Are wolves really all that?

Gray wolves chasing an elk.

Have conservation scientists become carried away, touting the ecological benefits of wolves where there are perhaps — dare I say it? — not as many as we believe there to be? Perhaps some people in the media, and even some in science, have gotten carried away with the ecological changes that wolves are actually capable of mediating, says globally-renowned wolf biologist L. David Mech in his most recent paper “Is science in danger of sanctifying the wolf?”

Ever since the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park, and by extension the Northern Rocky Mountain ecoregion, the role of apex predators in regulating trophic cascades has been an issue of great debate. Among the first to publish a correlation between a return of aspen and willow recruitment to stands where they’d been long absent, at the same time that wolves were reintroduced, were a pair of researchers from Oregon State University, Ripple and Beschta. They promulgated an idea dubbed the ecology of fear which postulated that the presence of wolves caused a behavioral shift in elk, leading them to graze less often in open riparian corridors where they were more likely to be attacked by wolves. Their warier behavior, and shift in browsing pressure, led to a rebound in the aspen and willow growth. It’s become a familiar, almost calcified narrative, and one that many wildlife proponents have embraced (myself included).

But in his newest paper, Mech reviews the literature both supporting and refuting wolves as the mechanism of a behaviorally-modulated trophic cascade in Yellowstone. He asserts that other factors may be at play in stimulating the willows and aspen to regrow, and that they at least deserve more serious discussion. Mech seems to feel that some conservation scientists have become so myopically focused on wolves as the mechanism of ecological change that we tend to view as positive that they are unwilling or unable to look beyond wolves for alternative or contributing factors.

I have to admit, if this paper had been written by someone other than Mech, I’d probably have not have paid as much attention to it. This is because I find myself wanting to believe the wolf-as-ecological-mediator narrative. I freely admit, I’m biased in this regard. But the fact that a wolf biologist as learned and experienced as Mech produced this definitely caught my eye.

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Poland’s wolves trot across key wildlife overpasses

Critically endangered Central European wolves have learned to use wildlife overpasses that span the major A4 autostrada in western Poland. The first hard evidence of regular overpass use by three separate wolf packs was recently documented by Dr. Robert W. Mysłajek of the Association for Nature, ‘Wolf.’ a Polish organization, and Dr. Sabina Nowak. The pair plan to formally announce their findings at the upcoming IENE 2012 International Conference in Potsdam-Berlin, Germany. {1}

This video, supplied by Mysłajek, clearly shows several wolves loping and trotting across the wildlife overpass, while the sound of vehicular engines ebb and flow in the distance:

The wolves appear to be using the overpasses during the cover of night and the light of day. A highway as large as the A4 is a major obstacle for the movement of predators such as Poland’s wolves, bears and lynx, as well as other wildlife. Which is why it is exciting that these particular wolves are using these particular overpasses.

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Electrifying deterrents: wolves and fladry

Fladry in the wind. (Photo by Nathan Lance, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks)

Fladry has proved to be an interesting and rather low-tech tool to ward wolves away from domestic livestock in certain conditions. It consists of red flags or pennants attached to a piece of twine or thin rope at regular intervals (about 18 inches or so) and strung around a livestock corral or pen. Like all predator deterrents, it has some limitations.

For one thing, it depends upon the livestock being concentrated in one area — I’m told that it’s tough, and expensive, to string this stuff up around expansive ranges. For another, it loses its effectiveness over time as wolves become accustomed to seeing it. Part of fladry’s success, it seems, is that it’s a new object that causes wolves to become frightened of passing it. Past studies have shown that fladry can be effective in field trials for up to 60 days before wild wovles cross them (Musiani 2003).

In the race of cunning to outwit wolves, some intrepid thinkers came up with the idea of running electric current through fladry to extend its usefulness. Perhaps a little electric shock would ward wolves off for longer, the thinking went. The negative stimulus of electric current works in theory much like the electric-collar on your pooch that tests the boundaries of its yard. (Except, in the case of turbo-fladry, the goal is to keep the wolves out; whereas you want to keep your dog in, but nevermind, you catch my drift…)

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Book Review: Wolfer, by Carter Niemeyer

Cover of Wolfer

If there is one thing you will take away from reading Wolfer: A Memoir, it’s that Carter Niemeyer is a genuinely funny guy who did some improbably dirty work over his lifetime. A strong dose of good humor was likely a pre-requisite for his career of restoring gray wolves to the lower-48 states. His new memoir gives an unprecedented look not only into the life and work of a modern-day government trapper, but also into the behind-the-scenes activities that made recovery of gray wolves possible in the first place.

