Center seeks to educate the public about wolves
By Louis Porter
Staff Writer
December 23, 2002
South Salem, N.Y. — This Westchester County town a few miles from North
Stamford is a rolling landscape of houses and fields between patches of
woods. Wolves haven’t lived here for more than a century.
But a half-dozen years ago, J. Henry Fair and Hélène Grimaud started
keeping wolves at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem. The pack
has grown to four and is likely to expand soon.
To answer the question of why Fair, a photographer and environmentalist
from South Carolina, and Grimaud, a French classical
pianist-turned-biologist, started keeping wolves in Westchester County,
they borrow a line from Henry David Thoreau: “In wilderness is the
preservation of the world.”
They add a belief that if the top predators in an area are protected, the
species below — and the wilderness — are, too.
As predators, wolves have a moderating influence over animals from eagles
to elk by preventing population surges in other species, Grimaud said. If
enough space is kept open for them, other animals thrive.
That duty seems lost on the four gray and Arctic wolves lounging in their
2-acre chain-link fence enclosure. Though the enclosure is one of the
biggest in the country in square feet per wolf, it is not large enough,
Fair said. Expansion is in the works.
One duty the wolves take seriously is sending up a chorus of howls in
reply to the noon test of the area’s fire sirens. The biggest male has the
highest voice and the female the lowest, Fair said.
The wolf center was built to teach the importance of wolves in the
environment and a little about their complex history with humans, Fair
said.
There is something about wolves that is essentially and inflexibly
different from dogs, even if they are friendly and trot over to the edge
of their enclosure for a treat, Fair said. He tries to explain that
difference to visiting school groups and individuals. About five school
groups a week visit the center in spring and fall, Fair said. He also
brings the wolves to schools, nature centers and other groups.
Two recent scientific studies bolster Fair’s idea that dogs are
fundamentally different from North American wolves.
The studies argue that dogs developed primarily from a relatively small
breed of wolves in Asia about 15,000 years ago, traveling with people
across the Bering Strait. If that were true, the ancestors of modern dogs
could be quite different from those of Fair’s wolves because of the length
of time they have been domesticated and because they come from a different
group of wolves.
The Wolf Conservation Center is not for breeding, nor is it an attempt to
reintroduce them to Westchester County. Wolves probably will never live in
the area again, Fair said. The four wolves at the center were bred in
captivity and are neutered or spayed, he said.
Wearing workman’s overalls to insulate him from the cold, Fair said wolves
need no such protection, even in the dead of winter. One wolf recently
fell through ice covering a pool in their enclosure with no ill effects,
Fair said.
The mission of the wolves and their keepers may be expanded soon. Grimaud
and Fair hope to start keeping several Mexican wolves for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. In the 1970s, the subspecies dwindled to seven. Now
there may be 250.
The agency is working to reintroduce the wolves to parts of Arizona, and
the Wolf Conservation Center will help by keeping some of the animals in
the meantime.
The task of the Fish and Wildlife Service will be difficult. There is
local resistance to proposals to reintroduce wolves in Arizona, Maine and
the Adirondack mountains of New York, Grimaud said, though it was
successful in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park.
“Hunters have no reason to oppose reintroduction — they are just not
after the same animals,” Fair said.
Wolves hunt primarily ill and young animals, but hunters want trophy deer
and elk, which can easily fight off wolves, Fair said.
Some ranchers concerned about their livestock and homeowners worried about
their pets object to the return of the wolf. Wolves should be brought back
to places that are far enough from people to prevent problems with
domestic animals, but there has never been a reliable report of a human
killed by a wolf, Fair said.
The Wolf Conservation Center attracts volunteers who work with the animals
and help raise money needed to keep it operating. Suppliers offer goods at
cost, veterinarians donate their work and the town of Lewisboro provides
roadkill for food.
Some volunteers, such as Josh Lewis, do a large share of the work; others
work once in a while. Ann MacMullan first came to the center as a field
producer for Martha Stewart Television and returned as a volunteer.
Workers and visitors are motivated “by the desire to get close to
something wild,” MacMullan said.
Fair considers the volunteers the center’s greatest asset, particularly
for their work in the most unglamorous tasks. When a volunteer leaves
after putting in a few hours at the center, Fair does not say goodbye, he
says, “Come on back and pick up a shovel.” Copyright © 2002, Southern
Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.