Wolf Country

by John Theberge

  Throughout our study, we have searched for a fundamental, sustainable relationship between humans, wolves, and things wild and free. We have wondered, particularly, if science can identify such a relationship and, through ecology, spin out guidelines. If we can go to Mars and build all sorts of elaborate technological mousetraps, we should be able to manage nature in a sustainable way.

  Reflecting on our years of study, we realize that we cannot. The complexity of ecosystems places them beyond comprehension. All the interactions between soils, maples, pines, hemlock, moose, deer, spruce budworm, winter tick, brainworm, snow, acorns, logging, hunting, snaring, coyote alleles, gene selection, cooperation, competition, co-evolution — and wolves.

  Not through computer models that calculate the yields of deer, moose, trees, or codfish will we reach an accord with nature. Too many models are full of tenuous assumptions, or plain wrong. Nor can we look to a generation of highly trained ecologists conducting studies that fill the scientific journals, although, properly used as a means and not an end, their findings are vital to good conservation.

  But our failure to understand the way nature operates can, at the same time, provide the opportunity for our success. Nature’s complexity can be, if we so choose, the fount of a deep respect. Trying to understand at least some of the interrelated pieces brings immeasurable satisfaction. It allows us to ask better questions and provides a platform for wonder. Wonder breeds caring. It is simple caring that leads to a cautious sustainable, harmonious relationship with wild things, caring even for the wolf — litmus of our environmental sincerity.

  One late-August evening in 1997, we pulled our canoe up in the cattails and leatherleaf that lined the shore of McDonald Creek. We pitched our tent and ate dinner. We were there to find the McDonald Creek pack. The previous winter, all aerial locations on the two radio-collared adults showed them alone. We wanted to find out if they were the only adults, and if they had denned successfully.

  With the mist rising, at dusk we set out, tracing the bends in the creek from the shadows piled up along its grassy shores. The dark water slipped under the bow and out behind. We talked in whispers, embraced by the silence of that late-summer night.

  Periodically Mary raised the antenna and rotated it slowly through 360 degrees, but neither wolf’s signal came in; the wolves were somewhere else. Paddling slowly to avoid hidden rocks, we got back to camp shortly after midnight.

  Then, at 3:15 A.M., the wolves found us, their howls gradually impressing themselves on our awareness. I climbed out of the tent for a bearing. A waning moon hung just above the mist still lying over the marsh. Silvery dewdrops clung to the tips of pine needles outlined with clarity in the moonlight. Both collared wolves were there, out along the creek where we had been. They howled on and on, long after I returned to the tent. We lay still and listened.

  APPENDIX: The Status of Wolf Management in Ontario, the Case for Wolf Protection Beyond Algonquin Park Boundaries, and the Government’s Position

  ONTARIO HAS the most exploitive wolf-management policies of any jurisdiction in Canada. Wolves are managed more like vermin than a species with some value. They can be killed without any requirement to report by landowners and by anyone holding a small game licence anytime during the year in southern Ontario, or between September and June in northern Ontario, without limit. Trappers have no quota for wolves as they do for other furbearers. In contrast, other jurisdictions in Canada manage them like other valued game or furbearer species, some provinces with area-specific harvest limits.

  In Ontario, wolves are protected only within Algonquin Provincial Park, Lake Superior Provincial Park, the Nipissing Crown Game Preserve, and the Chapleau Crown Game Preserve. These areas cover less than 2 per cent of Ontario’s wolf range. Wolves can be killed (depending upon the ethnic origin of the hunter or trapper) inside all other parks, both national and provincial.

  Less than half of Algonquin Park’s estimated thirty-four to thirty-eight wolf packs have territories that fall primarily within the park. Outside the park, wolves are open to killing just as they are elsewhere in the province, except for the ban applied seasonally (December 15 to March 31) in three townships — Hagarty, Richards, and Burns — that run along less than 4 per cent of the park’s boundary. Twenty-four townships abut Algonquin Park.

