesia or the anesthesia simply did not affect the wolf.
The airplane found the wolves more than five miles away. Both were on the move through heavy trees.
Mills and Trebelcock returned to the helicopter and flew back to their trucks to regroup while the plane left to find other wolves. Some of the more elusive wolves may have to wait until next year for collars.
source
Biologists Ken Mills and Bob Trebelcock jumped out, sank into the snow and started their trudge straight up the hill. They had to move fast.
A wolf had been darted and possibly tranquilized. Before it knocked out, it ran into the woods. It would be their job to find it.
Splitting up, wearing orange flight suits and carrying wolf collaring kits, Mills ran one direction and Trebelcock the other. They’d need to first locate tracks in the fresh snow and then follow them.
The situation wasn’t ideal. Most captures are in open meadows. But, catching and monitoring wolves isn’t easy, especially the last wary few.
Even on the best of days it requires a helicopter, crew and fixed-wing airplane. Then packs need to be in the open. If one of the wolves in a pack has a collar, biologists can usually find the group. If not, it’s like looking for needles in a haystack.
If they found the wolf, it would be one of the final captures of the first season the Wyoming Game and Fish Department managed wolves. The agency can now monitor more than a quarter of wolves in Wyoming with radio collars. Officials say the data is critical as agencies and the public adjust to the first species in Wyoming to lose federal protection and then be hunted.
Monitoring after the feds
Until Sept. 30, Wyoming never really managed wolves. Wolves were essentially killed to extinction in the state by the early 1900s, and when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service brought them back in 1995, the agency assumed complete management control.
In September, after years of lawsuits, plans and meetings, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced delisting in Wyoming. More than a dozen groups have sued either on their own or together, though none sought an injunction to stop last fall's hunting season, and Wyoming biologists have continued monitoring wolves.
The delisting agreement requires Wyoming to keep 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside of Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation. It expects Yellowstone and the reservation will keep about 50 wolves and five breeding pairs.
But now, instead of all wolves falling under one agency, wolves in Wyoming alone face five managers: Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the National Elk Refuge, the Wind River Reservation and the Game and Fish Department.
Each agency has its own goals and guidelines.
Grand Teton National Park, for example, monitors wolves for movement, food choice, distribution and reproduction, said Jackie Skaggs, spokeswoman for the park.
The National Elk Refuge is working on similar studies and also how their presence on the refuge affects elk behavior, according refuge biologist Eric Cole.
Game and Fish Department biologists are focused mostly on monitoring for numbers to ensure they meet the delisting requirements.
“That’s our primary focus in the short term, and we will have to do that each and every year,” said Mark Bruscino, Game and Fish’s large carnivore section supervisor.
“But radio collars also give us data on movement, habitat use, den site selection, are useful in resolving conflicts with wolves.”
In January 2012, officials estimated about 192 wolves lived in northwest Wyoming in the trophy game areas. The goal before hunting season was to end 2012 with about 170 wolves and 15 breeding pairs in that area. Preliminary data shows numbers will be close, and final estimates will be out by April -- in time to plan 2013’s hunting season.
To catch a wolf
Out of Wyoming’s 30 to 35 documented packs, the Pacific Creek Pack near Jackson has proved one of the most elusive. With 13 members, it’s large and smart, said Ken Mills, large-carnivore biologist with the Game and Fish Department.
The department captures most of its wolves with a net gun. A “mugger,” as they’re called, shoots a net over a wolf from a helicopter, jumps out, pins the wolf’s neck to the ground, puts a collar on it and takes samples. The wolves are never tranquilized and the procedure takes about 10 minutes. It’s more efficient than darting a wolf, transporting it to a handling station and then flying it back into the woods. But it’s also more expensive.
A wolf in the Pacific Creek Pack rolled out of its net in January and ran away. Biologists tried several more times with tranquilizer darts only to come up empty.
Montana and Idaho, now three years into managing their wolves, are developing systems for monitoring that don’t involve collars. Wyoming may go that direction one day, but for now, biologists view radio collars, which give precise locations, as the best option, Mills said.
“The stakes are so high for us to be absolutely sure we have an accurate count,” he said.
Very high frequency, or VHF collars, last about four years, and the collar and process by air cost about $2,500 per wolf, Mills said.
Collaring amounts to about a third of the state’s $300,000 yearly wolf management budget. Much of the rest goes to livestock damage payments and has never been entirely used.
Without collars, biologists must find wolves by flying over thousands of acres of mountainside scanning for the animals, finding tracks on the ground or following reports from people.
Even with collars, biologists still sometimes find themselves looking for tracks.
Mills and fellow large-carnivore biologist Bob Trebelcock followed paw prints through deep snow in mid-February. An uncollared wolf had joined with a collared wolf from another pack, likely to mate and start a pack of its own. A fixed-wing airplane found the signal from the collared wolf, then called in the helicopter to dart the one without a collar.
The wolves’ tracks wove through the trees, first together and then separate. Mills followed them for nearly an hour before deciding the dart had either not injected the anesthesia or the anesthesia simply did not affect the wolf.
The airplane found the wolves more than five miles away. Both were on the move through heavy trees.
Mills and Trebelcock returned to the helicopter and flew back to their trucks to regroup while the plane left to find other wolves. Some of the more elusive wolves may have to wait until next year for collars.
source
Idiots in Idaho Sacrifice their Dogs to Wolves while hunting Mountain Lions
I can't even bring myself to copy/paste this article; this has to be some of the most stupid things hunters can ever do: to hunt mountain lions and to take their dogs hunting in wolf territory. You know, if they had been hunting wolves and a mountain lion had killed their dogs, hardly a word would be printed. Oh no. Let's blame the wolves--those bad bad wolves who must be hunted to near extinction once more.
I'm so disgusted at these Idahoan hunters that I cannot continue without using terrible language, so I'll stop here. You read the article and tell me how wrong I am.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/lion-hunting-party-witnesses-wolf-kill-dog-east-of-hamilton/article_c63a728e-807b-11e2-b52b-0019bb2963f4.html
I'm so disgusted at these Idahoan hunters that I cannot continue without using terrible language, so I'll stop here. You read the article and tell me how wrong I am.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/lion-hunting-party-witnesses-wolf-kill-dog-east-of-hamilton/article_c63a728e-807b-11e2-b52b-0019bb2963f4.html
BC torturing wolves to protect cattle on crown land
February 26th 2013
source
by Raincoast
Wolves
on public land in the Kootenay’s are the target for the Province’s neck
snares; a cruel and unethical way for wolves to suffer and die. Photo:
Brad Hill
BC Provincial Government is literally torturing wolves on public land
Brad Hill, a wildlife photographer and biologist from the Columbia Valley, has discovered that the BC provincial government has placed wolf neck snares on crown land near his home. Hill has located 18 snares centered near a bait pile of road-killed elk and mule deer, designed to draw wolves into the area. Hill has learned that the neck snares targeting wolves have been placed by provincial conservation officers at the behest of a privately held ranching operation that runs cattle on this particular crown land. Hill has also posted an online petition opposing the snaring of wolves – you can sign it here.source
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Wolf population doubled in Washington over past year
February 25, 2013
Despite the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
shooting of seven wolves last summer because they were killing cattle,
the state’s population is burgeoning, a new survey shows.
The number of confirmed gray wolves and wolf packs in the state nearly doubled during the past year, according to the survey, which based on field reports and aerial monitoring in 2012 found at least 51 wolves in nine packs, with five successful breeding pairs.
The previous year’s survey confirmed 27 wolves, nine wolf packs and three breeding pairs.
“We have remarkable growth of wolves in Washington,” said Donny Martorello, carnivore section manager for the Department of Fish & Wildlife, which conducted the survey. “This is what you see when a colonizing population is finding suitable habitat and really taking off.”
It is possible the number of wolves in Washington is even greater than could be confirmed in the survey, with easily more than 100 wolves actually in the state, he added.
There are nine confirmed packs in Washington, and two suspected packs, as well as two packs that are largely out of state but overlap into Washington. They are the Hozomeen, in the North Cascades over the Canadian border, and the Walla Walla Pack, in Oregon.
There are no confirmed packs west of the Cascades — yet. “It will happen, Martorello said. “The Cascades are not a barrier to them.” Wolves dispersing to new territory will easily travel 300 to 600 miles, and they readily cross highways and swim rivers.
The wolves’ success in Washington is the result of successful recovery of the animals in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho under way since the 1990s, Martorello said. Descendants of those animals are now dispersing to Washington.
Wolves are just completing their breeding season now, and will soon head to natal dens. Pups born in April will be full size by December.
The densest concentration of wolves in Washington is actually in the sparsely populated northeast corner of the state, home to the Wedge Pack, seven members of which were killed by wildlife officers last year. In its survey, the department found two remaining members of that pack.
