Researchers hope to control wolves by shocking them
By Rick LaFrombois
Wausau Daily Herald
rlafromb@wdhprint.com
A Central Michigan University graduate student and his instructor think
they might have found a way to keep Wisconsin wolves from killing
livestock: Don’t shoot the wolves, shock them.
Jason Hawley and assistant professor Tom Gehring have joined forces with
members of the state Department of Natural Resources wolf management
program to study how shock treatment can help control wandering wolves.
“There are certain situations where it’s not really a problem wolf you
have, it’s a problem area,” Hawley said.
Although the federal government changed the wolf’s status in Wisconsin
from endangered to threatened – allowing problem animals to be destroyed –
Hawley and Gehring point out that other wolves can take their place.
A “problem area” might include a place where a farmer is messy when
discarding livestock carcasses, or an area that contains ideal wolf
habitat.
What Wisconsin needs in addition to its euthanasia option is a way to
control an existing pack without necessarily destroying it, Hawley said.
That way, the well-trained pack can reside for years in an area and defend
its territory from untrained packs.
A partial solution might be the shock-collar idea, which would deter
problem wolves from straying into areas in which they have preyed upon
livestock. Hawley acknowledges it’s not a perfect plan, and skeptics
abound. But if the idea works, it will decrease the number of wolves that
have to be destroyed, he said.
The shock plan
Shock treatment is similar to invisible fencing, which dog owners use to
keep their pets close to home. Dogs wear a collar tuned into a signal
buried around the perimeter of a yard. If the unsuspecting creature roams
from its owner’s yard, it will get a brief but jarring shock.
Shock treatment, on the other hand, seeks to keep the wolf away from, not
near, a problem area such as a livestock farm.
Last year, wolves killed a record 62 domestic animals in Wisconsin,
including cows, horses and dogs. Before April, the DNR’s only choice was
to relocate problem wolves. Now the wolves can be destroyed, and four have
been killed since April.
Gehring grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin 15 miles north of Chippewa
Falls. He aimed to develop tools that would prevent farmers from suffering
livestock losses. But he also grew fond of wolves while studying the
animals for his master’s level thesis in the mid-1990s.
“I’m really interested in having the two co-exist,” he said. “I think it’s
possible.” To determine that, Gehring landed funding from his university.
The Defenders of Wildlife, a national organization, also is contributing
to his study as is the DNR with in-kind donations.
Hawley recently moved to a campground north of Tomahawk to begin trapping
wolves with DNR wildlife technician Ron Schultz.
They equipped two wolves in separate packs with shock collars. They aim to
collar at least one more in a third pack, although trapping wolves has
proven tricky on most days. Right now, they have steel foot traps set for
a Ranger Island Pack south of Tomahawk and the Somo River Pack, just west
of Tomahawk.
The majority of wolves in Wisconsin roam from a line between Merrill and
Rhinelander to the north and west.
Wisconsin began the year with about 350 wolves residing in about 80 packs,
said Adrian Wydeven, head of the DNR’s wolf management program. The number
has doubled to about 700 with the arrival of the packs’ new pups this
spring, but only about 100 pups will survive through the year because of
disease and predation by other wolf packs, bears and large coyotes.
Once the wolves are collared, researchers will follow their movement in
and around their territory. After they collect enough data, the group will
install a command center, possibly on a nearby farm later this year.
‘Pretty big wallop’
From the command center, researchers will dial in a signal that has a
radius of 100 meters up to a range of about 40 acres. When a wolf enters the
range, it will get a two-second-long shock.
“It’s a pretty big wallop,” Gehring said.
Then the wolf will have time to get out before getting shocked again.
Schultz is a pioneer of using the technology on wolves. He tried it on a
lactating female about five years ago out of necessity.
In a very unscientific study, the wolf jumped about four feet in the air
and did somersaults when being shocked.
Gehring was led to the study by Schultz’s original idea.
But a lot of leg work remains before the researchers can determine if
shock treatment is a viable option.
Questions remain, such as how other wolves in the pack will react when the
collared wolf gets shocked. The uncollared wolves will teach researchers
just as much as the collared wolf.
And, once the collared wolf learns not to go near a protected area, how
long will it remember? Batteries in the collars last three to six months,
Gehring said.
Another questions: When new wolves are born, will they learn from the
elder wolf to stay away from the protected areas? Even if the collars are
somewhat successful, they would be only a partial solution, Gehring said.
“We’re not doing this as an end-all to everything,” he said. “But if we
can use a combination of tools in one place, we might be further ahead
than using just one tool.” If researchers can learn to maintain a pack,
and have them defend their territory in the process, they will have taught
an old dog a new trick.
No fan of wolves
But skeptics abound.
Lori Groskoph of the Lincoln County town of Harrison isn’t sold on
Gehring’s study or the DNR’s current wolf-management practices.
She thinks the wolf population is sorely underestimated and would like to
see the federal de-listing process speed up, so wolves can be managed in
Wisconsin without federal interference.
Groskoph is an avid bear hunter. The mother of one of her dogs was killed
by wolves. She said it’s common for her dogs to run into wolves during a
bear hunt.
“We do take chances when we let our dogs loose, and we know that,” she
said.
But she wants to see more aggressive management practices, possibly even a
limited wolf hunt in Wisconsin once it’s taken off the threatened list,
because the wolf population has already become too big in her eyes.
“What is different about this group of predators than any other group of
predators we deal with in Wisconsin?” she said. “I’m not saying wolves
don’t belong in Wisconsin, but I own bear hunting dogs and this is a
threat to my way of life.”