  Algonquin Park wolves warrant special attention because of the park’s high usage by the public and the opportunity it provides to hear wolves howl.

  Algonquin Park wolves warrant special attention because of their uniqueness. They are either: red wolves, until now thought to be extirpated (and recently reintroduced from captive stock) in the eastern United States, their only known range; or a unique species of wolf (additional to the other two species in the world: gray wolf and red wolf) with its remaining range restricted to southern Ontario and southern Quebec; or a distinctive subspecies of the gray wolf called lycaon that has the same restricted range. More research will determine which of these possibilities is correct.

  Whatever its taxonomic status, the Algonquin Park wolf population may be the last remnant of its kind. Hybridization with coyotes has changed the nature of the wolf genetically, physically, and ecologically throughout all equally heavily forested lands south and east of the park. If exploitation is the cause, as appears most likely from our data, then we cannot expect populations of the Algonquin wolf to persist free from significant hybridization anywhere else in its range.

  Threatening to Algonquin Park wolves is the same gene swamping with coyotes that has occurred outside the park. (All park wolves carry coyote genes now, although not enough or not the right ones to change their physical or ecological nature.) Coyote genes can invade Algonquin Park wolves in three ways: when park wolves meet coyote-like animals outside the park on parts of their territories, or when park wolves follow migratory deer in winter, or when coyote-like animals invade the park. The presence of coyote-like animals both near and within Algonquin Park appears to be the result of wolf killing.

  The following demographic facts make the Algonquin Park wolves vulnerable to human exploitation:

  • Population changes between years are driven primarily by annual mortality.

  • Recruitment of new animals to yearling age has been steady over the years at 20 to 25 per cent. This level of recruitment is low compared with most other wolf studies and makes the Algonquin population particularly vulnerable.

  • The primary cause of low recruitment appears to be a low number of pups by the end of the summer. Among speculative explanations is low parenting success due to inexperience because of the heavy exploitation, the effects of canine parvovirus on pups, and lack of genetic diversity.

  Between 1989 and 1993, the population declined by 43 per cent, followed by three years of increase, then a 28 per cent decline in 1997, and a stable low population early in 1998. Mortality rates, estimated from the deaths of yearling and adult radio-collared wolves, have been up to 61, 55, and 36 per cent in various years. These figures are low because they do not include wolves killed and collars smashed without our knowledge.

  Human killing exceeds all other causes of death combined. All of this killing occurs when wolves are outside the park. Less than half has taken place within the three-township wolf-protection zone, mostly before the seasonal wolf-killing ban was implemented in 1993; more than half has occurred in other townships adjacent to the park — an underestimate because of our lack of work in recent years on the west side of the park.

  Neck snaring is the major cause of death, followed by shooting. Commercial trappers take a minority; more wolves are killed by people who kill them because they don’t like them.

  This heavy level of exploitation has affected the integrity and fitness of the population in the following ways:

  • Whole packs, or enough members to damage the social structure of the pack, commonly have been killed.

  • Vacant territories have taken from one to three years to refill.

  • Dispersal rates fr
om packs is very high, typical of an exploited population.

  • Wandering yearlings and adults are unusually common.

  • Dens and rendezvous sites are rarely reused, and territory boundaries alter more than they would if the population was not so heavily exploited.

  • Packs commonly split up when hunting, even in winter, showing less cohesion than expected.

  IT IS THE POSITION of World Wildlife Fund Canada, The Wildlands League (with parent organization the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society), and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists that a ten-kilometre-wide protection zone be established around Algonquin Park. This zone would extend protection to all packs that have most of their territory within the park. This distance is approximated by all townships bordering Algonquin Park. (Exceptions should occur only where livestock losses are verified and cannot be controlled in other ways, and then be government supervised and local.) Furthermore, Algonquin Park should be situated as the core of a linked system of “designated wolf protection zones.”