The gray wolf is listed as a state endangered species throughout Washington and is protected under the federal Endangered Species Act west of Highway 97.
Meanwhile on the Colville Indian Reservation, Chairman John Sirois said contractors working for the tribe had recently net-gunned a more than 130-pound male wolf. The animal was tagged and released.
The tribe has been monitoring wolf populations on its reservation of more than 2,000 square miles since 2007, using everything from DNA analysis of scat to winter snow-track surveys to remote cameras. Four captured wolves have been fitted with tracking collars and released.
The tribe has two packs, the Strawberry Pack, and Nc’icn Pack, named for the Colville word for wolf, on its reservation.
The tribe opened a hunting season on wolves this winter that concludes Friday. So far, no wolves have been taken. The next season may be in August, said Randy Friedlander, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation and wildlife division manager of the tribe’s Department of Fish & Wildlife.
So far, he’s heard of only one hunter even seeing a wolf. “They are pretty tricky, pretty wise,” Friedlander said. But he must have some kind of special wolf mojo. “I can’t get away from them,” Friedlander said. “Every time I go out in the woods I see tracks or hear them.”
The tribe initiated its hunting season in part to maintain robust elk and deer populations.
“We caught quite a bit of grief this year because we had a season,” Friedlander said. “I don’t know what they would say if they knew we ate a lot of deer and elk. For us it is about trying to strike that balance.”
Gray wolves were nearly wiped out in Washington by poisoning and trapping. Once common throughout most of Washington, wolves were functionally extirpated by the 1930s. Sightings picked up again in 2005.
source
Despite the shooting of one of Washington’s
wolf packs last year by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, wolf
numbers have doubled in Washington this year over last.
Seattle Times staff reporter
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
Pups from the Diamond Pack in Pend Oreille County in July 2009.
The number of confirmed gray wolves and wolf packs in the state nearly doubled during the past year, according to the survey, which based on field reports and aerial monitoring in 2012 found at least 51 wolves in nine packs, with five successful breeding pairs.
The previous year’s survey confirmed 27 wolves, nine wolf packs and three breeding pairs.
“We have remarkable growth of wolves in Washington,” said Donny Martorello, carnivore section manager for the Department of Fish & Wildlife, which conducted the survey. “This is what you see when a colonizing population is finding suitable habitat and really taking off.”
It is possible the number of wolves in Washington is even greater than could be confirmed in the survey, with easily more than 100 wolves actually in the state, he added.
There are nine confirmed packs in Washington, and two suspected packs, as well as two packs that are largely out of state but overlap into Washington. They are the Hozomeen, in the North Cascades over the Canadian border, and the Walla Walla Pack, in Oregon.
There are no confirmed packs west of the Cascades — yet. “It will happen, Martorello said. “The Cascades are not a barrier to them.” Wolves dispersing to new territory will easily travel 300 to 600 miles, and they readily cross highways and swim rivers.
The wolves’ success in Washington is the result of successful recovery of the animals in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho under way since the 1990s, Martorello said. Descendants of those animals are now dispersing to Washington.
Wolves are just completing their breeding season now, and will soon head to natal dens. Pups born in April will be full size by December.
The densest concentration of wolves in Washington is actually in the sparsely populated northeast corner of the state, home to the Wedge Pack, seven members of which were killed by wildlife officers last year. In its survey, the department found two remaining members of that pack.
The gray wolf is listed as a state endangered species throughout Washington and is protected under the federal Endangered Species Act west of Highway 97.
Meanwhile on the Colville Indian Reservation, Chairman John Sirois said contractors working for the tribe had recently net-gunned a more than 130-pound male wolf. The animal was tagged and released.
The tribe has been monitoring wolf populations on its reservation of more than 2,000 square miles since 2007, using everything from DNA analysis of scat to winter snow-track surveys to remote cameras. Four captured wolves have been fitted with tracking collars and released.
The tribe has two packs, the Strawberry Pack, and Nc’icn Pack, named for the Colville word for wolf, on its reservation.
The tribe opened a hunting season on wolves this winter that concludes Friday. So far, no wolves have been taken. The next season may be in August, said Randy Friedlander, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation and wildlife division manager of the tribe’s Department of Fish & Wildlife.
So far, he’s heard of only one hunter even seeing a wolf. “They are pretty tricky, pretty wise,” Friedlander said. But he must have some kind of special wolf mojo. “I can’t get away from them,” Friedlander said. “Every time I go out in the woods I see tracks or hear them.”
The tribe initiated its hunting season in part to maintain robust elk and deer populations.
“We caught quite a bit of grief this year because we had a season,” Friedlander said. “I don’t know what they would say if they knew we ate a lot of deer and elk. For us it is about trying to strike that balance.”
Gray wolves were nearly wiped out in Washington by poisoning and trapping. Once common throughout most of Washington, wolves were functionally extirpated by the 1930s. Sightings picked up again in 2005.
source
Wolves have strong family values
Wolves have a bad reputation. They’re
the villain in fairy tales, and not everyone is happy that the number
of wolves in the wild is growing in the Western United States.
Many people see a group of wolves as a threatening mob, but Jim and Jamie Dutcher, who lived with a pack of wolves in Idaho between 1991 and 1996, know better. They see a group of wolves as a close family, they explained in an interview.
Consider the relationship between Lakota, the wolf who ranked lowest in the Idaho pack, and Matsi, the second-highest-ranking wolf. Lakota and Matsi are brothers, and when other wolves would pick on Lakota, Matsi would come to his defense.
“Matsi really kept a special eye on Lakota,” explained Jamie, who wrote the new book, “The Hidden Life of Wolves,” with Jim, her husband.
The Dutchers, who are photographers and who make movies based on real events (documentaries), received permission from government officials to keep 11 wolves in a 25-acre camp, the largest such enclosure in the world. They raised the pups by hand, establishing a relationship with them that allowed them to see how wolves live.
Many people see a group of wolves as a threatening mob, but Jim and Jamie Dutcher, who lived with a pack of wolves in Idaho between 1991 and 1996, know better. They see a group of wolves as a close family, they explained in an interview.
Consider the relationship between Lakota, the wolf who ranked lowest in the Idaho pack, and Matsi, the second-highest-ranking wolf. Lakota and Matsi are brothers, and when other wolves would pick on Lakota, Matsi would come to his defense.
“Matsi really kept a special eye on Lakota,” explained Jamie, who wrote the new book, “The Hidden Life of Wolves,” with Jim, her husband.
The Dutchers, who are photographers and who make movies based on real events (documentaries), received permission from government officials to keep 11 wolves in a 25-acre camp, the largest such enclosure in the world. They raised the pups by hand, establishing a relationship with them that allowed them to see how wolves live.
The
Dutchers waited for the wolves to come to them each morning, after
which the animals would sprint away in different directions.
At one point during their time with the wolves, a mountain lion killed a female wolf named Motaki. The wolves stopped playing for six weeks as they mourned her loss.
“They moped around. They were visibly upset,” Jim said.
Wolves used to be common in the Western United States. But as people moved west, their actions brought wolves close to extinction. By 1973, only a few hundred gray wolves were left in the continental United States (the 48 states not including Alaska and Hawaii). Wolves were listed as endangered.
Since then, wolves have rebounded. There are about 6,000 in the continental United States and another 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska. Only two small wolf groups — Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, and red wolves in North Carolina — are still endangered.
But that doesn’t mean wolves are safe. The Dutchers, who gave their wolves to the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, now spend much of their time working to protect wolves through their group Living With Wolves. Some ranchers and farmers worry because wolves attack their livestock, and some people like to hunt wolves for sport; at least 1,500 wolves have been killed in the past two years.
At one point during their time with the wolves, a mountain lion killed a female wolf named Motaki. The wolves stopped playing for six weeks as they mourned her loss.
“They moped around. They were visibly upset,” Jim said.
Wolves used to be common in the Western United States. But as people moved west, their actions brought wolves close to extinction. By 1973, only a few hundred gray wolves were left in the continental United States (the 48 states not including Alaska and Hawaii). Wolves were listed as endangered.
Since then, wolves have rebounded. There are about 6,000 in the continental United States and another 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska. Only two small wolf groups — Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, and red wolves in North Carolina — are still endangered.
But that doesn’t mean wolves are safe. The Dutchers, who gave their wolves to the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, now spend much of their time working to protect wolves through their group Living With Wolves. Some ranchers and farmers worry because wolves attack their livestock, and some people like to hunt wolves for sport; at least 1,500 wolves have been killed in the past two years.
“A lot of adults, you can’t change their minds,” Jamie said. “But children really are open-minded, and they can go further in changing their parents’ minds.”
source
Are Red Wolves Worth the Trouble?
Only 100 live in the wild, and rising seas are lapping up their land.
