Life Tracks
Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources - Bureau of Endangered Resources - PUBL-ER-500 96REV
Eastern Timber Wolf
(Canis lupus lycaon)
By Richard P. Thiel and Adrian P. Wydeven
Edited by Anne Hallowell
Legal status in U.S.: Endangered in lower 48
states, except Threatened in Minnesota
1996 Numbers in Wisconsin: 99-105
Length: 5.0-5.5 feet long (including 15-19 inch tail)
Height: 2.5 feet high
Weight: 50-100 pounds/average for adult males is
75 pounds, average for adult females is 60
pounds.
Description
Few people have ever heard the sound of a howling timber wolf. A small number, but growing population, of wolves now live in Wisconsin, one of just nine states in the country where timber wolves exist in the wild.
Timber wolves, also called gray wolves, are the largest wild members of the dog family. Males are usually bigger than females. Timber wolves have silvery gray-brown backs, light tan underparts, and bushy tails. In winter, their fur becomes darker on the neck, shoulders, and rump.
How can you tell the difference between a timber wolf and a coyote or a large dog? Size is a key difference between coyotes and wolves. A coyote is only half as big as a wolf. Wolves can be distinguished by tracks and various physical features. A wolf usually places its hind foot in the track left by the front foot, whereas a dog's front and hind foot tracks usually do not overlap each other. Wolves also differ from most dogs by having a narrower chest, longer legs, large feet, large head with cheek hair tufts, tail held down or straight but not curled, black tipped tail, and black spot on back of the tail.
Habits
Wolves are social animals, living in a family group, or pack. A pack usually has six to ten animals: a dominant ("Alpha") male and female (the breeding pair), pups from the previous year (yearlings) and the current year's pups. Additional subordinate adults may join the pack upon occasion. The dominant pair is in charge of the pack, raising the young, selecting denning and rendezvous sites, capturing food and maintaining the territory.
A wolf pack's territory may cover 20-120 square miles, about one tenth the size of an average Wisconsin county. Thus, wolves require a lot of space in which to live, a fact that often invites conflict with humans.
While neighboring wolf packs might share a common border, their territories seldom overlap by more than a mile. A wolf that trespasses in another pack's territory risks being killed by that pack. It knows where its territory ends and another begins by smelling scent messages - urine and feces - left by other wolves. In addition, wolves announce their territory by howling. Howling also helps identify and reunite individuals that are scattered over their large territory.
How does a non-breeding wolf attain dominant, or breeding status? It can stay with its natal pack, "bide" its time and work its way up the dominance hierarchy. Or it can "disperse;' leaving the pack to find a mate and a vacant area in which to start its own pack. Both strategies involve risk. A bider may be out-competed by another wolf and never achieve dominance. Dispersers usually leave the pack in autumn, during hunting and trapping season. Dispersers must be alert to entering other wolf packs' territories, and they must keep a constant vigil to avoid encounters with people, their major enemy.
Dispersers have been known to travel great distances in a short time. One radio-collared Wisconsin wolf traveled 23 miles in one day. In ten months, one Minnesota wolf traveled S50 miles to Saskatchewan, Canada. A female wolf trapped near Ely, Minnesota in 1993 was killed by a vehicle near Portage, Wisconsin in August 1994; a distance of over 350 miles from her original home.
Nobody knows why some wolves disperse and others don't. Even siblings behave differently, as in the case of Carol and Big Al, radio-collared yearling sisters in one Wisconsin pack. Carol left the pack one December, returned in February, then dispersed 40 miles away. Big A1 remained with the pack and probably became the pack's dominant female when her mother was illegally shot.
In another case, two siblings dispersed from their pack, but did so at different times and in different directions. One left in September and moved 45 miles east and the other went 85 miles west in November.
Food
Timber wolves are carnivores feeding on other animals. A study in the early 1980's showed that the diet of Wisconsin wolves was comprised of 55% white-tailed deer, 16% beavers, 10% snowshoe hares and 19% mice, squirrels, muskrats and other small mammals.
Wolves' food habits change with seasonal shifts in the availability of prey species. For example, beavers spend a lot of time on shore in the fall and spring, cutting trees for their food supply. Since beavers are easy to catch on land, wolves eat more of them in the fall and spring than during the rest of the year. In the winter, when beavers are in their lodges or moving safely beneath the ice, wolves rely on deer and hares. Wolves' summer diet is more diverse, including a greater variety of small mammals
Breeding Biology
Wolves are mature when two years old, but seldom breed until they are older. In each pack, the dominant male and female are usually the only ones to breed. They prevent subordinate adults from mating by physically harassing them. Thus, a pack generally produces only one litter each year, averaging five to six pups.
In Wisconsin, wolves breed in late winter (February-March). The female delivers the pups two months later in the back chamber of a den that she digs. The den's entrance tunnel is 6-12 feet long and 15-25 inches in diameter. Sometimes the female selects a hollow log cave or abandoned beaver lodge instead of making a den.
At birth, wolf pups are deaf and blind, have dark fuzzy fur and weigh about one pound. They grow rapidly during the first three months, gaining about three pounds each week. Pups begin to see when two weeks old and can hear after three weeks. At this time, they become very active and playful.
When about six weeks old, the pups are weaned and the adults begin to bring them meat. Adults eat the meat at a kill site often miles away from the pups, then return and regurgitate the food for the pups to eat. The hungry pups jump and nip at the adults' muzzles to stimulate regurgitation.
