TOM AYERS
CAPE BRETON BUREAU
Parks Canada briefly considered reintroducing wolves to Cape Breton Highlands National Park as one way to control the moose population that is eating itself out of house and home.
However, the idea was quickly rejected for a variety of reasons, says Derek Quann, the park’s resource conservation manager.
But that doesn’t mean wolves will never be part of the park ecosystem, he said.
“It’s a standard strategy, when we’re dealing with a hyper-abundant wildlife, that needs to be at least raised and discussed,” said Quann.
“That’s very common if, for instance, a wildlife is hyper-abundant because of the lack of a natural predator, then the exploration needs to take place.”
Parks Canada held a series of meetings last year to come up with a plan to manage the herd of 1,800 moose, which is four times larger than it should be.
The boreal forest never recovered from a spruce budworm infestation 40 years ago, and the exploding moose population is making things worse.
As part of a four-year pilot project, park officials have begun planting trees and building fences to keep the hungry ungulates away from new growth.
They also proposed a Mi’kmaq moose hunt in a 20-square-kilometre area around North Mountain, where up to 90 per cent of the moose in that small section of the park — about 35 to 40 animals — will be harvested.
Lessons from the four-year project will be applied on a wider scale across the entire park.
Quann said the idea of using wolves to control the moose population came up last year, but officials have not done any planning work on it.
“That’s as far as it got in our discussions, and it’s not being considered by Parks Canada, either in the course of this limited-area hyper-abundant moose plan or in the wider area,” said Quann.
“But, when we do enter into discussions on the wider reflection, I’m sure it will come up again.”
According to a draft hyper-abundant moose management plan under consideration by Parks Canada, it wouldn’t be feasible to contain wolves in the small study area. Their long-term viability would also be questionable without any neighbouring wolf packs to mate with, the plan says, and public fears over coyote attacks in Cape Breton over the last few years could have area residents up in arms.
But the idea might gain more support if considered on a wider scale, the plan says.
“It’s something we need to reflect on,” Quann said.
“It’s better to be engaged and exploring in a positive way rather than automatically shutting ideas down.”
Dalhousie University researcher Simon Gadbois, who studies wolves, coyotes and foxes, said he was surprised to hear Parks Canada considering reintroducing wolves in Cape Breton.
He said studies show wolves need huge territories, and even the 950 square kilometres in Cape Breton Highlands National Park might not be enough.
“Honestly, I don’t know that the park itself is large enough for one pack,” he said.
And there are plenty of other questions that would need to be answered, said Gadbois.
For example, he said, what would happen to the existing coyote population, which is genetically already eight per cent wolf and eight per cent dog?
“It’s really difficult to see how this would work,” said Gadbois.
Even the proposed limited hunt on North Mountain has generated controversy.
Last year, non-native hunters said it wasn’t fair to hand the harvest exclusively to Mi’kmaq.
This year, hunting guides in the area say last year’s harsh winter has already killed off a lot of moose and they want the hunt in the park cancelled altogether.
Hector Hines, a hunting guide from Meat Cove, Inverness County, said he was invited to help guide Mi’kmaq hunters and haul meat from the forest during the hunt, but he has decided against it.
“We have a good team of horses here, and they’ve worked pretty hard over the last four or five weeks hauling moose out of the woods for our clients,” he said.
“But we’re going to stay out of this one until it’s all worked out between the Mi’kmaq and Parks Canada and the rest of the hunters around here.
“I think they have a problem with the trees, for sure. The trees are not growing back, but there’s ways of doing it without slaughtering the moose.”
Hines said the idea of putting wolves in the park to prey on moose was rejected out of hand last year.
“It was turned down as a really, really bad idea. Once you release a wolf population, there’s no way to control them.”