A red wolf
Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
After spending three years working on a book about imperiled red wolves, I was talking with a colleague who asked me: "So, is the red wolf completely screwed?" She lowered her voice and continued in the hushed tone one reserves for discussing the dying. "Should we just, you know, let them go?"
Red wolves are what you might call, in polite conversation,
conservationally challenged. They were among the first batch of species
listed under the Endangered Species Act when it was minted in 1973, and
they were on even earlier lists predating the ESA. They've been
endangered ever since.
Red wolves exist in only one place in the wild: on the Albemarle
Peninsula of North Carolina. They were released there starting 25 years
ago as part of the red wolf recovery program,
which is managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The peninsula
is surrounded on three sides by sounds.
The low-lying coastal plain is slowly sinking while sea level is rising. In the next century, up to a third of the red wolf's recovery area might be reclaimed by the ocean. Endangered red wolves will have nowhere left to run. Has the recovery program come this far only to be thwarted by climate change?
The low-lying coastal plain is slowly sinking while sea level is rising. In the next century, up to a third of the red wolf's recovery area might be reclaimed by the ocean. Endangered red wolves will have nowhere left to run. Has the recovery program come this far only to be thwarted by climate change?
If you're not sure what a red wolf is, don't worry, you're not alone.
Many people are unaware there are two species of wolves in the United
States: the gray wolf and the red wolf. (On this point, don't rely on
Wikipedia—while the site lists red wolves as a subspecies of gray wolf,
few experts agree. It is widely referred to as its own species, Canis rufus.)
Red wolves are lanky and lean, smaller than a gray wolf but larger than
a coyote. To my eye, their carriage is suggestive of a well-muscled
greyhound. They aren't red like a red fox is red; rather, their coloring
ranges from tawny to beige with black, and a distinctive dusting of
burnt umber tends to grace the backs of their ears and tumble across
their shoulders. Many red wolves hold their ears at a characteristic
45-degree angle, which gives their heads the look of an inverted
triangle.
Today, there are fewer than 100 wild red wolves in the reintroduction area. Another 200 or so live in captivity as part of a species survival plan
administered by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Red wolves were
the first wolf species to be reintroduced in the United States—the gray
wolf reintroduction project in Yellowstone National Park is better
known, but it followed by eight years. In the past, red wolves ranged throughout the Southeast. They may have lived from Florida north to Pennsylvania, and west to southern Illinois and central Texas.
Red wolves will probably never have a future unmanaged by human
hands. Their landscape has changed fundamentally from the one in which
the species evolved. The eastern forest is now laced with human
settlements, something red wolves tend to avoid. Red wolves have been shot, often because they were mistaken for coyotes.
The eastern coyote
did not historically share the red wolf’s territory. Reintroduced red
wolves that encounter eastern coyotes will sometimes mate with them,
producing hybrid offspring. Hybridization with coyotes was the single
greatest threat to the last wild red wolves of southeast Texas and
southwest Louisiana in the early 1970s, when 14 red wolves were captured
for breeding. When red wolves were first released to Alligator River
National Wildlife Refuge on Sept. 14, 1987, coyotes were about 500 miles
to the west. But today, coyotes and red wolves live side-by-side on the
Albemarle Peninsula.
The threat of hybridization may appear to be the biggest roadblock to
the red wolf's recovery, but climate change may be a bigger one.
In Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, which some experts consider to be ground zero for rising seas
on the East Coast, biologist Dennis Stewart has witnessed forests of
pond pines retreat a mile inland over the course of two decades.
Sawgrasses and marsh then filled in where trees once stood. Pond pines
are exquisitely sensitive to saltwater; their needles brown and whither
when sprayed with salty water during nor'easters. They die outright when
their roots sit in salty sound water pushed inland from storm surges,
or from gradually rising sea levels which intrude into coastal soils and
groundwater. When the pond pine forests retreat, they are first
replaced by small shrubs and invasive phragmites (a type of reed). As
the soil becomes even saltier, these communities then morph into salt
meadows and salt marshes.
What does this mean for the red wolves? Their habitat will contract.
The eastern portion of the peninsula has an average elevation of a mere
few feet above sea level. (Use the interactive graphic on this site to visualize what a predicted 1-meter rise or more would look like on the peninsula.)
David Rabon, the red wolf recovery program coordinator, is cooking up
a Plan B, identifying other sites suitable for reintroducing red
wolves. Additional reintroductions are currently forbidden by the red
wolf's recovery plan, but it's a way to hedge bets for red wolf
generations to come.
He is focusing on areas that have low human population and road
densities, as well as suitable prey, but that also have "the political
or regulatory structures in place that will help us to establish the
rules and techniques or policies that will aid our ability to recover a
species." One of their partners is the Wildlands Network, which is
modeling wildlife corridors and habitat connectivity in the Southeast.
Rabon also says his program is "lucky" that it's dealing with a species
that is a generalist. Red wolves can live in a variety of habitats and
eat pretty much anything: deer, raccoons, nutria, rabbits, birds—even
lowly bullfrogs and mice.
Eyeing additional reintroduction sites does not mean that people have
given up on the current recovery area. One of the quirks of the
Albemarle Peninsula is that it is crisscrossed with landscape-scale
plumbing in the form of ditches and canals designed to bleed the
region's abundant freshwater to the ocean sounds. But these same canals
and ditches have been infiltrated by the sea, which now shoots dense
saltwater plumes inland. The Nature Conservancy worked with others to
develop a check-valve, which allows freshwater to flow outward through
the canals, while halting the saltwater plumes from creeping inland.
They have also installed water-level control structures and ditch plugs,
which seek to hold freshwater back and slow its arrival to the sea,
thereby keeping delicate peat and organic soils saturated with
freshwater for longer.
Another component of the climate change adaptation strategies is
assessing the salt-tolerance of different plant species. Hundreds of
black gum and bald cypress seedlings were planted several years ago at a
test site on the eastern side of the refuge. Christine Pickens, a
coastal restoration and adaptation specialist with the Nature
Conservancy, has found that only the bald cypress have survived. Many,
but not all, of those trees were at the back of the site, where it was
slightly more elevated. "But we're talking mere centimeters of
difference," Pickens says. The point of the test was to see if
salt-tolerant species planted near the shoreline could hold onto the
soil just a little bit longer, keeping the habitat intact and giving
species that much more time to adapt.
Research has shown that some wetlands have kept pace with sea-level
changes over thousands of years. The trick is for the wetlands to
accrete soils in lockstep with sea-level rise. They do this by producing
leaves, shoots, and roots that decompose very slowly after they drop
down into flooded soils. "The ocean is going to rise," Pickens says,
"but if we can restore some of the natural processes of these
ecosystems, then it helps the plants to be able to survive better and
accrete sediment so that our land can keep pace with our water." And if
that happens, more of the forested habitat of the peninsula will stay
intact for longer, providing refuge for red wolves.
I don't blame my colleague for asking if we should just let red
wolves go. If they did go extinct, most people wouldn't bat an eye. The
ecological damage of losing the red wolf was wrought well over a century
ago, when they were largely wiped out of the Southeast. It's not like
red wolves directly affect most people's day-to-day lives; they don't
clean the air or sequester carbon. They very likely don't harbor a cure
for cancer or diabetes or erectile dysfunction. Reintroducing them isn't
going to bring back American chestnut trees or restore the Southeast's
long-gone long-leaf pine forests.
But if we did let them go, what does that say about our values? That
we couldn't be bothered to devote time and money to retaining a species
that our forefathers hunted and drove off the land to the point of near
extinction? That we couldn't restore a unique mammalian carnivore to
just a smidgen of its former range? That red wolves were just too much
trouble?
For me, saving the red wolf is about more than just red wolves. We
have created a world that is so altered from the one in which the red
wolf evolved that it is now challenging for them to survive. Is that
perhaps our future as well? In asking if red wolves are completely
screwed, what I heard my friend asking was: Are we completely screwed? If we can't save the red wolf, what does that say about our ability to save ourselves?
source
source
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Agriculture and parting from wolves shaped dog evolution, study finds
February 22, 2013
The researchers studied the genetics of 100 dingoes to understand the evolutionary trail.
(Rob Davis/Kimberley Land Council)
Part of the ancient mystery of the makeup of the modern
Western dog has been solved by a team led by researchers at the
University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine.
Several thousand years after dogs originated in the Middle East and Europe, some of them moved south with ancient farmers, distancing themselves from native wolf populations and developing a distinct genetic profile that is now reflected in today’s canines.
These findings, based on the rate of genetic marker mutations in the dog’s Y chromosome, supply the missing piece to the puzzle of when ancient dogs expanded from Southeast Asia. The study results are published online this month in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
“Our findings reconcile more than a decade of apparently contradictory archaeological and genetic findings on the geographic origins of the dogs,” said Ben Sacks, lead study author and director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Group in the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Considerable archaeological evidence indicates that the first dogs appeared about 14,000 years ago in Europe and the Middle East, while dogs did not appear in Southeast Asia until about 7,000 years later. Scientists have been puzzled, though, because growing genetic evidence suggests that modern Western dogs, including modern European dogs, are derived from a Southeast Asian population of dogs that spread throughout the world.