  Over the past year, MNR policy respecting the future of Algonquin wolves has been both perplexing and ambiguous. In the summer of 1997, it published a review of our research in the park publication The Raven that minimized, ignored, or distorted most of our findings described in this book. The review was based upon no research by the ministry, nor was it written or reviewed internally by any practising wolf ecologist — the MNR has none. Its authors wrote: “… wolves die. We are only seeing something that, one way or another, must and does happen all the time. On balance, we [the MNR] don’t believe there is any evidence to think, under the present conditions, that the Park wolf population is at risk through vulnerability to human killing outside the Park — or even any compelling reason to expect that it would be.”

  Our request for an opportunity to publish a rebuttal, common courtesy in most print media, was denied.

  Ten months later, in May 1998, as this book went to press, the Minister of Natural Resources recognized the conservation problem our research identified by announcing his intention to establish an all-stakeholder — hunters, trappers, environmentalists, local citizens, scientists — “advisory committee to assist in the development of a conservation strategy for the gray wolf in and around Algonquin Park.”

  Can such a committee recommend the needed protection for Algonquin Park wolves? Or will it simply camouflage continuing government inertia?

  We have made our case. Never in Canada has so much scientific research been made available upon which to base a wolf-management decision. How many more years of evidence, and how many more wolf deaths will it take?

  As I write, two more Algonquin Park wolves are on mortality mode, found on this morning’s telemetry flight. One of them died outside the park. Their carcasses await pickup.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  WORLD WILDLIFE FUND CANADA’S scientific research program has supplied most of the funding for this research. Its ability to do so is due to the faith that some individuals put in us. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Bill Menzel of Toronto, who supports us both out of his personal concern and in memory of his wife, Oivi. Without his support, our research would not be possible. Others have made major contributions through WWF, particularly Rosamond Ivey-Thom and the McCutcheon family. In recent years, the Wildlands League has supported us through the generous contribution of Glen Davis, who we thank also for editorial comment on this manuscript. Other people made substantial contributions through charitable donations via the University of Waterloo, including Bob Bateman, Harold Cusden, and Kingsley Ward. We thank them all. Both Bill and Glen have had a few good experiences with us in Algonquin Park.

  Initial funding was supplied by the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada, and for three years the Ontario Government’s Renewable Resource Research program. For a few years, at a crucial time, the International Fund for Animal Welfare threw its support behind us, and we thank Brian Davies. Throughout the study we have received student summer employment grants either provincially or federally.

  Recent work to identify the type of canid, its habitat affiliations, and related genetic and disease components have been made possible by a substantial grant from the Max Bell Foundation, and we thank Virginia Froman. Subsidiary funds were granted from Wildlife Habitat Canada.

  Over the years, Friends of Algonquin Park, a non-profit organization, has sold our publications and donated full proceeds to us. Wolf Awareness Inc. provided us with some radio-collars in the earlier years of the research, and for a time president Hank Halliday flew telemetry surveys as a volunteer. The Algonquin Forest Authority provided a small grant in our initial years, as did Murray Brothers Lumber Company of Madawaska.

  Three outfitters have provided financial help: Mountain Equipment Co-op in Toronto, Trailhead in Ottawa, and Adventure Guide in Waterloo.

  Some schools and Scout groups have bought a radio-collar and in that way adopted a wolf. Many of the children in those programs learned about wolf mortality the hard way.

  We, and the wolves of Algonquin, owe much to former MNR area manager John Johnson (now working in Peterborough, Ontario) and Pembroke district manager Ray Bonenberg for their courageous stand against the killing of park wolves and support for the three-township ban. John had a lively interest in the details of our work, and we enjoyed many discussions about wolves and deer with him.

  Other MNR people quietly supported us from behind the scenes in our efforts to get their employer to resolve problems of Algonquin Park wolf and forest management. We appreciate their assistance.

  On a scientific level, District Biologist Mike Wilton was always generous with the moose data he collected and with his time for discussions. In the field, a number of conservation officers have been most helpful: Blake Simpson, and in the early years Pat Sloan, whose patrol areas include the Round Lake deer yard, Charley Bilmer and assistant Larry Cobb, who handle the eastern part of the park, and Ed Hovinga and Art Gamble, who provide student crews with training in bear handling. Park superintendents Ernie Martelle and John Winters have approved our research for annual permits. Dan Strickland provided accommodation at the park museum staff house on occasion.

