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Two members of a U.P. wolf pack on patrol, crossing a snowmobile track.

The OuTdOOrs Page

Rolf PeteRson

Rolf PeteRson

BRian Roell

BlaDe PHoto illUstRation/PHoto By Rolf PeteRson

Wolves

584

Year

Num

ber o

f wol

ves

050

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’89 ’90 ’91 ’92 ’93 ’94 ’95 ’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09

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250300350

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650MINIMUM WINTER POPULATION ESTIMATES

Keweenaw

Houhton

Ontonagon

Gogebic

Baraga

IronMarquette

DickensonDelta

Menominee

AlgerSchoolcraft

LuceChippewa

Mackinac

AREA OF HIGHEST CONCENTRATION

WOLF POPULATION IN UPPER PENINSULA

Lake Huron

Lake Superior

Michigan,Upper Peninsula

Michigan,Lower Peninsula

Michigan’s,Isle Royale

Wisconsin

Minnesota

Ontario,Canada

Lake Michigan

Keweenaw

Houhton

Ontonagon

Gogebic

Baraga

IronMarquette

DickensonDelta

Menominee

AlgerSchoolcraft

LuceChippewa

Mackinac

Michigan,Upper Peninsula

Michigan Technological University’s renowned wildlife ecologist Rolf Peterson took this photo of an Isle Royale wolf. For 35 years Mr. Peterson has studied moose-wolf behavior on the Lake Superior island.

A pair of wolves wander the frozen Upper Peninsula landscape.

The U.P. wolf population is making fast tracks

Michigan’sUpper Peninsula

The thing about wolves in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is

that they are like wolves just about everywhere — too often and too much misun-derstood.

They are neither warm-and-fuzzy, thick-coated pets, like the family dog, nor are they the slack-jawed, slavering black beasts of fairy tales, out to ravage ev-erything from bunnies to babies.

“Bar-room biology is far too rampant,” says Brian Roell, Michigan’s wolf bi-ologist, who has spent years studying the U.P.’s wolves. “It’s not milk and cookies out there for a wolf. It is like controlled starvation, wait-ing for your next meal.”

Every winter he and other field workers of the Michi-gan Department of Natural Resources count wolves as part of their research, and it would not surprise him if this winter the tally reaches 600 or more.

The numbers have been increasing about 10 percent a year the last five years, reaching 584 at last count in about 100 packs, with the larger concentrations occurring in the southern and western portions of the peninsula. Those areas are where white-tailed deer — prime wolf food — are more concentrated.

Mr. Roell said that he can-not say for certain where or when the wolf population will level out; it could be 600, possibly 800.

That would be quite a comeback from 1935, by which time Michigan wolves had been persecuted out of existence. The wolf biologist said that by 1956 an estimat-ed 100 had become reestab-lished in the 16,000-square-mile U.P. from neighboring Wisconsin and Minnesota and Ontario.

But relentless persecution cut that to just six by 1973, eight years after wolves were legally protected in the state. In 1974 and 1976, re-spectively, federal and state endangered species laws

further protected the wolf, to the point that it now has become a political or at least legalistic football.

“Wolf management has been taken away from the on-the-ground biologist, like me, to the courtroom.” Thus, with wolves flourish-ing in upper Michigan, their “endangered” status ping-pongs back and forth, a fact which ham-strings their c o n s e r v a t i o n and manage-ment.

Wolves, Mr. Roell notes, leave a larger-than-life foot-print. “They go jogging for 10 to 12 hours every day — that’s 365. They put down lots of footprints.” One radio-collared U.P. wolf was killed in Missouri, 470 miles from home territory.

Wolves, like people, also prefer the path of least resis-tance, so their many tracks often are laid down right

where people are likely to see them — on groomed and packed snowmobile trails and plowed roads.

“Your chances of seeing a wolf,” the biologist said in conclusion, “are a lot better than seeing other wildlife species.”

In contrast the U.P. is home to 15,000 to 18,000 black bears, which are highly reclusive, hiber-nate in winter, and are another large predator. Such numbers dwarf those of U.P. wolves, the biologist noted, “yet people will say it’s the wolves not the

bears” that are a concern.Mr. Roell links it to the

Little Red Riding Hood syn-drome. “It has created this fear in people and it’s unde-served.” He notes that there are no documented wolf attacks on humans in the lower 48 states, and attacks seen in Alaska and Canada

are rare and often linked to habituated animals.

Just the simple fact that wolves may come close to rural residences and farms, for example, is easily ex-plained: “They’re curious, just like dogs.”

Wolves, too, often are blamed for a lack of deer in a given region. “Wolves and deer evolved together,” the biologist said. “Deer are what they are because of wolves. It is incorrect to claim that wolves are going to wipe out all the deer. If the deer goes, the wolf goes.”

Mr. Roell notes that nearby Minnesota is home to some 3,000 wolves and still has plenty of deer. A lot of factors figure into deer numbers, he added. Indeed, wolf numbers in the U.P. grow when deer numbers are peaking.

“Wolves are a piece of the pie but not the whole pie.” Coyotes, bobcats, and bears all kill and eat deer, espe-cially fawns. The same pred-ators also claim occasional livestock, as do dogs. But wolves are easier to blame.

The biggest deer-killer in the U.P. is a severe win-ter, or worse, successive severe winters, along with condition of the habitat. “Winter severity is the most important factor in deer survival [and reproductive success].”Another big deer-killer is the motor vehicle, and cyclical outbreaks of diseases such as mange also take a toll.

The biologist nonethe-less notes that what is called “social carrying capacity” — humans’ tolerance for wolves — likely is something lower than the pure biologi-cal carrying capacity. “We’re probably over the social car-rying capacity [tolerance] in many parts of the U.P.”

Only one female in a pack bears pups, usually about five a year. But 70 percent of the pups die the first winter. Adult wolves live about five years in the wild. For all of which Mr. Roell says: “Being a predator is a tough life.”

Contact Steve Pollick at:spollick@theblade.com

or 419-724-6068.

A wolf track, about 3-by-5 inches.

By STEVE POLLICK and JEFF BaSTING

BRian Roell