What are your views on Wolf reintroduction in Maine and ADKs??

[mediclimber]

Wow, re-introducing wolves, what a concept. I hope that there is some thought put into it and it doesn't turn into a "just turn em loose" kind of thing. Man has screwed up the environment plenty and now we could do even worse by putting back a species that was run out of the area. Why did the wolves leave in the first place? Killed off? No breeding areas? No food supply? I am no expert but I would venture a guess at the killed of answer. No if we re-introduce them, what happens to the deer population? How about the other animals that will make up their food chain? What impact will they have on camping and hiking? Will they adapt to hang around camping areas to get food like the bears do? What will we have to do to protect our food supply and ourselves from a wolf or a pack? In my area in PA there are now red fox living in little used out buildings because we have done away with most of the natural areas in favor of housing developments. When I was a kid, we could see fox every now and then running through fields. No the fields don't exist. We also have a rather bad problem with flooding due to no ground to soak up the rains. I'd love to see a wolf in it's natural habitat, but I also hope that the experts put more time and effort into planning this re-introduction than they do most things.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Great quotes, Maddy!

As a society, we rarely give credit to the great wisdom of the Native Americans. For example, it's only recently that I learned that many provisions of our U.S. Constitution are from an Iroquois treaty they had developed to bring/maintain peace within their own tribes/nation. I'd always wondered where some of those Constitutional provisions had originated since there seemed to be little if any prior precedent in Western European culture. I had just assumed that T. Jefferson and the Adames and their buds were just a particular wise group of old white guys. But, maybe their wisdom lay in recognizing a good idea when they saw it, regardless of its source. But, I digress ...

As for the wolves and other large predators and their "positive" or "negative" impact on the environment - apparently there's evidence that with more deer/elk etc eating the succulent growth found in the arid West creates more open stream beds and higher water tempertures. This has a negative impact on salmoniods (of which trout are one) who need cooler water. Apparently this is less of an issue in the East due to the temperate climate.

So, I wonder where the membership of Trout Unlimited stand on the issue of the re-introduction of the wolf in some areas??!!

Kevin

 

[Puma concolor]

Long post alert

Given the fact that I have a tattoo of a wolf on my left arm and a tattoo of a cougar on my right arm, one might think that I would readily favor the reintroduction of these predatory animals to the habitats that were once theirs. On a philosophical level, I like the idea, but on a pragmatic level, I think the wolf should NOT be reintroduced to the Adirondacks. I think it is a profoundly misguided idea.

The first misconception that needs to be addressed is the idea that there is an adbundant population of deer ready to provide sustinence for the gray wolf within the Adirondack Park. This is simply not true. It is a fact that the deer population in New York State is the most sparse within the Blue Line as the terrain and harsh weather are not conducive to healthy deer populations. I should state that I am not a hunter so I shouldn't be accused of trying to protect my "yearly kill." While it is true that the deer you do see in the Adirondacks are very large, this is merely a testament to the fact that only the strongest survive in this climate.

See the below link for 2003 hunter deer kills in New York which highlights that the flat rural farmland of western New York supports the greatest deer populations in New York:

http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/wildlife/deer/deerfore.htm

For the very same reasons that deer populations are small in the Adirondacks so is the population of small game. This is why the Eastern Coyote can be found in far greater numbers in other parts of New York than in the Adirondacks. The coyote has not been killed off in the Adirondacks ... it has just left due to scarcity of food. As far south as Westchester County, the coyote does very well not only on deer but on small game as well.

The wolf is a larger and more aggressive predator that requires larger game than the coyote. While a first generation reintroduction of relatively small numbers would probably do well enough in the Adirondacks, the 50-100 year forecast simply cannot be predicted. The nightmare scenario in my opinion would be a 10-20 year span where the wolf did very well and saw its numbers grow and have that followed up by a few harsh winters or some sort of deer disease that destroyed its primary source of game. There is not a secondary source of large game in the Adirondacks available to wolves in the absence of deer. Bears are too big ... which leaves people.