The pack abandons the den when the pups are six to eight weeks old. The female carries the pups in her mouth to the first of a series of rendezvous sites or nursery areas. These sites are the focus of the pack's social activities for the summer months and are usually near water.
By August, the pups wander up to two to three miles from the rendezvous sites and use them less often. The pack abandons the sites in September or October and the pups, now almost full-grown, follow the adults.
Distribution
Before Europeans settled North America; gray wolves inhabited areas from the southern swamps to the northern tundra, from coast to coast. They existed wherever there was an adequate food supply. However, people overharvested wolf prey species (e.g., elk, bison and deer), transformed wolf habitat into farms and towns and persistently killed wolves. As the continent was settled, wolves declined in numbers and became more restricted in range. Today, the majority of wolves in North America live in remote regions of Canada and Alaska. In the lower 48 states, wolves exist in small numbers and in only a few tracts of minimally disturbed northern forest in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
History in Wisconsin
Before Wisconsin was settled in the 1830s, wolves lived throughout the state. Nobody knows how many wolves there were, but best estimates would be 3,000-5,000 animals. Explorers, trappers and settlers transformed Wisconsin s native habitat into farmland, hunted elk and bison to extirpation, and reduced deer populations. As their prey species declined, wolves began to feed on easy-to-capture livestock. As might be expected, this was unpopular among farmers. In response to pressure from farmers, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a state bounty in 1865, offering $5 for every wolf killed. By 1900, no timber wolves existed in the southern two-thirds of the state.
At that time, sport hunting of deer was becoming an economic boost to Wisconsin. To help preserve the dwindling deer population for this purpose, the state supported the elimination of predators like wolves. The wolf bounty was increased to $20 for adults and $10 for pups. The state bounty on wolves persisted until 1957. By the time bounties were lifted, millions of taxpayers dollars had been spent to kill Wisconsin s wolves, and few wolves were left. By 1960, wolves were declared extirpated from Wisconsin. Ironically, studies have shown that wolves have minimal negative impact on deer populations, since they feed primarily on weak, sick, or disabled individuals.
The story was similar throughout the United States. By 1960, few wolves remained in the lower 48 states (only 350-500 in Minnesota and about 20 on Isle Royale in Michigan). In 1974, however, the value of timber wolves was recognized on the federal level and they were given protection under the Endangered Species Act. With protection, the Minnesota wolf population increased and several individuals dispersed into northern Wisconsin in the mid-1970s. In 1975, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources declared timber wolves endangered. A wolf research program was initiated in 1979.
Studies since 1979 have shown that four to twenty-eight wolf packs, ranging from 15 to 105 animals, roamed portions of central and northern Wisconsin. Average adult mortality was about 38% in the early 1980s, but has been reduced to 20% the last few years, and the population continues to increase.
Canine parvovirus, a lethal canine disease, is one of several diseases that are a suspected cause of death among Wisconsin wolves. Recently mange has caused the loss of several wolves, but appears to be declining.
Current Status
The timber wolf is listed as an endangered species in Wisconsin by both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1974) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (1975). Fines and a possible prison sentence await anyone convicted of killing a wolf. About 99-105 wolves exist in Wisconsin in 1996 and the population is increasing.
Misconceptions and Controversies
Wolves are the "bad guys" of fable, myth, and folklore. The 'big bad wolf"' fears portrayed in Little Red Riding Hood, Peter and the Wolf, and other tales have their mots in the experiences and stories of medieval Europe. Wolves were portrayed as vile, demented, immoral beasts. These powerful negative attitudes and misconceptions about wolves have persisted through time, perpetuated by stories, films and word-of-mouth, even when Few Americans will ever have the opportunity to encounter a wolf.
Wolves are controversial because they are large predators. Farmers are concerned about wolves preying on their livestock. In northern Wisconsin, about one or two verified cases of wolf depredation occur per year. As the population continues to increase, slight increases in depredation are likely to occur. In Minnesota, with over 2,000 wolves, there are usually less than 50 cases per year.
A few hunters continue to kill wolves, believing that such actions will help the deer herd. It is important to place in perspective the impact of wolves feeding on deer. Each wolf kills about 18 deer per year. Multiply this by the number of wolves found in Wisconsin in recent years (100), and approximately 1,800 deer may be consumed by wolves annually. This appears as a "drop in the bucket"' when compared to nearly 30,000 deer hit by cars each year, and about 350,000 deer shot annually by gunhunters.
Research and Management
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been studying wolves since 1979 by live capturing, attaching radio collars, and monitoring movements. Much has been learned about wolf ecology in northern Wisconsin. In 1992 the Department began a research project to determine the impact of highway development in northwest Wisconsin on wolves. Recently, a Geographic Information System, (computer mapping system) was used to determine that northern Wisconsin has about 5,700 square miles of habitat that could support 300-400 wolves. These research findings will help biologist manage wolves in Wisconsin well into the future.
The Department of Natural Resources recognizes wolves as native wildlife species that are of value to natural ecosystems and benefit biological diversity of Wisconsin. The Department approved a Wolf Recovery Plan in 1989. The Plan's goal of 80 wolves was first achieved in 1995. This goal was achieved mainly through protection and public education programs, and did not require any active reintroductions into the state. Wolves will be reclassified to Threatened in Wisconsin soon. Over the next few years the Department will develop a wolf management plan that will address how wolves will be managed when they are no longer considered threatened or endangered. This will probably include some control on wolves in areas where they cause depredation on livestock or pets.
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