BY AMBER MULLEN STAFF WRITER
Mythology, history and children’s stories are riddled with reasons for people to despise wolves. As predators, they prey on white-tailed deer and they disguise themselves as sweet, elderly women in order to devour little girls in red hoods.
Since 1996, Wolf Awareness Week has been held during the third week in October as a way to provide a platform for organizations across the nation to set the record straight about this often-misunderstood species.
According to author, educator and retired Department of Natural Resources Wolf Biologist Dick Thiel, wolves “conjure up all kinds of images and value systems.”
“Wolves are as much a physical beast as they are a social construct—an amalgam of mythology, family tales and your own personal competing value systems,” Thiel said. “All of these things make the wolf what it is and it’s a highly volatile critter to work with.”
On Wednesday, Thiel gave a presentation at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland College on wolf policy in Wisconsin in the context of the development of wildlife management from the 1920s to wolf extirpation in the late 1950s. Thiel’s own wolf research in the 1970s contributed to today’s Wisconsin Wolf Project, which started in 1979 and the listing of wolves on Wisconsin’s endangered species list in 1975.
According to Thiel, a number of events led to the Wisconsin Wolf Project of 1979 including conservation laws in the 1920s that gave white-tailed deer game status, the establishment of the Wildlife Society in 1937 and state statutes for a bounty on wolves during the Great Depression that led to wolf extirpation in the late 1950s.
“All of this stuff erupted out of our society and led to a greater need to study wolves,” Thiel said.
In the 1940’s, half of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources budget went to paying for bounties for killing a predator.
“This was the impetus for the destruction of massive amounts of canids,” Thiel said. “Just imagine the destructive force that our society was exerting on our predators.”
Thiel pointed out that this series of events was the start of game management as we know it today.
“Wolves are the antithesis of game management,” Thiel said.
Thiel is considered an “old wolfer” because he and his colleagues searched for wolves as they slowly recolonized the state following their extirpation.
Between 1960 and 1978, Thiel conducted research that confirmed breeding wolves were present in the state of Wisconsin.
“The conclusion we came up with from this study is that Northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan should be considered one wolf range continuous with Minnesota’s,” Thiel said. “The data we got from this stuff was published and we used it to petition to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to place the wolf on the state endangered species list.”
Thiel’s research was honored and the wolf was placed on the Wisconsin endangered species list in 1975.
Wolves were removed from the endangered species list in December 2011 with a recorded population of 782 wolves in Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin Fish and Wildlife Service website.
“The bottom line is wolf management is something that is very difficult and very controversial,” Thiel said.
Approximately 50 people attended Thiel’s presentation.
Audience members at the event were most interested in the current status of wolf populations in Wisconsin and what type of compensation is available for farmers who lose livestock to wolf predation.
According to Thiel, compensation for the loss of livestock to wolf predation is still available and the wolf population in Wisconsin is at approximately 670.
The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute is set to host two more events as part of Wolf Awareness Week 2014. This Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Erik Olson, retired DNR Carnivore Specialist in Wildlife Management Adrian Wydeven and Naturalist Sarah Boles are leading a Wolf Ecology Workshop that will cover the basics of wolf ecology and management.
On Saturday, Nov. 1 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Adrian Wydeven and Sarah Boles are hosting the Volunteer Carnivore Track-Training and Refresher Class to teach the basics of tracking medium to large carnivores in Wisconsin.
Both workshops are required for participants to earn the Volunteer Carnivore Tracking certificate. Each event costs $25. Event attendees can register at the event, but are encouraged to pre-register online at www.northland.edu/wolfawareness.