The problem: If dogs originated in Europe, why does genetic evidence suggest that modern European dogs are originally from Southeast Asia? Sacks and his team think they’ve found the answer.
“Data from our study indicate that about 6,000 to 9,000 years ago, during what is known as the Neolithic age, ancient farmers brought dogs south of the Yangtze River, which runs west to east across what is now China,” Sacks said.
“While dogs in other parts of Eurasia continued to readily interbreed with wolves, the dogs that moved into Southeast Asia no longer lived near wolves, and so they developed a totally different evolutionary trajectory, influenced by the agriculture of Southeast Asia,” he said. “Those ancient dogs apparently underwent a significant evolutionary transformation in southern China that enabled them to demographically dominate and largely replace earlier western forms.”
To calculate when the modern European and Southeast Asian dogs diverged, the researchers calculated the mutation rate of genetic markers on the Y chromosome in a sample of 100 Australian dingoes, a dog population known to have appeared about 4,200 years ago. Knowing the rate at which these genetic mutations occur, the researchers were able to backtrack through history and estimate the point when dogs of Eurasia and Southeast Asia parted company as being roughly 7,000 years ago.
“So, in a sense, both of the original hypotheses are true: Dogs did originate in Europe and the Middle East, but modern dogs trace their ancestry most recently to the East and specifically Southeast Asia,” Sacks said.
He noted that a study, led by evolutionary geneticist Erik Axelsson from Uppsala University in Sweden and published in the January issue of the journal Nature, suggests a distinction between dogs and wolves can be seen in their ability to digest starch, strongly suggesting an evolutionary adaptation to human farmers.
“Both studies fit together nicely, although our research teams differ on when we suspect modern dogs developed the ability to digest starch,” Sacks said. “The other group suggested that diet-related change happened at the outset of dog origins, at which time humans were still hunter-gatherers.”
“In contrast, we hypothesize that the starch adaptation occurred much later in Southeast Asia, once agriculture — rice farming in this case — had become the major mode of subsistence for humans,” he said.
Sacks said that the UC Davis-led study also shines light on the origin of dingoes, the wild dogs of Australia.
Data from the study suggest that New Guinea singing dogs and Australian dingoes reflect a dispersal of dogs, possibly from Taiwan, that was independent of the movement of dogs throughout the islands of Southeast Asia. The island dogs appear to have originated in mainland Southeast Asia, rather than Taiwan, he said.
The possibility of Taiwan being the origin of an independent migration for these dogs Down Under is intriguing but will require further research to confirm, Sacks said.
Other researchers on this study were: Sarah Brown and Niels Pederson of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine; Jui-Te Wu of National Chiayi University, Taiwan; Danielle Stephens of Helix Molecular Solutions in Crawley, Australia; and Oliver Berry, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia.
Funding for the study was provided by the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Davis’ Veterinary Genetics Laboratory and UC Davis’ Center for Companion Animal Health.
source
Several thousand years after dogs originated in the Middle East and Europe, some of them moved south with ancient farmers, distancing themselves from native wolf populations and developing a distinct genetic profile that is now reflected in today’s canines.
These findings, based on the rate of genetic marker mutations in the dog’s Y chromosome, supply the missing piece to the puzzle of when ancient dogs expanded from Southeast Asia. The study results are published online this month in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
“Our findings reconcile more than a decade of apparently contradictory archaeological and genetic findings on the geographic origins of the dogs,” said Ben Sacks, lead study author and director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Group in the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Considerable archaeological evidence indicates that the first dogs appeared about 14,000 years ago in Europe and the Middle East, while dogs did not appear in Southeast Asia until about 7,000 years later. Scientists have been puzzled, though, because growing genetic evidence suggests that modern Western dogs, including modern European dogs, are derived from a Southeast Asian population of dogs that spread throughout the world.
The problem: If dogs originated in Europe, why does genetic evidence suggest that modern European dogs are originally from Southeast Asia? Sacks and his team think they’ve found the answer.
“Data from our study indicate that about 6,000 to 9,000 years ago, during what is known as the Neolithic age, ancient farmers brought dogs south of the Yangtze River, which runs west to east across what is now China,” Sacks said.
“While dogs in other parts of Eurasia continued to readily interbreed with wolves, the dogs that moved into Southeast Asia no longer lived near wolves, and so they developed a totally different evolutionary trajectory, influenced by the agriculture of Southeast Asia,” he said. “Those ancient dogs apparently underwent a significant evolutionary transformation in southern China that enabled them to demographically dominate and largely replace earlier western forms.”
To calculate when the modern European and Southeast Asian dogs diverged, the researchers calculated the mutation rate of genetic markers on the Y chromosome in a sample of 100 Australian dingoes, a dog population known to have appeared about 4,200 years ago. Knowing the rate at which these genetic mutations occur, the researchers were able to backtrack through history and estimate the point when dogs of Eurasia and Southeast Asia parted company as being roughly 7,000 years ago.
“So, in a sense, both of the original hypotheses are true: Dogs did originate in Europe and the Middle East, but modern dogs trace their ancestry most recently to the East and specifically Southeast Asia,” Sacks said.
He noted that a study, led by evolutionary geneticist Erik Axelsson from Uppsala University in Sweden and published in the January issue of the journal Nature, suggests a distinction between dogs and wolves can be seen in their ability to digest starch, strongly suggesting an evolutionary adaptation to human farmers.
“Both studies fit together nicely, although our research teams differ on when we suspect modern dogs developed the ability to digest starch,” Sacks said. “The other group suggested that diet-related change happened at the outset of dog origins, at which time humans were still hunter-gatherers.”
“In contrast, we hypothesize that the starch adaptation occurred much later in Southeast Asia, once agriculture — rice farming in this case — had become the major mode of subsistence for humans,” he said.
Sacks said that the UC Davis-led study also shines light on the origin of dingoes, the wild dogs of Australia.
Data from the study suggest that New Guinea singing dogs and Australian dingoes reflect a dispersal of dogs, possibly from Taiwan, that was independent of the movement of dogs throughout the islands of Southeast Asia. The island dogs appear to have originated in mainland Southeast Asia, rather than Taiwan, he said.
The possibility of Taiwan being the origin of an independent migration for these dogs Down Under is intriguing but will require further research to confirm, Sacks said.
Other researchers on this study were: Sarah Brown and Niels Pederson of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine; Jui-Te Wu of National Chiayi University, Taiwan; Danielle Stephens of Helix Molecular Solutions in Crawley, Australia; and Oliver Berry, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia.
Funding for the study was provided by the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Davis’ Veterinary Genetics Laboratory and UC Davis’ Center for Companion Animal Health.
source
Wolves strengthen prey herds through selection
Feb. 24, 2013
The
science is crystal clear: as apex predators, wolves are a valuable part
of Michigan’s ecosystem (“Wolves are not ecological balancers,” Feb.
19).Wolves go after the weakest animals in a herd. If they went after the strongest ones, they’d be more likely to get trampled than get a meal. They also reduce the spread of devastating illnesses like chronic wasting disease.
All of this means that having wolves around actually create healthier and stronger elk and deer herds.
Wolves used to roam almost the entirety of the continental U.S. in much higher numbers than they do today, and there were abundant elk and deer as well.
Wolves promote better elk and deer herds simply by being part of the food chain. This is why we can’t risk wolves’ recovery by instituting a hunt so quickly after delisting.
More information about how you can help stop this from happening can be found at www.keepwolvesprotected.com.
Cheryl Barea
Kalamazoo
source
A Few Interesting Wolf Videos
From Defenders of Wildlife:
Defenders donated flag fencing known as fladry to the Washington Department of Wildlife. They tested the fladry's effectiveness by stringing it around a cow carcass -- an irresistible temptation for a hungry wolf. The results speak for themselves, providing documentary video evidence that nonlethal tools really do prevent conflict between wolves and livestock:
From the International Wolf Center:
The wolves have certainly been active lately and it might have something to do with the February sun. Even though we had temperatures down to -28 below zero Fahrenheit, the next day the temperatures reach 26 degrees and with a warm sun, the wolves were in an extremely good mood. Staff were happy as well, enjoy this clip, it has several minutes of howling.