Before you jump all over me, let me point out that the nightmare scenario has come true in parts of India. A simple google search of "man-eating wolves" will give you many, many hits of children being dragged off in parts of India, where other game is not available. Wolves are predators and will do what they need to do to survive. Like all predators, they target the smallest, weakest prey of the species they are targeting.

The population dynamics of the Adirondack Park are also deceptive. When one looks at the overall figures of 200-300,000 living within the Blue Line, it seems like there wouldn't be a great likelihood of wolf-human contact. But consider the way the Adirondack Protection Agency has managed population growth. Once you get outside the village limits of places like Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Schroon Lake, Tupper Lake, Indian Lake and Malone, there are literally NO housing developments. The APA doesn't allow housing development type population density instead following a policy of X number of houses allowed per square mile depending on the area. The net result of this is that the relatively small population of the Adirondacks is literally spread very evenly throughout Essex, Franklin, Clinton, Hamilton and St. Lawrence counties. Try hanging a map of the Adirondack Park and firing a round of birdshot at it. That's what population distribution in the Adirondacks looks like. This type of distribution, of course, only increases the chances of people-wolf encounters, many of which will turn out to be unfortunate whether you look at it in terms of residents killing wolves or the more unlikely (but possible) chance of wolves killing people.

I'd love to be able to throw my full support behind the idea of wolf reintroduction and I think it can work in the right areas. I just don't believe the Adirondacks are that area. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

**** The above post does not reflect the views of Major League Baseball, NBC News or any other organization or agency.

 

[thuja]

On the subject of how much wildness wolves need, and whether they can get along with people and livestock, the history and current status of wolves in Spain is interesting and relevant (yes, It's the same species, canis lupus). A fair number of wolves, in a far more human-affected landscape than the Adirondacks. Even in grain fields, apparently. Info in English and info in Spanish Of course wolves on the Iberian peninsula have had a far longer history of human contact and have had a long time to coevolve or learn new behaviors. And maybe grabbing a pack of wolves in, say, Northern Alberta would not be such a good idea. But maybe they could be got in some other place, like Algonquin, where the food resources and terrain are not dissimilar and they've had some practice getting along with people.

 

[Tim Seaver]

Lions and Tigers and Wolves, OH MY!

(Thanks to Mark and thuja for the info.)

Man-eating wolves terrorize Indian villages

....Experts say man-eating wolves are extremely rare and are found here only because of very unusual conditions.
"The human density in this area is about 800 people per square kilometer. Nowhere else in the world do wolf populations exist in such high human density areas," said Yadvendradev Jhala of the Wildlife Institute of India."...

India Fighting Plague Of Man-Eating Wolves

...Matters are still far from the disaster of 1878, when British officials in this area recorded 624 human killings by wolves...

Sounds like Indian wolves aren't very "snuggly" at times.
I can understand why people would be fearful of re-introducing them, although this sounds like a pretty unusual situation. Food for thought!

Some more useful info here:

What did the Linnell Report find? The great majority of fatal attacks on humans were by rabid wolves. There were few fatal predatory attacks on humans and none in North America. No one was killed when wolves attacked defensively. Moreover, examining records of the last 50 years the researchers could only find cases of 17 people killed in Europe and Russia and none in North America.

Conclusions
The Linnell and McNay reports show that wolf attacks on people are vary rare. The records they examined indicate that wolves have wounded and killed several hundreds of people, but given these attacks were over a period of centuries and throughout the northern hemisphere, wolf attacks are sparse and meagre. Only 17 cases of people killed by wolves were found in the last 50 or so years in the whole of North America, Europe and Russia - 50 people in a human population of roughly a billon people.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Hi Mark S -

It is a fact that the deer population in New York State is the most sparse within the Blue Line as the terrain and harsh weather are not conducive to healthy deer populations.

