News releases
April 8, 2008
TO: Reporters, news directors
FROM: Madeline Fisher, (608) 890-0465, mmfisher@wisc.edu
RE: TIP/UW-MADISON EXPERTS ON WISCONSIN'S WOLVES
At statewide meetings on Monday, April 14, the citizen's advisory group known as the Wisconsin Conservation Congress will ask the public whether a hunt should be used to control the state's burgeoning wolf population.
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) estimates that 500 to 600 wolves now roam Wisconsin - a number well above the agency's original goal of 350 - and a hunt is one possible means of controlling the population. But this management strategy is also controversial, especially since wolves were removed from the endangered species list in the western Great Lakes region just last year.
As the debate moves forward, several UW-Madison researchers who study wolves can provide comment.
- David Mladenoff, professor of forest and wildlife ecology, has worked with the DNR since 1992 to model and map Wisconsin's best wolf habitat, both to help with management of existing wolf packs and to predict where packs might establish in the future. Although wolves have naturally begun to explore and occupy much more of the landscape as the population has grown, Mladenoff's latest models show that they still prefer and have the best success establishing in areas with fewer roads, and, especially, less agriculture. Wolves are least successful in areas with high densities of roads and farms because these landscape features represent contact and conflict with humans, says Mladenoff.
CONTACT: (608) 262-1992, djmladen@facstaff.wisc.edu
- Lisa Naughton, a professor of geography and environmental studies, is trained in geography, wildlife ecology and public policy. Her research focuses on how property rights and ownership systems favor wildlife conservation. She has been studying wolf recovery in the Great Lakes area for several years, and is particularly interested in the politics of compensation payments for livestock and other domestic animals lost to wolves. Major questions about compensation include whether such payments buy public tolerance for wolves and improve their chances for coexistence with people, and whether these programs will be sustainable as wolf numbers increase.
CONTACT: (608) 262-4846, naughton@geography.wisc.edu
-Adrian Treves, an assistant professor of environmental studies, investigates the interactions between people and large carnivores in human-dominated ecosystems, including spatial patterns of wolf attack on domestic animals in Wisconsin, and public attitudes toward carnivore management in Wisconsin and the Northern Rockies. Treves also collaborates with international teams studying leopards, lions, hyenas, and Andean bears. Ongoing projects include a study of how tolerance for wolves changes under different management conditions, and analyses of public opinion about the removal of wolves and grizzly bears from the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies.
CONTACT: (608) 890-1450, atreves@wisc.edu
-Tim Van Deelen, an assistant professor of forest and wildlife ecology, uses mathematical modeling to assess the impact of wolves on Wisconsin's deer herd. So far, his models have failed to detect an effect of wolf presence on deer growth rates in the northern third of the state, suggesting that deer are too populous for wolf predation to make a difference in their numbers. In a separate study, Van Deelen also estimated the number of wolves that will likely inhabit Wisconsin given the availability of resources such as habitat and prey. His findings suggest that although growth of the population is beginning to slow, wolf numbers will level off well above the DNR's original target of 350.
CONTACT: (608) 265-3280, trvandeelen@wisc.edu
-Lizzy Berkley, a graduate student of Van Deelen's, is developing a method for analyzing the fatty acids contained in the fat tissue of wolves, which promises to reveal what the carnivores are eating. Her eventual goal is to measure the variation in wolf diets across the Great Lakes region, in the hopes of answering whether wolves are strict deer specialists or whether they opportunistically eat whatever prey they can find, including moose and livestock. Berkley has validated the technique in an experiment with Inuit sled dogs, and is now applying it to fat samples collected from wild wolves trapped throughout the Upper Midwest.
CONTACT: (608) 262-2671, eaberkley@students.wisc.edu
-Researcher Kerry Martin is manager of the UW-Madison Carnivore Coexistence Lab. He has created models that predict areas of the state where young wolves will travel as they search for a new pack or a place in which to establish a territory. Whether dispersing wolves cause damage is still unclear, he says. With Adrian Treves, Martin is also developing models that can forecast where wolf attacks on domestic animals might occur in the future. The pair hopes to pinpoint future attacks to areas as small as one square mile, which means they could potentially identify individual farms that are vulnerable.
CONTACT: (608) 262-7996, kerrymartin@wisc.edu
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