  Many students have cut their teeth on wildlife work with us and contributed through seasonal employment or volunteer positions. We particularly acknowledge the people who earned degrees, especially Graham Forbes (who earned two). We shared much enjoyment and frustration. Other graduate students who have had the satisfaction of making original contributions are Lee Swanson, Joy Cook, Doerte Poszig, John Pisapio, Hilary Sears, Jenny Theberge, and Michelle Theberge. Some students wrote up aspects of the field work into senior honours theses: Lisa Atwell, Mark Hebblewhite, Ryan Norris, Harry Vogel, Sarah Stewart, and Peter Wamberra, the former four working also as summer field assistants. Other students who have worked as field assistants include: Eric Barr, Sarah Bauer, James Bay, Stephan Beauregard, Carolyn Callaghan, Lou Chora, Rod Duncan, Cam Douglas, Carvell Fenton, Nadelle Flynn, April Haig, Andrew Hawke, Willy Hollett, Leslie Hunt, Jennifer Neate, Alison Neilson, Kerri Pauls, Alan Ramanus, Ken Reiche, Hilary Rollinson, Sheryl Ross, Judith Schwartz, Cathy Shuppli, Diane Slye, and Shannon Walshe. Providing lab assistance were Irene Domingoes, Julie Duroo, and Lowell Grieb.

  Volunteers from other countries who worked at least three months with us include Katrine Tchanen (Switzerland), Debbie Smith (California), Sophie Alexandre (Portugal), Luis daFonesca Moreira (Portugal), Christina Wolfe (Austria), Marguerite Trocma (Switzerland), and Paul Mosiman (Switzerland).

  A few husband-and-wife teams have helped us collect data at various times: Fred and Diane Gregory, Hank Halliday and Val Quant, Craig and Elaine Hurst, Bill and Carrie Steer, and Steve and Alison Woodley.

  It has been stimulating to have research colleagues to share the excitement of discovery. Dr. Ian Barker and Dr. Doug Campbell, and in the earlier years Dr. Trent Bollinger, autopsied far too many wolves, but we learned about the accidents and injuries wolves sustain, and their diseases.
Ian runs the Cooperative Wildlife Disease Centre at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph. He acts as an adviser on our drugging and handling techniques. To his students, laboratory technicians, and the staff of the post-mortem room, we appreciate your help.

  In the early years we benefited from the genetics work of graduate student Debbie Smith and her supervisor, Dr. Robert Wayne, at the University of California. Sending blood that far proved to be impractical, so we switched to a laboratory closer to home, to Dr. Brad White at McMaster University, whose interpretations of laboratory results opened up our research in new directions. He and forensic technician Paul Wilson and graduate student Sonya Grewal teamed up with us in a continuing partnership to determine what species we have been studying.

  Debbie Freeman of the Wildlands League has worked tirelessly to advise the public of the situation Algonquin Park wolves are in, and she does so with the support of Executive Director Tim Gray. Chris Lompart has represented the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. In recent years, Pete Ewins of WWF has taken a management role over our research relationships with WWF. Lynn Gran, and formerly Mary Deacon, oversee WWF donations earmarked for us.

  The veterinarians at the Pembroke Animal Hospital willingly answered late-night and weekend telephone calls and went to the clinic to receive our wolf blood, so essential to get spun and keep refrigerated for disease and genetics work: Drs. Stu Mark, Richard Hobart, and Guylaine Charette.

  Media people — hosts and producers — have given our work excellent TV exposure and showed a particular interest in our research: Dr. David Suzuki and Caroline Underwood of the CBC’s “The Nature of Things,” Loren Miller then of TV Ontario, Peter Trueman on contract for TVO, and Janet Smith and Wayne Rostad of CBC’s “On the Road Again.”