Defenders donated flag fencing known as fladry to the Washington Department of Wildlife. They tested the fladry's effectiveness by stringing it around a cow carcass -- an irresistible temptation for a hungry wolf. The results speak for themselves, providing documentary video evidence that nonlethal tools really do prevent conflict between wolves and livestock:
From the International Wolf Center:
The wolves have certainly been active lately and it might have something to do with the February sun. Even though we had temperatures down to -28 below zero Fahrenheit, the next day the temperatures reach 26 degrees and with a warm sun, the wolves were in an extremely good mood. Staff were happy as well, enjoy this clip, it has several minutes of howling.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Wolf Weekly Wrap-Up
Posted: 22 Feb 2013
Washington wolves under legislative attack –
Our top wolf expert Suzanne Stone was in Washington this week meeting
with political leaders and agricultural representatives to discuss the
future of wolf management. She reports from the front lines that new
legislation could undermine the state’s efforts to restore wolves:
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced last week that the wolf population had nearly doubled since last year. That’s great news, but there are still only about 50 wolves in the state. We’ve got a long way to go before Washington’s wolf conservation objectives are achieved, so let’s keep those numbers growing!
Fladry works – For years we’ve been promoting flag fencing, known as fladry, as an effective nonlethal tool for keeping livestock safe from wolves. We’ve worked with many ranchers who have used it effectively to protect both cattle and sheep, but now we have video evidence to prove it. Last year, through the support of donors, we provided Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with fladry that field biologists have used several times to successfully deter wolves from livestock. These biologists cleverly tested the fladry with a video camera recently by stringing it around a cow carcass – a serious temptation for a hungry wolf. Even after repeated visits over several days, the wolf never crossed the fladry line.
Wyoming collars more wolves – There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to wolf management in Wyoming. At least 74 wolves have been killed since the state took over wolf management in September – 42 in the trophy game area and 32 (out of approximately 50 wolves) in the “predator zone,” where wolves can be killed at anytime . But Wyoming Game and Fish does deserve a little credit for continuing to carefully monitor its wolf population. Early last week the department announced that they had collared 16 wolves in the trophy game area, putting a collar on at least one wolf in nearly every major pack. While collaring alone doesn’t protect wolves –as we’ve seen with the killing of several iconic, collared wolves from Yellowstone—it will help ensure that state and federal biologists have the information they need to accurately assess the health of the population. Without this information, wildlife managers can’t make informed decisions about how their actions are affecting the wolf population. Good management must be based on good data, and at least they’ve got that second part down.
“Washington stakeholders spent four years working to develop a comprehensive, science-based wolf management plan that underwent statewide public review. It is a balanced plan that promotes nonlethal deterrents to help livestock owners protect against losses to wolves. It also allows wolves to be killed if they become habituated to killing livestock and provides compensation to livestock owners to cover documented losses. But now powerful ranching advocates in the state senate are making an end-run around the plan to strip protection from wolves and allow their constituents to serve as judge, jury and executioner in killing wolves on private and public lands. Without state oversight to ensure that wolves are even responsible for the losses blamed on them, innocent wolves could be killed by those who oppose their very presence in Washington.”We’re asking wolf supporters in Washington to help us oppose state Senate bills designed to stop wolf recovery in its tracks. We need your voice to stand up to those who want to cripple the plan and eradicate wolves. Please call your local legislators and tell them to VOTE NO on all senate wolf bills (SB 5187, SB 5188, SB 5193) . Access contact information for the senator in your area here.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced last week that the wolf population had nearly doubled since last year. That’s great news, but there are still only about 50 wolves in the state. We’ve got a long way to go before Washington’s wolf conservation objectives are achieved, so let’s keep those numbers growing!
Fladry works – For years we’ve been promoting flag fencing, known as fladry, as an effective nonlethal tool for keeping livestock safe from wolves. We’ve worked with many ranchers who have used it effectively to protect both cattle and sheep, but now we have video evidence to prove it. Last year, through the support of donors, we provided Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with fladry that field biologists have used several times to successfully deter wolves from livestock. These biologists cleverly tested the fladry with a video camera recently by stringing it around a cow carcass – a serious temptation for a hungry wolf. Even after repeated visits over several days, the wolf never crossed the fladry line.
Wyoming collars more wolves – There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to wolf management in Wyoming. At least 74 wolves have been killed since the state took over wolf management in September – 42 in the trophy game area and 32 (out of approximately 50 wolves) in the “predator zone,” where wolves can be killed at anytime . But Wyoming Game and Fish does deserve a little credit for continuing to carefully monitor its wolf population. Early last week the department announced that they had collared 16 wolves in the trophy game area, putting a collar on at least one wolf in nearly every major pack. While collaring alone doesn’t protect wolves –as we’ve seen with the killing of several iconic, collared wolves from Yellowstone—it will help ensure that state and federal biologists have the information they need to accurately assess the health of the population. Without this information, wildlife managers can’t make informed decisions about how their actions are affecting the wolf population. Good management must be based on good data, and at least they’ve got that second part down.
Move to Asia split dogs from wolves
"While
dogs in other parts of Eurasia continued to readily interbreed with
wolves, the dogs that moved into Southeast Asia no longer lived near
wolves, and so they developed a totally different evolutionary
trajectory, influenced by the agriculture of Southeast Asia," says UC
Davis researcher Ben Sacks. (Credit: iStockphoto)
UC DAVIS (US) — After
originating in the Middle East and Europe, moving south with farmers
gave dogs the separation from wolves necessary to develop a distinct
genetic profile.
Considerable archaeological evidence indicates that the first dogs appeared about 14,000 years ago in Europe and the Middle East, while dogs did not appear in Southeast Asia until about 7,000 years later.
Scientists have been puzzled, though, because growing genetic evidence suggests that modern Western dogs, including modern European dogs, are derived from a Southeast Asian population of dogs that spread throughout the world.
The problem: If dogs originated in Europe, why does genetic evidence suggest that modern European dogs are originally from Southeast Asia? Sacks and his team think they’ve found the answer.
“Data from our study indicate that about 6,000 to 9,000 years ago, during what is known as the Neolithic age, ancient farmers brought dogs south of the Yangtze River, which runs west to east across what is now China,” Sacks says.
“While dogs in other parts of Eurasia continued to readily interbreed with wolves, the dogs that moved into Southeast Asia no longer lived near wolves, and so they developed a totally different evolutionary trajectory, influenced by the agriculture of Southeast Asia,” he says.
“Those ancient dogs apparently underwent a significant evolutionary transformation in southern China that enabled them to demographically dominate and largely replace earlier western forms.”
To calculate when the modern European and Southeast Asian dogs diverged, the researchers calculated the mutation rate of genetic markers on the Y chromosome in a sample of 100 Australian dingoes, a dog population known to have appeared about 4,200 years ago.
Knowing the rate at which these genetic mutations occur, the researchers were able to backtrack through history and estimate the point when dogs of Eurasia and Southeast Asia parted company as being roughly 7,000 years ago.
“So, in a sense, both of the original hypotheses are true: Dogs did originate in Europe and the Middle East, but modern dogs trace their ancestry most recently to the East and specifically Southeast Asia,” Sacks says.
He notes that a study, led by evolutionary geneticist Erik Axelsson from Uppsala University in Sweden and published in the January issue of the journal Nature, suggests a distinction between dogs and wolves can be seen in their ability to digest starch, strongly suggesting an evolutionary adaptation to human farmers.
“Both studies fit together nicely, although our research teams differ on when we suspect modern dogs developed the ability to digest starch,” Sacks says. “The other group suggested that diet-related change happened at the outset of dog origins, at which time humans were still hunter-gatherers.”
“In contrast, we hypothesize that the starch adaptation occurred much later in Southeast Asia, once agriculture—rice farming in this case—had become the major mode of subsistence for humans,” he says.
Sacks says that the new study also shines light on the origin of dingoes, the wild dogs of Australia.
Data from the study suggest that New Guinea singing dogs and Australian dingoes reflect a dispersal of dogs, possibly from Taiwan, that was independent of the movement of dogs throughout the islands of Southeast Asia. The island dogs appear to have originated in mainland Southeast Asia, rather than Taiwan, he says.
The possibility of Taiwan being the origin of an independent migration for these dogs “down under” is intriguing but will require further research to confirm, Sacks says.
Other researchers on this study contributed from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, National Chiayi University in Taiwan, Helix Molecular Solutions in Crawley, Australia, and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia.
The Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Davis’ Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, and UC Davis’ Center for Companion Animal Health funded the study.
source
Watching the wolves
February 22, 2013
By: Sam Cook
NORTH OF GRAND MARAIS — I see the two dark forms up ahead, perhaps a
half-mile down Round Lake off the Gunflint Trail. They are stationary,
like two old anglers hunched over fishing holes on the ice. But that
would be an odd place to see a couple of ice anglers, I think.
My snowshoes go whoof, whoof, whoof on the snow. I’m headed five miles into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to meet a group of winter campers. I’m alone on this mild February morning, shuffling along.
I keep an eye on the shapes in the distance, and now I see one of them become elongated. Dark and dusky, it moves across the ice as fast as a snowmobile might. Watching it, I lose track of the other shape. When I look back, it is gone, too.
Whoof, whoof, whoof. I make my way down the lake.
