UPPER PENINSULA — The memory of the first time Denise Amo saw a wolf in the Upper Peninsula has remained crystal clear over the years.
“I wish I could have filmed it, but we didn’t all have smartphones in our pockets back then,” said Amo, a retired 32-year-old Brimley resident who lives on the shores of Lake Superior.
“It was the middle of winter, shortly after we moved here,” she remembers. “The ice on Whitefish Bay was at its thickest and it was an unusually clear, calm day. I happened to look across the bay toward Ontario and there it was, a wolf crossing the ice, probably migrating from Ontario to Michigan, or perhaps returning to a pack. The wolf trotted confidently across the frozen bay like a large dog, but much more elegant, alert, graceful and wild. I knew immediately that I was in the close company of a truly regal being, and although the days before and after that moment are lost to me like the infinite grains of sand that Lake Superior gives and takes each season, that particular moment is one I will continue to do. never forget.”
It’s been more than thirty years since gray wolves returned to the Upper Peninsula, but a sighting like Amo’s is still incredibly rare. But even if locals and visitors don’t see them, knowing that wolves exist in the wild UP landscape provides cultural benefits.
“People appreciate them,” said Kristie Sitar, a 22-year veteran wildlife biologist with the Michigan DNR based in Newberry. “Even if they never see them, they know they are out there, and there is value in that.”
As an apex predator, wolves also benefit the ecosystems in which they live. According to the DNR, wolves have a positive natural selection effect on the ecosystem, with the return of wolves to the UP having similar but less obvious ecological effects as the nationally known return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park.
“They hunt white-tailed deer, beavers and hares, to name a few,” says Sitar. “Although most of their hunts are unsuccessful, their successful hunts usually involve taking down the elderly, sick, infirm, weak and malnourished. Their hunting patterns are a story of natural selection, which then improves the overall health of each prey population they hunt.”
Still, some residents are not happy about the presence of wolves in the UP
“Conflicts between livestock and pets, most commonly encounters between wolves and dogs, are legitimate concerns we hear from some residents,” said Brian Roell, a Marquette-based DNR wildlife biologist who specializes in wolves and other large carnivores. “Incidents are extremely rare, especially considering how vast the UP landscape is and how many domestic animals there are, but such incidents do occur due to the wolf’s natural territorial behavior.”
Officials noted there is a lot the public can do to prevent conflicts between wolves and dogs. The vast majority of wolfhound encounters involve hunting dogs, so the DNR offers four recommendations to prevent such encounters:
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Report all suspected wolf-dog conflicts to the DNR immediately.
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Get to know coyote and dog tracks to distinguish them from wolf tracks.
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Consider adding bells or beepers to collars. Some hunters have reported that this can reduce wolf attacks.
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Stay informed about wolfdog conflicts in the area by regularly reviewing the wolfdog conflict map.
The DNR has created an online map that updates geographic locations where wolf-dog interactions have occurred. Since recording began in 2009, 80 dogs have been killed by wolves in the UP. The majority of these incidents, 51, occurred between 2009 and 2014. Additionally, 67 of the 80 involved hunting dogs.
Although rare, conflicts between livestock and pets are also legitimate concerns, yet they are just the beginning of wolf controversies. Some UP residents, including members of the Straits Area Sportsmen’s Club, said they believe the return of wolves is responsible for the dwindling deer population.
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Deer in the UP have been well studied, and while the return of a predator to the ecosystem will have an effect, officials say it is not the primary cause of declining deer numbers.
“The severe winter weather is the main factor limiting the deer population,” says Sitar. “Since 1996, the Upper Peninsula has experienced more than three times as many severe winters as in the 1980 to 1996 recording period, along with two instances of consecutive and two instances of three consecutive severe winters. Severe winters place great stress on adult deer, leading to low fawn birth weights and higher fawn mortality, which is quite high (47 percent) even under normal conditions.
“Hard winters and the predation that occurs also go hand in hand,” she said. “The effects of climate change on the Great Lakes have led to less ice cover and more snow with lake effects. More snow means more predation of deer by bears, coyotes, bobcats and wolves, as deer are less able to flee predators in heavy snowfall.”
DNR wildlife biologists led by Sitar and Roell published an article compiling months of research on the physical condition of deer at different stages of the year, especially during heavy snowfall and especially when preyed upon by wolves in heavy snowfall. During the study period, Sitar and Roell found that nearly 70 percent of wolf predations of adult deer occurred in the late winter and spring months, when deer body condition was at its worst. Further research into adult deer killed by wolves in the high snowfall areas found that almost half (43 percent) were in extremely poor nutritional status and would likely not have survived the winter even if they had not been hunted .
Another concern among some residents is the size of the wolf population. Some sportsmen with deer camps set up throughout the UP are using trail cameras to track deer movements, and they claim the sheer volume of wolf images they are collecting must mean there are more wolves in the Upper Peninsula than the last 2022 minimum population survey from the DNR of 631 wolves. plus or minus 49.
More: Michigan DNR releases a 2022 wolf population survey
More: Gray wolf ends up in southwestern Michigan, far from UP habitat, creating DNR mystery
The assumption that thousands of images of wolves captured by trail cameras mean thousands of wolves live in the UP is untrue, DNR wildlife biologists say. They refute that argument in three parts:
First, wolves cover a large area every day, often branching out in different directions.
“Five wolves you see on a trailcam photo don’t move like the five fingers of your hand,” Roell said. “They leave and go off alone for days before returning to the pack. Wolves are nature’s best long-distance joggers. A wolf runs around the terrain for ten to twelve hours every day of its life, and the territory of each pack is enormous.”
Second, the way wolves move through a landscape, compared to where the cameras are placed, makes it very likely that one will capture images of wolves.
“They stick to trails, roads and two-tracks because they are easier to get around, but those are also the same places hunters place trail cams, leading to a higher incidence of wolf footage than if cameras were placed in the middle of thick walls. forest and heavy brush,” Roell said. “A few landowners living in the same area who capture 40 images of wolves on their property are likely seeing the same pack of four to five wolves, not 40 individual wolves.”
Finally, the UP cannot biologically sustain a population of thousands of wolves. The DNR shows this using math and data on gray wolves.
“You can estimate the wolf population if you know a few data points,” says Sitar. “Two studies from 2005 and 2017 came to the same conclusion about what percentage of the UP’s 16,378 square kilometers of land is suitable as wolf habitat. The surveys found that 63 percent of the area, or 10,395 square kilometers, is suitable habitat for wolves and is currently inhabited by wolves, meaning that the available habitat has reached its saturation point, also known as biological capacity.
‘Take 10,395 and divide it by 82, the average square kilometer territory size of a wolf pack. Multiply that by 4.8, which is the average gray wolf pack size in this part of the country.”
The result? According to Sitar’s calculations, there were 608 wolves in the UP, right within the population range the DNR estimated in their 2022 study.
Sitar and Roell both said wolves remain controversial because humans have competed with them for resources for thousands of years. From the perspective of the scientists who study them, today’s challenge lies in humanity’s ability to escape an outdated biological drive to eliminate wolves and other predators. Until then, UP’s wolves will continue to roam the forested terrain, oblivious to the heated debates within the communities of its only natural predator.
Ren Brabenec is a Brimley-based freelance writer and journalist at The Sault News. He reports on politics, local issues, environmental stories and the economy. For questions, comments or to propose a story, please email hello@renbrabenec.com.
This article originally appeared in The Petoskey News-Review: The UP’s most controversial animal: Michigan DNR releases information on gray wolves
