>From the sheep list. . .
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota wolf population on rise ap ^ | 5-1-05
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota wolf population on rise 5/2/2005, 1:27 a.m.
ET The Associated Press
HINCKLEY, Minn. (AP) - New research shows that wolf numbers are increasing
in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The three states in the upper Midwest have an estimated 3,800 gray wolves,
experts said at a two-day conference in Hickley last week.
While populations grew in all three states, preliminary data for Michigan
and Wisconsin suggest dramatic change growth in those states -
14 percent more wolves last winter than a year earlier.
Michigan and Wisconsin still have far fewer wolves than Minnesota, which has
an estimated 3,020 of them, up 23 percent since the last major survey in the
winter of 1997-98, said John Erb, wolf biologist for the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources.
Large populations of wildlife are difficult to estimate, so biologists
cannot say how Minnesota's wolf population has grown from year to year, or
if it is leveling off. The state's population, while presented as a single
estimate of 3,020, could be somewhere between 2,301 and 3,708 animals, Erb
said.
Erb said most of Minnesota's wolves live in about 485 packs averaging five
to six wolves each. Their range in central and northeastern Minnesota hasn't
expanded in the past few years, he said, although there have been occasional
sightings of lone wolves as far south as Rochester and Albert Lea.
It is possible that more wolves are surviving in the same range because of
the abundant supply there of their main prey.
"Just over the past five years, our deer population was estimated to be 70
percent higher in the overall forested wolf range in Minnesota," Erb said.
"So it stands to reason that wolves don't need as much real estate to
survive."
Dean Beyer, wildlife biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural
Resources, said the preliminary estimate for wolves in his state's Upper
Peninsula in 2004-05 is 408 animals in 86 packs.
Researchers also found a wolf in Michigan's Lower Peninsula last year for
the first time since 1910. It was fitted with a radio collar and monitored
for several months before a coyote trapper mistakenly killed it, Beyer said.
In Wisconsin, the unofficial estimate for this past winter was 425 wolves,
52 more than the previous year, conservation biologist Adrian Wydeven said.
The main surprise in Wisconsin is that the number of wolf packs - about
109 - did not increase and that several packs now have seven to 10 members
each, almost twice the typical size, Wydeven said.
The wolf's recovery in the upper Midwest is a major reason the federal
government is seeking to reduce protection of the animals under the
Endangered Species Act. That effort was blocked by a federal judge in Oregon
in January, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not decided whether
to appeal.
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