When I get to where I saw the forms, I see the tracks. Unmistakable. Wolves. A pair of them. I can see their big paw prints deep in the snow.
The tracks veer off to a low point of land. Leaving them, I continue through a narrows. I am not concerned about the wolves causing me problems. But I look back once in a while, or glance up at the fire-scarred hillsides, wondering if I’ll see them again, wondering if they’re on some high ledge watching me pass.
We are hunting and trapping wolves in Minnesota now. I understand why some people want to kill them, to protect livestock or to put a pelt on the wall. I understand how some can feel that way. But I am glad I can still come upon wolves very much alive, ghosting across the ice on a February morning, laying down tracks, vanishing into the hills.
Whoof, whoof, whoof go the snowshoes.
I will cover nearly 10 miles, out and back, before the day is over. Across several lakes. Up and over several portages. I won’t cross a single set of moose tracks or, even less likely, a set of deer tracks. Along a couple of the portages, the lippity-lip tracks of a snowshoe hare precede my own snowshoe tracks down the trail. I’ll see not a single raven. Two gray jays. That’s it.
I think about those wolves, trying to get by out here, to find some warm flesh now and then. They must run pretty lean much of the time.
My course, west toward Bat Lake, takes me along the fringe of old burns, the Ham Lake fire of 2007 and the Cavity Lake fire in 2006. The landscape remains stark, especially in winter, where blackened and leaning tree trunks jut out of the snow-covered hills. They look cold.
The new growth of aspen that follows fire soon will offer winter browse for moose, if they can just hang on in this country, and for the few deer around, too. The wolves I saw on Round Lake may not be around long enough to see all of that play out. But perhaps their offspring will.
Glaciers. Fire. New growth. Predators. Prey.
Whoof, whoof, whoof go the snowshoes.
source
By: Sam Cook
Sam Cook is a Duluth News Tribune columnist and outdoors writer.
My snowshoes go whoof, whoof, whoof on the snow. I’m headed five miles into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to meet a group of winter campers. I’m alone on this mild February morning, shuffling along.
I keep an eye on the shapes in the distance, and now I see one of them become elongated. Dark and dusky, it moves across the ice as fast as a snowmobile might. Watching it, I lose track of the other shape. When I look back, it is gone, too.
Whoof, whoof, whoof. I make my way down the lake.
When I get to where I saw the forms, I see the tracks. Unmistakable. Wolves. A pair of them. I can see their big paw prints deep in the snow.
The tracks veer off to a low point of land. Leaving them, I continue through a narrows. I am not concerned about the wolves causing me problems. But I look back once in a while, or glance up at the fire-scarred hillsides, wondering if I’ll see them again, wondering if they’re on some high ledge watching me pass.
We are hunting and trapping wolves in Minnesota now. I understand why some people want to kill them, to protect livestock or to put a pelt on the wall. I understand how some can feel that way. But I am glad I can still come upon wolves very much alive, ghosting across the ice on a February morning, laying down tracks, vanishing into the hills.
Whoof, whoof, whoof go the snowshoes.
I will cover nearly 10 miles, out and back, before the day is over. Across several lakes. Up and over several portages. I won’t cross a single set of moose tracks or, even less likely, a set of deer tracks. Along a couple of the portages, the lippity-lip tracks of a snowshoe hare precede my own snowshoe tracks down the trail. I’ll see not a single raven. Two gray jays. That’s it.
I think about those wolves, trying to get by out here, to find some warm flesh now and then. They must run pretty lean much of the time.
My course, west toward Bat Lake, takes me along the fringe of old burns, the Ham Lake fire of 2007 and the Cavity Lake fire in 2006. The landscape remains stark, especially in winter, where blackened and leaning tree trunks jut out of the snow-covered hills. They look cold.
The new growth of aspen that follows fire soon will offer winter browse for moose, if they can just hang on in this country, and for the few deer around, too. The wolves I saw on Round Lake may not be around long enough to see all of that play out. But perhaps their offspring will.
Glaciers. Fire. New growth. Predators. Prey.
Whoof, whoof, whoof go the snowshoes.
source
Imnaha wolf pack worries Wallowa County ranchers as pups enter adolescence
By
on February 22, 2013
View full sizeThis photo from May 2012 shows pups from
the Wenaha pack of gray wolves. Ranchers are worried as pups reach full
size, particularly among another group that roams Wallowa County, the
Imnaha pack.
A new generation of exuberant juvenile gray wolves is bursting out of puppyhood in northeastern Oregon this winter, and Wallowa County's ranchers are worried about their livestock as the spring calving season draws near.
on February 22, 2013
View full sizeThis photo from May 2012 shows pups from
the Wenaha pack of gray wolves. Ranchers are worried as pups reach full
size, particularly among another group that roams Wallowa County, the
Imnaha pack.
Oregon is home to 53 gray wolves, up from just two in 2007 thanks to
recovery efforts. Many were born in spring 2012, a year after the Oregon
Court of Appeals halted the killing of Oregon wolves by government
hunters. Now those pups are close to full-grown, tipping the scales at
around 70 pounds.
Ranchers are especially concerned about the Imnaha pack near Joseph, whose numbers hit 15 three years ago. The pack has caused problems for ranchers in the past. It has shrunk to two adults and six pups and was on its best behavior last year. But those pups are reaching maturity.
A year-old gray wolf "is a little ball of energy," said rancher Todd Nash. "He wants to get in trouble all the time."
Population rising
Wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned for bounty across Oregon until the early half of the 20th century.
Wallowa County has been wolf central in Oregon's Canis lupus recovery program since two gray wolves migrated here from Idaho in 2007 and paired up along the southern edge of the 560-square-mile Eagle Cap Wilderness. By late 2009, the state's wolf population was 14, and today it's almost four times that.
Measuring the impact of the rising wolf population on livestock is
difficult to do with any precision; when wolves devour cattle, the
evidence often disappears. But both ranchers and wolf advocates say
predation was down in 2012.
Ranchers are especially concerned about the Imnaha pack near Joseph, whose numbers hit 15 three years ago. The pack has caused problems for ranchers in the past. It has shrunk to two adults and six pups and was on its best behavior last year. But those pups are reaching maturity.
A year-old gray wolf "is a little ball of energy," said rancher Todd Nash. "He wants to get in trouble all the time."
Population rising
Wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned for bounty across Oregon until the early half of the 20th century.
Wallowa County has been wolf central in Oregon's Canis lupus recovery program since two gray wolves migrated here from Idaho in 2007 and paired up along the southern edge of the 560-square-mile Eagle Cap Wilderness. By late 2009, the state's wolf population was 14, and today it's almost four times that.
Wolf populations
Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have an estimated 1,832 gray wolves:
Montana: 653
Wyoming: 328
Idaho: 746
Washington: 52
Oregon: 53
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Nash's 100,000-acre government grazing allotment near Joseph
sustained two "probable" livestock kills by wolves. That's in contrast
to his estimates of 12 wolf kills in 2011 on his 550-cow Marr Flat
Cattle Co. ranch, 15 in 2010 and 20 in 2009.
"My numbers came out way better than they have for the past four years," Nash said.
Eight sheep also were killed or injured by wolves in 2012 along the Umatilla River near Pendleton, said Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The apparent drop-off in predation has wolf advocates jubilant, coming as it did after the court ordered a cease-fire on wolves that kill livestock.
"The numbers don't lie," said Rob Klavins, spokesman for Oregon Wild, a Portland-based conservation group. "Wolf numbers went up and the conflicts went down when the wolf killing program was put on hold."
View full size
Rancher Todd Nash, owner of a 550-cow
spread near Joseph, is expecting trouble from the Imnaha pack of gray
wolves this spring and next summer. The pack has a half-dozen new
additions, all weighing in at about 70 pounds. €œ
Klavins credits non-lethal techniques that ward off attacks, including
flaggery -- pennants dangling from fences that are believed to frighten
wolves -- range riders on horseback, radio-activated alarms and closer
monitoring of cattle by ranchers. A stable base of elk and deer for
wolves to consume has also helped, he said.
"My numbers came out way better than they have for the past four years," Nash said.
Eight sheep also were killed or injured by wolves in 2012 along the Umatilla River near Pendleton, said Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The apparent drop-off in predation has wolf advocates jubilant, coming as it did after the court ordered a cease-fire on wolves that kill livestock.
"The numbers don't lie," said Rob Klavins, spokesman for Oregon Wild, a Portland-based conservation group. "Wolf numbers went up and the conflicts went down when the wolf killing program was put on hold."
View full size
Rancher Todd Nash, owner of a 550-cow
spread near Joseph, is expecting trouble from the Imnaha pack of gray
wolves this spring and next summer. The pack has a half-dozen new
additions, all weighing in at about 70 pounds. €œ
Klavins' explanation isn't universally accepted among ranchers. They
agree, though, that the Imnaha pack kept its distance. The pack spent
much of 2012 on the Eagle Cap Wilderness' southern boundary along Big
Sheep Creek, Fish Lake and Duck Lake, away from cattle. The wolves
"stayed close to their puppies and they didn't wander as much," Nash
said.
