Fatality in Canada stokes debate over wolves
Attack on human emboldens group opposed to federal wolf protections
Ryan Stutzman
THE-BEE
The ripple effect surrounding a human fatality in Canada, which was apparently the result of a wolf attack, has reached Wisconsin and other states with wild wolf populations.
A 22-year-old man was found dead Nov. 8 near a mining camp in northern Saskatchewan. A wolf or wolves are suspected in his death. The incident has emboldened groups that favor aggressive management of the species in the northern United States.
There are few animals that divide public opinion like the wolf. On one extreme, it is revered as an integral symbol of pristine, wild ecosystems, and on the other, it is reviled as a relentless killer of pets and livestock. Most Wisconsin wildlife experts believe the truth is somewhere in-between.
In any case, the death in Canada is likely to strengthen voices opposed to wolf-protection laws in the United States.
Those ranks include the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association (WBHA), a outdoor-sports group that is active in Price County and the rest of the state. In a press release issued Jan. 3, the group urged an end to federal protections for wolves and for the state DNR to take over wolf management.
“These predators are at the top of the food chain and have been steadily increasing in number in Wisconsin for many years now, and they could pose a threat to human safety,” the release states. “Wolves have little or no fear of humans, probably due to the fact that they have been protected (by federal law) from any human deterrent.”
Wildlife officials say the risk of a wolf attack on a human is extremely remote. The fatal attack in Canada was the first documented in North America in more than 100 years, according to DNR wolf expert Adrian Wydeven. During the same period, black bears killed 43 people in North America.
“I think it’s important that we put it in perspective,” he said.
Nevertheless, the WBHA supports more aggressive wolf management, including a hunting season, largely because wolves kill bear-hunting dogs from time to time. At least 13 hunting dogs were killed by wolves in northern Wisconsin in 2005, including three in Price County, according to a DNR Web site.
The job of bear-hunting dogs is to follow a scent trail and bay for the hunter when a bear is cornered or in a tree. Sometimes those scent trails overlap wolf territory. And wolves are highly territorial, particularly with other canines.
Joe Janak, a Phillips resident on the WBHA board of directors, lost a female hound to wolves on federal forest land east of Fifield two years ago.
Janak also believes northern Wisconsin’s human population density far higher than northern Saskatchewan’s will inevitably lead to human attacks if wolves are left to proliferate.
“It’s just a matter of time before it happens here,” he said.
He echoes a number of local voices from the spring and summer of 2005, when wolves attacked pet dogs in Price County farm yards on at least three occasions. Additionally, a small number of livestock were killed in Price County farm fields (the complete DNR list of 2005 wolf depredation incidents was not available before the press deadline).
Authorities killed several wolves in connection with those depredations, but the debate raged on.
At the time, the farmers in the incidents expressed worry about wolves expanding their territories into human settlements.
Indeed, population estimates leave little doubt that wolf range is expanding.
The DNR estimates that Wisconsin is home to 425-455 wolves, approximately 28-percent more than 2003 estimates. That is evidence that whether or not DNR estimates are accurate, the population is growing fast. And Wydeven anticipates numbers will increase again when the DNR releases new estimates in April.
Janak predicted the death in Canada will help steer the debate away from wolf protection.
“It’s definitely going to give (wolf-control advocates) more ammunition,” he said. “A life was taken.”
However, Janak isn’t an anti-wolf zealot. He said it’s appropriate for Wisconsin to maintain a small wolf population.
“The wolves being here isn’t a bad thing,” he said. “But their numbers need to be regulated.”
The debate might have shifted already. Wydeven has fielded a number of calls on the topic, including one from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Information from that call ended up on the front page of the Journal-Sentinel in late December.
Although Wydeven often reiterates the extremely low risk of a wolf attack on a human, he said the death in Canada has clearly had an impact.
“It’s kind of a precedent-setting case,” he said.
State and county wolf facts
Wolves are well established in Price County, according to the DNR. There are about a dozen packs with ranges either in the county or overlapping the county’s borders. Here are the recorded packs in the area (named by the general area they inhabit) and how many wolves each pack was thought to have before pups were born last spring.
* Price Creek pack, four or five wolves
* Log Creek pack, three wolves
* Skinner Creek pack, five or six wolves (ten wolves or wolf-dog hybrids, including seven pups, were trapped and killed in the area after several depredation incidents last year)
* Green Creek pack, three wolves
* Spring Creek pack, six wolves
* Musser Creek pack, two wolves (two wolves were trapped and killed in the area after a depredation incident last summer)
* Davis Lake pack, four wolves
* Hoffman Lake pack, four wolves
* Wintergreen Lake pack, four wolves
* Miles Lake pack, four wolves
* Bootjack Lake pack, eight wolves
* Little Rice River pack, eight wolves
* Spirit Lake pack, two wolves
Statewide, the DNR estimates there are 108 wolf packs.
Wolves are considered a threatened species by the state and federal governments. Killing a wolf without authorization carries hefty fines and a potential prison sentence, according to a DNR website. Nevertheless, wolves turn up dead with bullet wounds from time to time.
Wolves average about 5 feet in length, 2.5 feet at the shoulder and weigh 60-75 pounds. A large wolf can weigh 100 pounds. The average wolf is about twice as big as a coyote.
The DNR live-traps and collars wolves to get accurate accounts of pack sizes, movements and home ranges, Wydeven said. The collars also allow the DNR to locate dead wolves quickly in order to study mortality factors, he said.
Wisconsin wolf packs’ ranges average between 20 and 120 square miles. DNR officials trace and observe collared wolves and their packs by airplane.
The DNR also does winter track surveys.
Wydeven said packs kill approximately 20 deer per wolf in an average year. That works out to approximately 9,000 deer per year statewide and approximately 1,000 in the Price County area. By comparison, cars and hunters killed approximately 500,000 deer statewide and 5,000 in Price County last year.
Anyone who has a wolf attack or depredation to report should call Wildlife Services at 1-800-228-1368. Wydeven also encouraged people to call him at 762-1363 to report wolf observations.