Wolf project

History:

Gray wolves recolonized Camp Ripley in 1994. Field work on the gray wolf project began in September 1996 when four wolves were captured and radio-collared. Radiotelemetry locations were collected weekly through 1997. In December 1996, 2 wolves dispersed to the Pillsbury State Forest north of Camp Ripley. One of these wolves was radiocollared. In February 1997 a helicopter capture service was contracted to capture and collar wolves at Camp Ripley; 4 wolves were captured and GPS receiving collars were placed on them. In March 1998 the helicopter service was used again to capture 5 additional wolves; 4 additional GPS collars and 1 satellite collar were deployed.

The Environmental Office has documented that wolves at Camp Ripley successfully reared litters each year from 1995 * 1998, and that each year there has been wolf immigration, dispersal, and mortality. Estimating the number of wolves at Camp Ripley is challenging because actual frequencies of immigration, dispersal, and mortality are difficult to determine. Substantial mortality and dispersal occurred in 1998. A reasonable estimate for the current wolf population at Camp Ripley is 3 * 5 wolves, down from an estimated high of 12 * 15 wolves in June 1997.

Global Positioning System collars developed for large mammals are being tested at Camp Ripley (Merrill et al. in press). They are designed to collect and store locational data and be released from the animal when the batteries expire. They can then be retrieved and data can be downloaded. Five GPS collars collected data and were retrieved in 1997. Four GPS collars collected data and were retrieved in 1998. Two additional GPS collars were retrieved in February 1999. In addition, 11 conventional radiocollars have been on wolves through the course of the project.

Management Context:

In early 1998, public meetings were conducted throughout Minnesota by the Minnesota DNR to start the process of Federal delisting of the gray wolf. Once wolves are delisted in Minnesota, responsibility for wolf management will shift from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Minnesota DNR. Through summer 1998, a 34-person roundtable (composed of citizens-at-large and agency and organization representatives with diverse interests in wolf management) met monthly with the intent of providing recommendations to the DNR on the development of a wolf management plan for Minnesota. Few solid recommendations were made, and the DNR is currently proceeding with development of wolf management guidelines. The Camp Ripley wolf project may be relevant to development of these guidelines. The study is providing information about wolf movements in an agricultural, human-dominated landscape. Wolves dispersing from Camp Ripley are proving to be highly tolerant of human structures and activities. Several dispersing wolves that traveled >100 km west, north, east, and south from Camp Ripley have shown a willingness to cross freeways and wide stretches of agricultural land. This tolerance is probably facilitating recolonization of areas in the transition zone. However, this tolerance also appears to increase the likelihood of mortality during dispersal. It probably also increases chances that wolves dispersing from Camp Ripley will settle in sub-marginal habitat and therefore be subject to higher mortality rates even after successful dispersal. Information of this type may be relevant to the DNR's possible future efforts to develop "wolf management zones." In these zones, the DNR may attempt to manage wolf populations at or near particular levels. This effort may be assisted by information about the ability of wolves to colonize transitional areas and the likelihood of mortality during and after colonization. In the absence of efforts to develop these zones, this information may still be generally useful for understanding how humans and wolves interact in agricultural landscapes.

Objectives and Project Plan:

Initial objectives of the wolf project included providing estimates of the number of wolves at Camp Ripley, identifying territory sizes and locations, monitoring population trends, and locating dens and rendez-vous sites. Through the course of the project these objectives have largely been met and results have been reported (Merrill 1996a, 1997, Brown and Merrill 1998). Investigating relationships between wolves and white-tailed deer at Camp Ripley was in the initial proposal but has not been a focus of the study (except during winter 1995-6), largely because of an expectation that this would be easier to accomplish in conjunction with a white-tailed deer study that began in January 1999. Forty white-tailed deer were radiocollared and will be followed for 2 winters.

The sole remaining objective from the initial proposal is to monitor the Camp Ripley wolf population through time. This can happen effectively only with additional radiocollared wolves. In February 1999, 3 additional wolves were collared, and will beused to monitor the population through the next year or more.

Since the initial proposal, the project's focus has widened to create several new objectives. One of these, to document the history of wolf/human interactions at Camp Ripley, was accomplished in Brown (1998). Another objective, to analyze relationships between military activities and wolf movements at Camp Ripley, was preliminarily addressed in Merrill (1996) and Thiel et al. (1998). The final project report, to be submitted by the end of 1999, will address this objective in greater detail. Plans include use of ArcView macro language scripts that will link databases of wolf-GPS and military activity data. This will facilitate analysis of wolf movement directions relative to particular military activities. Another product of the study is an analysis of road density as an index of wolf habitat suitability at Camp Ripley and elsewhere (Merrill, submitted). The final report will also outline Camp Ripley's responsibilities in managing grey wolves at Camp Ripley, in consideration of both the imminent change in federal status and the changing role of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in wolf management issues in Minnesota.

Many thanks to L. David Mech and Sam Merrill for helping to connect students and their communities with this research.

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