But
ranchers are concerned that the perceived downward trend in predation
may reverse itself, based on an incident Jan. 28. That day, the Imnaha
pack killed a cow and injured another on rancher Karl Patton's property
near Enterprise.
Wolf packs
Oregon currently has six known packs of gray wolves, plus others roaming the mountains and high desert. They are:
Imnaha pack, 8 wolves
Snake River pack, 7
Walla Walla pack, 6
Wenaha pack, 11
Upper Minam River pack, 7
Umatilla River wolves, 4
Minam pack, 5
Sled Springs pair, 2
Individual wolves, 2
Radio-collared "disperser," 1 wolf
Source: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
"We are expecting it to be quite a bit worse this spring," said Nash,
predicting the Imnaha pack will be back in the thick of things.
Robyn Brown, assistant wolf coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in La Grande, said the pack's alpha male, its alpha female and all six adolescent pups were present when Patton's cow was killed last month.
"This is a chronically depredating pack," said Brown. "These are wild animals, and you can't predict what they are going to do."
Klavins remains upbeat. The Imnaha wolves lived on wild game and stayed out of trouble most of last year, he said. "And this is from a pack that was considered incorrigible," he said.
Push for change
How to manage the growing presence of wolves in northeastern Oregon is a controversial topic. Wallowa County Commissioner Paul Castilleja of Joseph wants to see a bill in the Oregon Legislature calling for a "wolf translocation program" to distribute some of Wallowa County's gray wolves elsewhere in Oregon. Relocating some Wallowa County wolves would enable all Oregonians to "observe and enjoy the full ecological benefits of the return of the wolf," he said.
Oregon is the only state with a meaningful wolf population where wolves weren't deliberately killed by government hunters and sportsmen last year, Klavins said. During 2012, at least 1,030 gray wolves were legally killed for sport in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, he said.
Ed Bangs, the now-retired coordinator of gray wolf recovery for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, suggested government hunters
might resume controlling livestock-killing Oregon wolves in 2015. By then the state is likely to achieve its goal of four breeding pairs of wolves for three consecutive years.
Robyn Brown, assistant wolf coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in La Grande, said the pack's alpha male, its alpha female and all six adolescent pups were present when Patton's cow was killed last month.
"This is a chronically depredating pack," said Brown. "These are wild animals, and you can't predict what they are going to do."
Klavins remains upbeat. The Imnaha wolves lived on wild game and stayed out of trouble most of last year, he said. "And this is from a pack that was considered incorrigible," he said.
Push for change
How to manage the growing presence of wolves in northeastern Oregon is a controversial topic. Wallowa County Commissioner Paul Castilleja of Joseph wants to see a bill in the Oregon Legislature calling for a "wolf translocation program" to distribute some of Wallowa County's gray wolves elsewhere in Oregon. Relocating some Wallowa County wolves would enable all Oregonians to "observe and enjoy the full ecological benefits of the return of the wolf," he said.
Oregon is the only state with a meaningful wolf population where wolves weren't deliberately killed by government hunters and sportsmen last year, Klavins said. During 2012, at least 1,030 gray wolves were legally killed for sport in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, he said.
Ed Bangs, the now-retired coordinator of gray wolf recovery for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, suggested government hunters
might resume controlling livestock-killing Oregon wolves in 2015. By then the state is likely to achieve its goal of four breeding pairs of wolves for three consecutive years.
Klavins doesn't want the government to resume hunting wolves that
kill cattle and sheep. He thinks the Court of Appeals' cease-fire order
has allowed Oregon's wolf recovery program to get back on track. "We'd
like to keep it that way," he said.
source
source
Wolves on the Brink
February 22, 2013
Wayne Pacelle's Blog
A Human(e) Nation
Earlier
this month, filmmakers and photographers Jim and Jamie Dutcher released a
deeply compelling book, The Hidden Life of Wolves, about these remarkable but
beleaguered American predators. The Dutchers are drawing standing room
only and slack-jawed crowds wherever they’ve appeared, sharing their stunning
images and educating people about the lives of these creatures.
And the release of the book is not a moment too soon. States in the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes didn’t waste any time after federal delisting, authorizing trophy hunters and trappers to start killing hundreds of wolves – extinguishing the lives of the wolves and causing upheaval in the pack’s social organization.
Alamy
The
HSUS has been punching back to protect the wolves. These wolves are not
just populations; they are individuals. They feel pain and suffer, just
like the dogs in our homes.
We’ve filed legal actions in Wyoming and the Great Lakes and, along with our coalition partners, launched a ballot measure campaign in Michigan in concert with American Indian tribes, hunters, environmentalists, and local humane organizations. I am also pleased to report that we are supporting a bill in Minnesota to impose a five-year moratorium on the sport hunting of wolves.
It would be a tough fight in Minnesota, but the senate president and minority leaders are cosponsors of the bill. It already has support from lawmakers from both parties, and from urban and rural areas of the state.
Great Lakes states have long traditions of hunting, but that’s hunting for meat. This is nothing of the sort; people don’t eat wolves. What’s more, if the general rationale for hunting is “wildlife management,” that’s not in play here. Wolves are the best wildlife managers there are, helping to control the size and behavior of prey populations and limiting the impacts of roadkill and crop depredation. And if there is an individual wolf causing a threat to farm animals or public safety, the law allows for selective taking.
But it’s not enough to introduce a bill or launch a ballot measure. We’ve got to push these policies forward, and with wolf haters out there, we need to demonstrate an outpouring of public support. We need Minnesotans to write and meet with their legislators, and Michiganders to take to the street and start gathering signatures. We’ve got deadlines coming up, and, for wolves, these are life-and-death matters. We can help the wolves, but only if you join the effort.
source
And the release of the book is not a moment too soon. States in the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes didn’t waste any time after federal delisting, authorizing trophy hunters and trappers to start killing hundreds of wolves – extinguishing the lives of the wolves and causing upheaval in the pack’s social organization.
Alamy
We’ve filed legal actions in Wyoming and the Great Lakes and, along with our coalition partners, launched a ballot measure campaign in Michigan in concert with American Indian tribes, hunters, environmentalists, and local humane organizations. I am also pleased to report that we are supporting a bill in Minnesota to impose a five-year moratorium on the sport hunting of wolves.
It would be a tough fight in Minnesota, but the senate president and minority leaders are cosponsors of the bill. It already has support from lawmakers from both parties, and from urban and rural areas of the state.
Great Lakes states have long traditions of hunting, but that’s hunting for meat. This is nothing of the sort; people don’t eat wolves. What’s more, if the general rationale for hunting is “wildlife management,” that’s not in play here. Wolves are the best wildlife managers there are, helping to control the size and behavior of prey populations and limiting the impacts of roadkill and crop depredation. And if there is an individual wolf causing a threat to farm animals or public safety, the law allows for selective taking.
But it’s not enough to introduce a bill or launch a ballot measure. We’ve got to push these policies forward, and with wolf haters out there, we need to demonstrate an outpouring of public support. We need Minnesotans to write and meet with their legislators, and Michiganders to take to the street and start gathering signatures. We’ve got deadlines coming up, and, for wolves, these are life-and-death matters. We can help the wolves, but only if you join the effort.
source
Friday, February 22, 2013
Isle Royale Study: More Female Wolves Than Expected
Posted at: 02/21/2013
ISLE ROYALE, Mich. (AP) - Isle Royale National Park's gray wolves apparently don't have a gender gap after all.Scientists reported last year that only nine wolves remained on the Lake Superior island chain - the lowest total in more than 50 years.
They said just one was known to be a female, raising doubts about the predator's long-term prospects for survival in the wilderness park.
But Superintendent Phyllis Green said Thursday that genetic analysis of wolf excrement and additional observations suggest that four or five of the animals are females.
Even so, Green says the wolves' situation remains tenuous and experts are studying how climate change may affect them.
Michigan Technological University biologists are conducting their annual winter study at Isle Royale and are expected to release updated wolf and moose numbers next month.
source
Walking with Wolves: Sanctuary in Lititz makes for an interesting getaway
By
on February 21, 2013
Not Far by Car
If cold winter days are starting to get you down, zip up that parka and head for a place where winter is the favorite time of year. The Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania near Lititz.
View full size
Wolves howl when they have something to say
“Wolves love it when it’s cold. They build up their coats and move
around a lot,” said Dawn Darlington who grew up in a house with three
kids, five wolves, some cats and a skunk.
Her father, Bill, was fascinated by wolves and founded the sanctuary 30 years ago when Pennsylvania made it illegal to own wild animals as pets.