If I understand the wildlife biologists correctly, the scarcity of deer has less to do with terrain and harsh weather and more to do with lack of food which deer need. Deer are fringe animals, often spending most of their lives within a few hundred feet on either side of the forest/open land fringe. This type of growth provides them a diet within their physical reach, and which varies based upon time of year. There is little 'fringe' area in the ADKs given the mature nature of the forests, and meadows with succulent grasses are infrequent in the heavily forested High Peaks region. If you contrast with this Maine, which has similar terrain but harsher weather, you'll find that the whitetail population in Maine is considerably higher due to the active logging which creates the needed "fringe" with regrowth of the forests.

I believe the lower population of small mammals in the High Peaks is related to the mature forests - with little understory, there are fewer hiding places, leading to increased rates of predation.

Remember the fire on Noonmark started by the camper? I'd not hiked that area until several years after the fire, and was prepared for a barren wasteland. It turned out to be island of animal/bird activity, with all kinds of little furry & feathered folks, surrounded by a mature forest with far fewer birds and animals.

Am I suggesting burning or logging the Adirondacks? Hardly! What I am suggesting is that the numbers of predators are determined by the level of their prey. The 7 year cycle of rabbits corresponds to the numbers of owls and hawks, and when the cycle crashes, so does the number of raptors. But, I respectfully disagree with you that wolves pose any real threat to humans. As a species, we've admired, revered and feared the wolf, and I think fear is behind some of the posts on this thread.

Kevin

 

[thuja]

Hi Mark S -
I believe the lower population of small mammals in the High Peaks is related to the mature forests - with little understory, there are fewer hiding places, leading to increased rates of predation.
Kevin

I suspect that mature forest=little understory=few deer and other herbivorescould use a little qualification. As forests age, and mortality occurs from old age, decadence, small-scale disturbances, etc., there is a tendency for canopies to start leaking more light, and hence for understory to increase, irregularly. The big logging/fire binge in the Adirondacks (at least in the now public lands) was, what, say 1885-1915, or some such? So there is a lot of forest out there in a fairly tight age range, say 115-85 years. It may very well be that when this forest is >200 years old it will be a measurably opener.
And there are things like ice storms and the big wind events which battered much of the five ponds wilderness forests, which also open canopies unpredictably and irregularly.
It would be interesting to know how the current ungulate pop compares to the pre-logging pop forest-wide. And what has happened in the five ponds area since the windstorm. (with massive blowdowns, ungulates may have mobility problems until things rot a bit, but that would not be the case for smaller herbivores)

Under any scenario, it seems unlikely that there would be a "steady state" food supply for wolves.
And also unlikely that deer densities would ever match those found in farm-woodlot or exurban landscapes. Things would always be changing. But that's nature for you. Pretty chaotic.

 

[forestgnome]

Great thread, interesting and controversial topic, yet civil!

I love all the animals. If the wolves return to northern New Hampshire, either on their own or otherwise, then the area becomes a more dangerous place for hikers. I'm not against it, but I'll never hiked unarmed from the day I hear that wolves are in the forest.

 

[wolftone]

Canid vs. Canid

One earlier poster mentioned "wolves ripping into your dog".

Is this a real issue? Most of this discussion so far has focused on the danger presented by wolves to humans and livestock. Do we have any empirical information on the potential harm from wolves to unleashed dogs? The wolf reintroductions have been going on long enough in the west that I'd imagine we would know by now if there were problems.

This is the only article I could find on the subject:

http://www.natureswolves.com/human/fear.htm

It mentions habituated wolves in alaska which do not fear humans (or much else, for that matter) attacking people and sled dogs.

 

[lumberzac]

I posted a variation of this post on the same thread on ADKforum.

