An Experimental Translocation of the Eastern Timber WolfWeise, Thomas F.
Science
An Experimental Translocation of the Eastern Timber Wolf
Weise, Thomas F.
Gray wolf -- Reintroduction -- Michigan
The utilization of available browse by deer in the Huron Mountain deer
yard reached 95% by March 8, 1969 and 92% by March 5, 1970 (Westover
1971). The minimum winter deer loss (actual number found) in 1969 was 40
animals, of which at least 12 had starved, and it was estimated that
perhaps up to 33% of the deer starved in the Huron Mountain Yard in
1968-69 (Westover 1971). The Huron Mountain yard continues to be
overbrowsed, with high deer mortality expected in severe winters. Many
other northern deer yards of the Upper Peninsula are also overbrowsed
and are dwindling in area. Thus we expected that numbers of vulnerable
deer (Pimlott et al. 1969; Mech and Frenzel 1971) would be available to
wolves.
Beavers (_Castor canadensis_) are an important food source for wolves in
many areas during summer (Mech 1970), and they are common throughout the
Upper Peninsula. The beaver population on the 26 square-mile (67 km²)
Huron Mountain Club was estimated at 46.9, or about 1.9 beavers per
square mile (0.7 per km²) (Laundre 1975). Moose (_Alces alces_) are
rare on mainland Michigan.
METHODS
The general procedure for this study was to attempt to capture an intact
pack of wolves in Minnesota, fit each animal with a radio-collar
(Cochran & Lord 1963), release them in northern Michigan, and follow
their fate through aerial and ground radio-tracking (Kolenosky and
Johnston 1967).
A pack was selected from an area near Ray, Minnesota (Fig. 3), south of
International Falls (48° N Latitude, 93° W Longitude), where wolf
hunting and trapping were legal. Two male and two female wolves were
captured by professional trapper Robert Himes, under contract for the
project, between December 24, 1973 and January 21, 1974 (Table 2). Three
of the wolves were trapped (Fig. 4) in No. 4 or 14 steel traps (Mech
1974), and one (No. 13) was live-snared (Nellis 1968). If these animals
had not been solicited for this study, they would have been killed and
their pelts sold, as part of the trapper's livelihood, before the
Endangered Species Act of 1973 took effect.
[Illustration: _Fig. 3.--Capture and release points of the translocated
wolves_]
At capture each wolf was immobilized with a combination of phencyclidine
hydrochloride (Sernylan) and promazine hydrochloride (Sparine)
intramuscularly (Mech 1974), with dosage recommendations from Seal et
al. (1970). They were then carried out of the woods (Fig. 5), held in
pens in Minnesota, and fed road-killed white-tailed deer, supplemented
with beef scraps.
[Illustration: _Fig. 4.--Wolf caught in trap (Photo by Don Breneman)_]
[Illustration: _Fig. 5.--The captured wolves were drugged and carried to
an enclosure in Minnesota (USFWS Photo by L. David Mech)_]
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