If you are into wolves, then you may or may not have heard of Niemeyer. He was one of the guys that checked on rancher’s livestock-damage complaints in wolf country through his job with Wildlife Services, and the guy who coordinated live-trapping gray wolves in Canada to reintroduce in Yellowstone. He’s also one of the guys who shot “problem” gray wolves dead from a helicopter, and darted them with drugs to collar or relocate them.

If you love wolves blindly, then you’ll probably be perplexed by Niemeyer’s loyalties. You may think, “How could someone who works for Wildlife Services — who kills animals deemed a nuisance to agriculturalists — possibly help wolves?” The truth is stranger than fiction, the saying goes, and Niemeyer may have been one of wolves best no-nonsense advocates.

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Anti-carnivore alliances as community symbols

Mexican wolf M859's tracks, photo by AZGFD.

When wolves and livestock, or pets, come into conflict with each other, people’s tolerance for wolves on the landscape tends to decrease. Part of the problem is the economic loss to the livestock producer, so some predator conservation organizations offer compensation payments for wolf-killed livestock as a tool to increase tolerance for wolves. Additional reasons to offer compensation include attempting to reduce retaliatory killing of wolves, and an opportunity for the public to share the burden of wolf recovery.

Whether or not compensation is an effective tool is debatable. A survey study in Wisconsin investigated whether or not compensation for wolf depredation of livestock or pets increased rural citizen’s tolerance for wolves (Naughton-Treves, Grossberg and Treves 2003). The researchers found that although all the participants approved of compensation as a management strategy, it did not necessarily increase tolerance of wolves on an individual basis, and that most who had lost livestock or pets believed the payments in themselves to be “inadequate, given the emotion and years invested in each animal” (Ibid, pg. 1509). The researchers also found that an individual’s social group (whether a bear hunter, or a sheep farmer or a rancher) had a greater influence on their attitudes toward wolves than did individual experiences with wolves, leading them to conclude that “attitudes are not highly sensitive to wolf numbers and depredation frequencies” (Ibid). This is interesting because it suggests a belief pattern independent of immediate facts about wolves or experiences with wolf conflicts. A second study suggests that an unintended negative effect of compensation payments may be that such programs worsen wildlife conflicts by decreasing efforts to prevent the conflicts in the first place (Bulte and Rondeau 2005).

Frequently, in the U.S., we look to compensation programs to help shore up support for large carnivore conservation in areas where livestock producers are thought to be affected negatively by these predators’ presence. I’ve blogged in other posts about the effectiveness of different types of carnivore compensation programs, but the heart of the matter goes beyond dollars and cents. Another dimension we have to consider when studying how to gain tolerance for carnivore conservation is the human dimension. What do carnivores mean to people? How do people create meaning and attach meaning to different animals?

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What does a positive-incentive carnivore compensation program look like?

Mexican gray wolf, photo by Joel Sartore.

It was October 2007, and I was half-living out of my car while circumnavigating the 6,845-square mile Mexican gray wolf reintroduction area straddling New Mexico and Arizona. I was interviewing stakeholders in the wolf reintroduction project for my master’s thesis. Short on cash, I was camping out and couch-surfing for the two months my project spanned. In late October, I found myself leaving an interview near Alpine, Arizona racing against a setting sun. I had to find a camp site — quickly. The map indicated camping spots about 10 miles down the highway at a place called Luna Lake. When I arrived, the last rays were filtering through the woods, and I discovered a steel swing-gate closing off the camp sites. They were closed for winter, a sign said. (A few days earlier, I’d camped at Big Lake and the first snow of the season piled up on my tent, dumping about two soft inches that night.) With nowhere else to go, I pulled my car onto an off-road vehicle trail near the closed camping area and set up my tent just off the road. Falling asleep, I heard the woods alive with birds and insects calling out their songs.

