Beyond 2000 Symposium

Program

Conflicts Between Wolves and Humans - Thursday Session

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Beyond 2000:
Realities of Global Wolf Restoration

23-26 February 2000
Duluth, Minnesota USA

An analysis of mortality factors and their effect on restoration, conservation, and recolonization

John R. Weller, Margaret Callahan, Wildlife Science Center, 5463 West Broadway Avenue, Forest Lake, MN 55025, USA; Adrian P. Wydeven, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, PO Box 7921, Madison, WI 53707, USA

Efforts to restore and conserve wolf populations in the United States must contend with and therefore understand the cause and effect of both natural mortality (e.g. disease, starvation, intraspecific and interspecific conflict and environmental factors) and human-caused mortality (e.g. hunting, trapping, poison, vehicle collisions, poaching and depredation programs). These factors can have an immediate and long-term effect on population demographics and geographical distribution.

As we move into a new era where harvest and preservation are simultaneously sought, poorly understood ecological elements that can affect species/subspecies repatriation and recolonization (i.e. compensatory mortality and population breakpoint) require further analysis. Although differing political and social demands usually form the basis for different management plans within and between neighboring states, political boundaries do not create biological islands. Dynamic wolf territories and long-range dispersal transcend dotted lines on a map because these movements commonly result in emigration and immigration between regions, states, and countries.

The basic goal of wildlife management is to maintain an equilibrium between population crisis (i.e. emergency relisting for wolves) and expansion beyond the cultural carrying capacity. As with many large predators, the biological carrying capacity for the wolf is different than its cultural carrying capacity. Ultimately, the factors that affect a wolf population's survival can be categorized as biological, political, and social. The former requires suitable habitat and prey densities; the latter two, education and a thorough scientific understanding.