I have mixed feeling on this issue. While to some extent I would like to see a predator that was originally here return to the park, I’d rather see it return on it’s own like the moose has. For one thing this judge is talking about introducing western gray wolves (Canis lupus). Recent studies on wolves in the east seem to indicate that the wolves that once existed here were more like or were the same as the Algonquin wolf (Canis lycaon) that exists in Ontario today. This wolf is smaller in size and has a smaller roaming area than a gray wolf. Why would we want to introduce a species that was never here in the first place? This would be like introducing grizzly bears to the northeast if black bears were eradicated here, because bears are bears. Like I stated earlier I’d like to see wolves come back naturally (which I believe is happening), but if they are going to be brought back it should be done by experts in the field and not by some judge in Vermont.

 

[Puck]

Wolves are problemtic because there is a lot of emotion driving policy. On one side there are the romantics, the fur lovers who listen to Nature recordings of wolves howling as the backdrop to Debussey. Then there are the hunters/not in my backyard people basing thier views on fear and superstiton. Is there a happy medium? (rhetorical question)

Reintroduction has had mixed results. Mountain goats were put into Olympia, they had never lives there before. The poulation exploded and the environment was damaged. Alot of money was spent to move them out. The easier method was to send in hunters but there were protests.

Some other reintroduction has been successfull. From my understanding the introduction of herbevores will create a population that will grow until the carrying capacity of the environment is reached. Predators will increase and decrease population accordingly. The modeling is very difficult. IICR great horned owls will decrease thier clutch size the nesting period before a rodent population crash.

The wolves are hard to understand. There is the study of the moose-wolf interation on Isle Royal http://www.isleroyalewolf.org/. Showing that both species have benefited from living together. These wolves have no other prey besides the moose. In most other places the wolve's diet consists in large part of rodents.

I am in favor of this program. It takes a small handfull to establish a healthy viable population. Whether or not the wolves move into proximity to humans in 50years is hard to tell. Our towns and suberbs are "fringe" habitat that Mr Rooney has poointed out are the whitetails natural habitat. The wolves may be attracked into them. But for the time being in many of these Northern areas nature is coming into balance.

 

[Grumpy]

Mixed Feelings

If populations of these animals (wolves) spread out and increase naturally on their own, I guess that’s OK to the extent they don’t become real nuisances in any given locale. I am not much in favor of committing economic or natural resources specifically to introduce or reintroduce and foster growing populations of animals like moose and wolves. Sport hunting always should be regarded as a reasonable option to control populations that appear to be getting out of hand.

G.

 

[Mr. X]

I think it's okay, but I know they will eventually cross breed with coyotes and form mutt packs.

 

[mavs00]

Wow, good civil discussion (I hope I don't muck it up).

I find myself in agreement with Mark S, Zach (Lumber) , Puck and other along that line.

There is certainly a romantic part of me that that would like nothing more than to be camped at Panther Gorge and be serenaded by the soulful wail of these majestic creatures.

But at the same time, introduction, re-introduction or any other attempt by us to alter the "natural order" of things may outweigh the benefits and needs to be considered for a variety of reasons. Not saying that there at not very scientifically sound reasons for doing so, but any attempt to alter (positively or negatively) populations must be heavily considered before undertaking.

The wolf is a large predator and there are documented instances of predation among humans in certain RARE instances (see the india reference). Sure, small humans perhaps, but there are a GREAT DEAL of wee little ones that LIVE & PLAY in the park every day. Even doubly true for thoughts about the introduction of the Cougar, which is a larger and even more dangerous predator. Naturally repatriated populations are one thing, as it is a signal that natural balance of things offers approval. Artificial introduction or re-introduction of any species (particularly preditors) needs to be considered on the highest intellectual and scientific level before being undertaken, well beyond my wisdom for sure. Even if we were once responsible the eradication in the first, especially in fact. Sadly, you can't always correct past trangression, only learn from it.

Jurassic Park was more than a movie about cool effects and pretty dinosaurs if you choose to look deeper. -BEAST IN THE GARDEN- anyone?

 

[dave.m]

Couple of loose thoughts....

