Biologists’ Advice: Don’t Be Afraid of a Minnesota Wolf

An intensive study of wolf packs on this 61,500-acre Minnesota wildlife refuge suggests that wolves kill less livestock than was first believed and are more adaptable to living near humans.

“The most intriguing fact about the Agassiz wolves is that the population . . . has shown resilience to detrimental factors such as disease and human persecution,” said Andreas Chavez, a wildlife ecology graduate student from Utah State, who conducted the study with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Surrounded by agricultural land, including 25 ranches, some neighbors feared for the safety of their livestock when wolves migrated back into the area about 1980 after being absent for about half a century. But in the last decade, residents have reported only 11 wolf attacks on livestock, including five kills during the two-year study.

That was despite regular wolf trips near livestock from mid-April through mid-November, the time when farm animals typically are more vulnerable because they are in pastures instead of in or close to a barn.

The study didn’t take into account that some livestock simply disappeared during that time. And occasionally, wolves scavenged on already-dead livestock. But tests on wolf feces showed deer was their overwhelming food source.

From 1997 to 2000, the number of packs on the refuge has fluctuated between one and three, with a total of 12 to 21 wolves. At least seven wolves died of mange and 10 were killed either legally or illegally by humans. Five were trapped after livestock kills, four were illegally shot and one was run over by a snowmobiler.

“The Agassiz wolves have for sure taken some of this beating, but despite this they continue to have a foothold,” Chavez said. “The refuge literally serves as a refuge for them.”

Much of the wolf observation was done from a hand-built brown and white blind on the edge of a crop field on the refuge. Chavez spent so much time with the animals that they would respond to his howls.

One of the wolves’ favorite adventures is to follow a tractor through the field, pouncing on mice and other varmints that scurry from under chunks of black dirt as the machine approaches.

“I think people have had this idea that wolves are a wilderness creature,” Chavez said. “They are very adaptable and opportunistic. They are able to tolerate living near people.”

In North America, wolves had until recently been limited to heavily wooded, lightly populated areas like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota. Major wolf studies have been done in the BWCA, tracking the wolves mainly by airplane. At Agassiz, they were tracked 24 hours a day--primarily by truck.

“We found that during the day, they could be bedded in people’s backyards,” Chavez said. “They’re not just restricted to the refuge.”

Biologists spotted wolves in the Agassiz area in 1981 for the first time since the 1930s or 1940s. They’d been keeping a curious eye on the packs ever since, but weren’t able to track the animals until a grant came through in 1998.

During the spring, summer and fall of 1998 and 1999, they tracked seven radio-collared adult wolves that lived in and around Agassiz.

The animals spent about 70% of their time on the refuge and adjacent state Wildlife Management Areas and the rest of the time wandering around neighboring farms and other areas. The home ranges were about 56 miles for one pack and 87 miles for the other.

“These are much more closely tracked than any before,” Gary Huschle, wildlife biologist at the refuge.

Cindy Johnson, 43, lives on 10 acres of land that runs along the edge of the refuge. She said wolves are just a part of life in the area.

“We have seen a wolf in our yard,” she said. “We were on our way to work and it was just on the edge of our yard, standing. We know they are around.”

They haven’t bothered her so far and she hasn’t heard many neighbors grumbling.

Currently, landowners can’t shoot gray wolves under any circumstances because the wolf is listed as a threatened species in Minnesota. That’s one step below endangered and allows federal trappers to kill a wolf only if a farmer can prove that a wolf killed livestock or a domestic pet.

After years of a population recovery, Minnesota has about 2,500 gray wolves. The animal eventually is expected to be removed from the threatened list, but federal officials must first approve a state management plan submitted earlier this year.

Tracey Garthus is pleased that research is finally being done on the wolves. The 29-year-old woman, her husband and their two children recently moved from a farm next to the refuge to a home about seven miles away.

“We had a few wild turkeys that the wolves took 30 feet from our barn,” she said.

She doesn’t see the wolves as a big problem.

“But you worry,” she added. “I worry about my children.”