Study aims to keep wolves from livestock
By Associated Press
MOUNT PLEASANT — A Central Michigan University professor plans an
effort
to stop wolves from preying on livestock in the Upper Peninsula.
Thomas Gehring, a biologist, will lead a two-year study tracking wolves
and trying to keep them out of areas where they cause problems.
Next spring, Gehring and others will put radio telemetry collars on
wolves that will shock them if they enter an area covered by a tower. The
collars will work like an electric fence for pets.
“We want to be humane about it,” Gehring said. “The point of this is to
reduce lethal control. Lethal control can be used, yes, but also use other
tools.”
Michigan and Wisconsin environmental officials are trying to determine
whether it is safe to downgrade the wolf from endangered to threatened.
If the animals’ status were changed, Department of Natural Resources
officials could eliminate the entire pack using lethal measures, Gehring
said.
An estimated 350 wolves live in the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin.
Gehring hopes to fit four wolves with global positioning system collars
to track their movements. Eight others will be fitted with telemetry
collars — four with shocking capabilities and four without.
A graduate student and undergraduate research assistants will help with
the work. They will explore the collars’ effectiveness, checking to see
whether they deter wolves even after the collars are removed.
Strobe lights or sirens could be deterrents, the professor said, but
they
have not yet been tested scientifically.
“We can really apply this to any carnivore who has a conflict with
(humans) from a standpoint of their culture,” he said.