I awoke a few hours later to a distinct howling. It trailed off to the west of me, and was answered by another howl to the south. Sitting up in my sleeping bag, I dared myself to believe these sounds were emanating from endangered Mexican gray wolves. The howls were forlorn and skipped across octaves, their range seemed musical and foreign. For two or three minutes, the animals howled back and forth from the west and the south. Then a third animal began howling with the second to the south. The two wolves’ howls twined around each other, starting low and simple and climbing upwards in pitch into a complex duet of crescendos ending in a long flat cry. I drifted back to sleep, hoping that it was Canis lupus baileyi roaming in the night. The animal’s howls woke me up three more times that night, each time the three seemed a little closer together, until all their cries sounded off from the south. The last time I heard them, they sounded much more distant as if traveling away from me.

Earlier that day, a biologist had told me that perspectives about Mexican gray wolf reintroduction varied so widely that, as he explained it, two people could be camping in the woods and hear a wolf howl. To one person, it would be the most magical, mystical experience  they ever had. To the other, they’d be up all night, clutching a weapon, terrified they were about to be eaten.

I fall in to the mystical and magical experiential category this biologist described. Though to me, the “magic” was simply hearing a set of endangered large predators doing their thing in the singing wilderness, and the hope that stemmed from their presence that maybe someday they’d be back in ecologically effective numbers.

The million dollar question, of course, is how to get their numbers up into the realm of ecological effectiveness. When dealing with the social obstacles raised by people affected by wolf reintroductions (and the presence of other large predators likely to be targeted for conservation, like grizzlies, wolverines and mountain lions), one line of discussion that often comes up is that of incentives.

What incentives can we devise to spark people’s interest in conserving large carnivores — especially people who might otherwise be opposed to their presence, reintroduction or recovery?

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Guest Post: Living with wolves

Readers of Wild Muse know that I am fascinated by wolf ecology, and I often post on wolf research. A little while ago, I wrote up a review on the best kinds of livestock guarding dogs based on the writing and research of Cat Urbigkit. A reader named Jennifer commented on the post, referring to a run in her dogs had with wolves a few weeks back. I emailed Jennifer for more information and then extended an invite for her to share her story here on Wild Muse. She accepted, and I thank her for her time in writing up the events. I hope readers will appreciate the opportunity to share her experiences. For me, it is always fun to pontificate upon ecology in the abstract; but for some, it can get deeply personal.  - DeLene

I live on a remote island between the mainland of British Columbia and the central part of Vancouver Island. My family of six has been here for eight years now. We own over 30 acres and are surrounded by crown land that stretches for miles beyond that. It’s wild and beautiful and a great place to raise children.

In the first year that we were here however, we lost a dog right off our front porch to a cougar. It was a very traumatizing situation mostly for myself, as she was my best bud who came everywhere with me.  It was a big wake up call for us all, as it could very well have been one of our children. We had been told by many residents in the area that it was only a matter of time before we saw or had an interaction with a cougar as they are fairly common and prevalent here. I suffered post traumatic stress and depression after the death of my dog and had irrational fears of going outside and cougars breaking into our house. It was quite debilitating for me.

Several months later my husband brought home two rottweiler black lab cross puppies, males from the same litter. They were 12 weeks old. The pain from the loss of my previous dog was still fresh but my husband felt it important to have two dogs for the safety of the family. My husband grew up on a farm and always had working dogs that lived outdoors and had specific jobs, whereas I always had dogs that were inside dogs and more or less pampered pets when I was growing up. I had fears that the same fate would meet these new dogs and a cougar would take them down. I was very apprehensive. But in the end, I realized I needed these dogs to help me heal and get past my fears.

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Guest post: Cristina Eisenberg, “The Mark of the Wolf’s Tooth”

I’ve not yet read Cristina Eisenberg’s book, The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity, but it sure sounds like something I’d enjoy. Recently, a publicist from Island Press contacted me and asked if I’d re-post a blog entry Cristina wrote about her research and travels in Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. I’m happy to oblige, because her writing is so engaging. – DeLene