1) I think anybody interested in this question (pro or con) might be interested in David Quamen's "The Song of the Dodo". In brief, the book delves into the subject of island biogeography and it's applications to land development. Island biogeography studies how species are created and lost on islands. Current land managment policies create, in effect, artificial islands within continents. The greater Yelllowstone ecosystem is one such landlocked island. Bison, elk and wolves get into trouble if/when they leave the Park's borders. In this light, the question of wolf re-introduction must be seen as a part of the larger question of how we construct land management approaches that don't create such artificial islands. The Wildlands Project is one group that is working on this. See: http://www.twp.org/cms/page1115.cfm

2) I struggle with wolf/person conflicts, especially when considering regional development practices. Regional developments seems to favor car powered sprawl, which creates large areas of medium density human habitation instead of smaller areas of high density and large areas of low density human habitation. That is, I wonder how much of the anti-wolf (or anti-coyote) howling is really an artifact of suburban life and sensibilities. I say this as a mortgaged member of suburbia who regularly has coyotees in his back yard, btw.

3) I wonder to what degree deer and moose herds in the northeast would benifit from having a predator. My understanding is that the lack of a meta predator leads to "meta predator release" which sets up a boom/bust cycle of the largest herbivores as they increase unchecked until they hit the limits of the food supply. Question: are wolves really predators or are they more of a carion food grubber like the coyote?

 

[BLE]

As I've been reading this interesting thread, I've been thinking to myself how similar the stated concerns would be if it was the black bear instead of the wolf that was being discussed. If the bear population had been wiped out in the past as the wolf was, I think we would hear the same comments: large predator, etc. I know many would say the black bear really isn't a predator per se, but the sort of irrational fear of an attack would likely be similar to those expressed about the wolf, even though they would seem to be similarly unfounded based on the data. I don't pretend to have the knowledge to decide if wolf introduction is good or not, but I bet the comments would likely be very similar.

 

[Puck]

3) I wonder to what degree deer and moose herds in the northeast would benifit from having a predator. My understanding is that the lack of a meta predator leads to "meta predator release" which sets up a boom/bust cycle of the largest herbivores as they increase unchecked until they hit the limits of the food supply. Question: are wolves really predators or are they more of a carion food grubber like the coyote?

Studies have shown that a natural predator helps the prey population by weeding out the old, the sick and the weak thereby strengthening the herd. The opposite is true with human hunters. Hunters want to go for trophy bucks. The biologists could plead 'please get the doe!' so that there is more of a population check. To no avail. Trophy hunting will take the strongest and the fastest growing putting sleective pressure on the herd that favores the weak males. Nature had an article on this a year ago.

The point you make about Islands is a good one. Lets say wolves were put into an area with abundant moose and deer populations. (yes wolves are hunters not carion grubbers) All populations will reach a dynamic equilbrium. Hunting in this area may need to get curtailed. Also the deer over abundance in the hinterlands and suberbs out side of the area will be untouched. "The Beast in the Garden" does point out that an over abundant food source will eventualy bring predation. Simple experiment; put a tray of sandwiches and brownies at a trail head.

 

[pedxing]

A very interesting thread. Like many others, I hope that re-introduction is done carefully and sensibly - start with the areas least likely to cause problems, do appropriate advance work and proceed from there based on the outcomes.

I also want to point out that while I have long appreciated the speech attributed to Cheif Seattle (quoted by Maddy), it is useful to know that he never said those things. See, for example,

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.htm

 

[dave.m]

A very interesting thread. Like many others, I hope that re-introduction is done carefully and sensibly - start with the areas least likely to cause problems, do appropriate advance work and proceed from there based on the outcomes.

In "Filters Against Folly", Garritt Hardin reminds that the core truth of ecology is
"You can never do one thing."

Dynamical systems are very, very hard to predict in terms of outcomes, which argues for moving slowly.

On the other hand, non-action is also an action which has its own, hard-to-discern implications.

These comments lead me nowhere in terms of wolves, but I'm pretty certain they have broader applications.

 

[forestgnome]

better than college!

This is one of the most instructive threads I've ever read anywhere. Thanks, everyone, for comments and links. Just excellent!