44 wolves call it home
Now Darlington and her partner, Darin Tompkins, care for 44 wolves most of whom began life as someone’s pet pup. As those pups grew, they were caged, given up or turned loose. Without the sanctuary, they would have been destroyed.
Instead, they live in spacious wooded enclosures on 25 acres surrounded by safety fencing required by the PA Game Commission and the USDA. People can come visit them.
Tours tell the story
To help people understand what wolves are all about, sanctuary volunteers lead several tours a week. After all, most of us formed (mistaken) impressions of wolves from stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs.
Wolves are, in fact, social, family-oriented animals with distinctly different personalities. They organize into packs with roles for each member, they tussle and raise their young (although here at the sanctuary, all the wolves are neutered). They are curious about humans, but don’t especially like to be touched.
And they have some unique abilities:
. Wolves can smell something a mile away.
. They (and pigs) have the strongest bite strength of any animal. They can eat bones but they don’t bite without reason and they don’t attack humans.
. They can skin a deer in 20 minutes.
And pay the bills
The tours also raise money for food (the wolves eat 400-600 pounds of meat a week), veterinary care (many of the wolves arrive undernourished, sick and terrified), and more enclosures for wolves to come. The sanctuary is nonprofit and gets no state or federal support.
They're family
“Wolves are beautiful, mysterious animals,” Darlington says. “They make eye contact and you can see their intelligence. They are like family to us.”
Each wolf at the sanctuary has a name and Darlington tells each one's story on the web site.
Wolves used to be plentiful in this part of the country but no more. In fact, they were added to the endangered species list in 1974 then, after four decades of recovery programs, removed. They now wander wild in about ten western states, but not here.
If you go
465 Speedwell Forge Rd
Lititz, PA 17543
717-626-4617
www.wolfsanctuarypa.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/WolfSanctuaryPA
Public Tours: Hour-long guided walking tours at noon on Saturdays and Sundays (no reservations needed) and at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays (reservations needed) $15 a person.
Full Moon Tours: 7:30-10 p.m. once a month on the Saturday closest to the full moon (see web site calendar). No reservations needed. Must be 16 or older, no exceptions. See the stars and hear the howls. Bring a long stick and hot dogs to roast on the bonfire. Entertainment. $20 a person
Feb. 23 – features Laurie Reese with blues, jazz, classical music
Mar. 30 – features a Native American family with drumming and stories about their culture
Upcoming Event: Music and Art with the Wolves, a full day of music, food, and wolfish games on May 18. Cost: $10/person, children 12 and younger free.
Be sure to: Leave your pets at home. No pets are allowed at the sanctuary, not even in your car.
Bed & Breakfast: Rates range from $135 to $270/night double occupancy, breakfast included.
Eating: A favorite place for dinner is Scooter’s, a casual Lititz restaurant that donates all its raw beef scraps to the wolves. It’s eight miles south of the sanctuary. (www.scooterslititz.com, 717-627-5666)
source
on February 21, 2013
If cold winter days are starting to get you down, zip up that parka and head for a place where winter is the favorite time of year. The Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania near Lititz.
View full size
Wolves howl when they have something to say
Her father, Bill, was fascinated by wolves and founded the sanctuary 30 years ago when Pennsylvania made it illegal to own wild animals as pets.
44 wolves call it home
Now Darlington and her partner, Darin Tompkins, care for 44 wolves most of whom began life as someone’s pet pup. As those pups grew, they were caged, given up or turned loose. Without the sanctuary, they would have been destroyed.
Instead, they live in spacious wooded enclosures on 25 acres surrounded by safety fencing required by the PA Game Commission and the USDA. People can come visit them.
Tours tell the story
To help people understand what wolves are all about, sanctuary volunteers lead several tours a week. After all, most of us formed (mistaken) impressions of wolves from stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs.
Wolves are, in fact, social, family-oriented animals with distinctly different personalities. They organize into packs with roles for each member, they tussle and raise their young (although here at the sanctuary, all the wolves are neutered). They are curious about humans, but don’t especially like to be touched.
And they have some unique abilities:
. Wolves can smell something a mile away.
. They (and pigs) have the strongest bite strength of any animal. They can eat bones but they don’t bite without reason and they don’t attack humans.
. They can skin a deer in 20 minutes.
And pay the bills
The tours also raise money for food (the wolves eat 400-600 pounds of meat a week), veterinary care (many of the wolves arrive undernourished, sick and terrified), and more enclosures for wolves to come. The sanctuary is nonprofit and gets no state or federal support.
They're family
“Wolves are beautiful, mysterious animals,” Darlington says. “They make eye contact and you can see their intelligence. They are like family to us.”
Each wolf at the sanctuary has a name and Darlington tells each one's story on the web site.
Wolves used to be plentiful in this part of the country but no more. In fact, they were added to the endangered species list in 1974 then, after four decades of recovery programs, removed. They now wander wild in about ten western states, but not here.
If you go
465 Speedwell Forge Rd
Lititz, PA 17543
717-626-4617
www.wolfsanctuarypa.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/WolfSanctuaryPA
Public Tours: Hour-long guided walking tours at noon on Saturdays and Sundays (no reservations needed) and at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays (reservations needed) $15 a person.
Full Moon Tours: 7:30-10 p.m. once a month on the Saturday closest to the full moon (see web site calendar). No reservations needed. Must be 16 or older, no exceptions. See the stars and hear the howls. Bring a long stick and hot dogs to roast on the bonfire. Entertainment. $20 a person
Feb. 23 – features Laurie Reese with blues, jazz, classical music
Mar. 30 – features a Native American family with drumming and stories about their culture
Upcoming Event: Music and Art with the Wolves, a full day of music, food, and wolfish games on May 18. Cost: $10/person, children 12 and younger free.
Be sure to: Leave your pets at home. No pets are allowed at the sanctuary, not even in your car.
Bed & Breakfast: Rates range from $135 to $270/night double occupancy, breakfast included.
Eating: A favorite place for dinner is Scooter’s, a casual Lititz restaurant that donates all its raw beef scraps to the wolves. It’s eight miles south of the sanctuary. (www.scooterslititz.com, 717-627-5666)
source
Minnesota bill calls for 5-year moratorium on wolf hunting, trapping
- Article by: DOUG SMITH , Star Tribune
- Updated: February 21, 2013
Hunting and trapping wolves in Minnesota would be prohibited for at least five years under a bill introduced this week at the Legislature. Even after a five-year moratorium, a wolf hunting season would only be allowed if population management is “deemed necessary” and other means for controlling the wolf population are explored.
But the bill’s chance of passage appears to be a long shot; the law opening wolves to hunting and trapping last year passed with bipartisan support. And it might face an especially difficult time in the House, where it likely would have to clear the Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee chaired by Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, a wolf hunt proponent. “I don’t expect any changes [to the wolf season] because it was such a great success,” Dill said last month.
No companion bill has been introduced in the House.
Still, the bill’s chief sponsor, Majority Whip Chris Eaton, DFL-Brooklyn Center, is optimistic. “The people of Minnesota don’t want the wolves hunted,” she said. “We have bipartisan support.” Hunters and trappers killed 413 wolves, and state and federal trappers killed another 283 wolves in response to livestock depredations. Citizens protecting livestock or pets killed 16 wolves, bringing the total kill last year to 712.
“I have a real concern about the sustainability of the gray wolf with that kind of a hunting season,” Eaton said. State and federal wildlife biologists have said the wolf population won’t be hurt by those losses, and the population is expected to remain steady at around 3,000.
source
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Animal Welfare Groups Sue to Protect Wolves in Three States
Gray wolves
ICTMN Staff
February 20, 2013
Tired of seeing wolves make a comeback off the endangered list only to be hunted, several groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, have sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior to get gray wolves back on the protected list.
The lawsuit charges that allowing wolves to be hunted in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan undermines and could even jeopardize the animals’ resurgence, the very thing that protected status was trying to create. Born Free USA, Help Our Wolves Live and Friends of Animals and Their Environment are the other animal welfare groups acting as plaintiffs, the Associated Press reported.
"In the short time since federal protections have been removed, trophy hunters and trappers have killed hundreds of Great Lakes wolves under hostile state management programs that encourage dramatic reductions in wolf populations," said Jonathan Lovvorn, the humane society’s chief counsel for animal protection litigation, in a statement. "This decision rolls back the only line of defense for wolf populations, and paves the way for the same state-sponsored eradication policies that pushed this species to the brink of extinction in the first place.”
Environmental advocates are also suing in Wyoming in a separate lawsuit aiming to restore federal protections, the AP said.
The fate of wolves is hotly contested in Midwestern and western U.S. states. The animals have been protected back into survival and increased their numbers, only to be hunted down and killed when they get in the way of livestock. Most notoriously in recent months was the killing of the Wedge pack of wolves in Washington State, which caused public outcry.
source
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