Environmental Issues in Northern Ontario
Wolf
predation study in Burwash
- submitted by Debbie Sauve
We’ve all heard the story of the big bad wolf, but how much do we really
know about our wild neighbours?
This is exactly what a team consisting of two Northern Environmental
Heritage Institute (NEHI) officials, a wildlife trapper from Inuvik, and
a graduate student from Guelph have been trying to find out.
Since August, the team has been tracking brush wolves in the Burwash and
Killarney area to study their predation on the reintroduced elk
population.
“The incentive for this study came about as a direct result of the
ensuing Elk Restoration Project,” Dr. Joe Hamr, director of the NEHI
said. “Right now we are trying to determine the effect the wolf
predation is having on our reintroduction efforts.”
Hamr hopes that the study will answer how many elk are being killed by
the wolves, how often the kills are happening and if the wolves are
targeting certain age groups or sexes.
This information is being collected with the use of both radio collars
and GPS collars. In August, 30 traps were set and within one month 11
wolves had been successfully collared.
“The collars are designed to stay on for 10 months, and then after the
battery loses a certain amount of power it disengages and falls off the
animal,” Hamr said.
Once the collars fall off and their data is collected, it provides
detailed information on where the wolves have been and where they have
stopped. This is important because a concentration of wolf fixes in one
place for several days usually means it is the site of a kill. The team
then tracks the kill site to determine the wolves eating habits.
Hamr continued that the concern is that over a winter that is favourable
to wolves, there would be almost no new elk calves in the spring because
the wolves would get them all.
“In some winters the snow conditions can be just right for wolves,” Hamr
said. “This is when there is a thick crust on the snow with two to three
feet underneath. In these conditions the elk have a hard time running
because they fall through, while the wolves can run quickly and easily
right on the surface. This is not conducive to a successful repopulation
for the elk.”
Once it is determined whether the wolves are affecting the
reintroduction of the elk, it will be up to the Ministry of Natural
Resources what the next step will be.
Hamr suggested that possibilities are that if the wolves a big factor,
then you might not want to introduce elk to an area where there are
wolves in the future. He also suggested that the wolves could be
controlled with intensified trapping to reduce the wolf population until
the elk reach a certain number.
In the meantime, 11 wolves in collars are wandering somewhere in the
Burwash and Killarney areas, not knowing that there secrets are soon to
be revealed.