Cristina Eisenberg

Spring comes to the northern Rocky Mountains like a lion and often leaves like one too. This spring proved no different. I spent it in Waterton, Alberta, resampling eighty miles of track transects I had created three years earlier, looking for changes in wolf and elk use of this critical wildlife corridor. My study area in Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park spans the US-Canada border and harbors most wildlife species present at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Track transect surveys are among my favorite fieldwork, because this method allows me to experience landscapes intimately. Walking along the same pathways that wolves and elk use, I pull measuring tape in fifty-yard increments and record all the large mammal animal sign I find along a two-yard strip on either side of the tape. Along the way I often find unexpected and fascinating things and secret places—coyote dens, wolf rendezvous sites, a newborn elk bedded in the shrubs, and the place where a grizzly sow has lain with her cubs. However, this method can only be applied between snowmelt and when the grass grows tall enough to hide the data (wolf and elk droppings, carcass pieces). This May, five snowstorms made our work more challenging than usual, effectively burying my data and immuring us in our quarters for days.

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Stressed out cattle and elk?

{Thanks to PLoS-One for picking this post for their Blog of the Month competition. My winnings? A free T-shirt with a PLoS open-access word cloud. Pretty neat.}

Photo: USDA Agricultural Research Service

Can the mere presence of a wolf stress a prey animal so much that they lose weight? New research says, Yes, maybe so.

When I was working on my master’s, I interviewed several cattle ranchers in the Southwest — namely, Arizona and New Mexico. I was looking for their beliefs and opinions about Mexican wolf reintroduction, and an oft-repeated claim was that the mere presence of the wolves was stressing their cattle, resulting in lower weights. And a skinny cow never made anyone any money, so that was a problem, they said. Wolf conservationists laughed in my face when I told them about this complaint.

But biologically speaking, is there something to it? A new study by a group of Canadian researchers found that both domestic cattle and wild elk change their behaviors when wolves are around; and this often costs the animals energy, they say. Until this past August, Defenders of Wildlife offered a compensation program that paid ranchers for wolf-killed cattle and other domestic livestock in the Northern Rocky Mountains and in the desert Southwest where wolves were being reintroduced. Had they continued it, perhaps they would have been asked to compensate ranchers not only for wolf-killed cattle, but also for cattle that did not grow out to whatever the rancher’s historic average was due to “stress” from wolves. (How you would separate this variable from changes in forage due to drought, I have no idea.)

For this study, the authors guessed that the artificial selection of cows over the years, for domestic breeding purposes, may have resulted in the loss of behaviors that you may expect from wild animals, such as elk, when faced with the stress of being eaten by a predator such as a large gray wolf. Or, they wrote, artificial selection of cows may have resulted “in erratic and inconsistent responses.” 

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Defenders of Wildlife quits wolf-livestock compensation program

On Aug. 18, 2010, the president of Defenders of Wildlife sent a letter to Rowan Gould, the acting director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, announcing that the non-profit was ceasing its 23-year-old compensation fund. The fund has paid out $1.4 million to livestock producers for verified losses attributable to wolves — whether they were reintroduced wolves or naturally re-colonizing wolves — throughout the Northern Rocky Mountains and the desert southwest. The letter announces that the Defenders compensation program will end on September 10, 2010. Ranchers won’t be left entirely in the cold though, new federal legislation provides funding to assist states in crafting their own compensation programs, and Defenders has announced that it will be shifting its focus to its Wolf Coexistence Partnership program. This program has long lived in the shadow of the livestock compensation program at DOW. It aims to help livestock producers figure out (and pay for) pro-active solutions that reduce livestock-wolf conflicts in the first place. Whether it’s penning pregnant cows and buying winter hay, hiring range riders, or putting up turbo fladry — the proactive program attempts to teach ranchers new solutions or enable them to enact solutions they could not otherwise afford that have a high potential for deterring wolf attacks. Personally, I am surprised and a little pleased to see this announcement. There is a growing body of literature suggesting that paying livestock producers for wolf-killed cattle does more harm than good. I truly believe that Defenders entered into their program with the right intentions of trying to help protect wolves, and to remove the economic burden to ranchers of placing a predator on the landscape, but I think over the years we’ve seen that reliance on a payment program short-circuits encouraging ranchers to adopt methods that deter attacks in the first place. Later this week or next  I will try to do a post on the pros and cons of compensation, and alternative models that switch the frame from a negative incentive (payment for a wolf-killed carcass) to a positive incentive (such as payment for densities of predators on a rancher’s land). (At the moment, I’m traveling for work so it may be a little while before I can get to this.)

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