Repopulation of wolves in Midwestern United States

The repopulation of wolves in Midwestern United States has occurred naturally as the gray wolf has expanded its territory after being nearly extirpated from the conterminous United States. The Midwestern states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are estimated to have 4,400 wolves. The western Great Lakes region they inhabit includes the forested areas of these states, along with the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario. In 1978, wolves were protected under the federal Endangered Species Act as it was determined that they were in danger of going extinct and needed protection to aid their recovery. Management under the Act allowed the remaining wolves in Minnesota to flourish and repopulate northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Wolves were removed from federal protection in January 2021 with management authority remaining with state and tribal authorities.

Expansion under federal protection[]

Wild wolves became locally extinct from shooting, trapping and poisoning, with support from government bounty programs.^[1] While wolves were considered extirpated in every other state except for Alaska, they survived in remote northeastern corner of Minnesota of sub-boreal forests and lakes.^[2] Wolves in the United States were protected under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1978 as they were in danger of going extinct and needed protection to aid their recovery.^[3] Known as timber wolves, the few hundred animals in dozens of packs remaining in Minnesota and Ontario began to naturally disperse through their historic habitat in the western Great Lakes region under the protected status.^[4] Under protected status, wolves can only be killed when human life is at risk.^[5] Wolves in Minnesota were soon listed as “threatened’’. This allowed limited, targeted trapping of wolves by the U.S. Department of Agriculture near where pets and livestock have been killed. That program has killed about 200 wolves each year while the “endangered’’ listing in Wisconsin and Michigan did not allow lethal control.^[2]

Wisconsin listed the gray wolf as a state endangered species in 1975 when it appeared that wolves, native to Wisconsin, were beginning to repopulate the state.^[6] The state recovery plan, initiated in 1989, set a population of 80 for three consecutive years as the trigger to reclassify the wolf to threatened status. Having reached that goal in 1999 with a population of 197, the state adopted the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan for guidance towards eventual delisting.^[7] In 2003, the status of wolves in Wisconsin moved down to threatened rather than endangered. The known population in 2004 was 335 which included 8 on Indian reservations.^[8] The state plan was updated in 2007 when there were about 550 wolves in Wisconsin.^[9] Michigan removed wolves from the state's list of threatened and endangered species in 2009 having reached the recovery goal of 200 for five consecutive years in 2004.^[1] In 2012, FWS issued a rule that classified and delisted a sub-species called the Western Great Lakes wolves under the federal Endangered Species Act.^[10] In response, Wisconsin enacted a law requiring a hunting season while the wolf population had reached 800. Minnesota and Wisconsin held wolf harvest seasons in 2012, 2013, and 2014.^{[11][12][13][14]} Michigan had a legal wolf hunt in 2013 only.^[1] Wolves were returned to the list of federally threatened species in December 2014 as a result of a court ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not fully address the impact that the extraction would have on the remaining wolves in the country.^[10]

State and tribal management[]

Wildlife management attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. By September 2018, Minnesota exceeded 2,000 wolves for at least 20 years when the state's midwinter survey put the population at 2,655 wolves with 465 packs. It has one of the densest wolf populations in North America.^[12] Wisconsin counted over 1,000 wolves in 2020.^[15] In 2021, Michigan had an estimated 700 wolves spread among 143 packs, all in the Upper Peninsula. That figure had been holding steady for several years.^[16] Wolves have naturally migrated in the three state region, while wolves on Isle Royale, Michigan, in Lake Superior are considered separately and are not included in the count for the state. As of 2021, the estimated population is 4,400 in the three states.^[16]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed gray wolves’ endangered species status at the beginning of January 2021 when more than 6,000 wolves were living in nine states.^[12][13] After federal wolf protection ended, the states and tribes again became responsible to manage the animal and regulate hunting.^[17][18] Management plans can provide a framework to guide each state’s decisions about wolf regulations for hunting, trapping, and culling along with population monitoring, management, damage control, education, research and other issues.^[2] Minnesota divided the state into two zones.^[19] The northeast zone would have more protections for the wolves than the rest of the state which would have more flexibility to manage the population.^[20] Minnesota is updating their wolf management plan with the last plan dating from 2001.^[21] The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources decided there would be no hunting or trapping season in 2021 with the anticipation of completing their plan update by early 2022.^[22] With the increasing population and improved understanding of population dynamics, an update to the Wisconsin wolf management plan process was initiated in 2021.^[23] Michigan is updating their management plan and has not set a date for renewed hunting although the state legislature has urged them to have one soon.^[24][16] The Michigan DNR Wolf Management Advisory Council began meeting in August 2021 and plans to provide input on a management plan in May 2022.^[25]

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is required by state law to set a wolf hunt season to be held between November and February if the animals are not endangered.^[15] They set the initial hunt for November 2021 which would have allowed time to assess the wolf population, receive public input, consult with the native American tribes and prepare a plan. Also pups born in the spring would have a chance to grow.^[26] To comply with state law, a court ordered season opened in at the end of February after the November date was challenged by the hunter advocacy group.^[27] The department set the quota at 119 based on an estimated population of about 1,000 wolves.^[28] The season ended prematurely after four days with hunters killing 216 wolves.^[29]

Wolves may also disperse across the Great Plains from the northern Rocky Mountain region which includes Wyoming with approximately 300 wolves and Colorado with a small population.^[30][31] In Midwestern states without resident packs, state authorities may perform biological genetic testing to determine the origin of the wolf when coyote hunters or ranchers self-report suspected wolf killings. Since wolves were extirpated in Nebraska in the early 1900s, there has been three instance of confirmed wolf presence as of 2021. The first was in 2002 and all the dispersers have been from the Great Lakes region.^[32] There are four known cases of wolves being shot by coyote hunters in Iowa since 2014. A few gray wolves have also been reported in South Dakota on both sides of the Missouri River.^[30]

Research[]

The presence of wolves was found to reduce deer-vehicle collisions in a study published in 2021.^[33] The two factors were the thinning of the deer population by wolves and behavior changes in fearful deer who avoided roads that wolves may be using.^[34]

See also[]

• History of wolves in Yellowstone
• Repopulation of wolves in California
• Repopulation of wolves in Colorado
• Environmental issues in Wyoming § Gray wolf
• List of gray wolf populations by country

References[]

Citations[]

Bibliography[]

• Wisconsin Wolf Advisory Committee (October 27, 1999). Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan (PDF). Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
• Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services (March 2006). Draft Environmental Assessment for the Management of Wolf Conflicts and Depredating Wolves in Wisconsin (PDF). Animal and Plant Health and Inspection Service: Wildlife Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture – via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Further reading[]

• Wydeven, Adrian P.; Deelen, Timothy R.; van Heske, Edward J. (2009). Recovery of Gray Wolves in the Great Lakes Region of the United States: An Endangered Species Success Story. Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-85951-4. OCLC 308158198.
• Thiel, Richard P. (1993). The Timber Wolf in Wisconsin: The Death and Life of a Majestic Predator. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-13944-5.

External links[]

• Gray Wolf in the Western Great Lakes . Animal and Plant Health and Inspection Service: Wildlife Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Gray Wolves in the Western Great Lakes States . U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Wolf management. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
• Wolves in Michigan Michigan Department of Natural Resources
• Wolves in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources