Algonquin Park wolves—losing their ecological and population integrity

J. Henry Fair John Theberge, IUCN Wolf Specialist, Canada speaking with Mike Phillips.

John B. Theberge, Mary T. Theberge, Hilary J. Sears, University of Waterloo, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

A 12 year study of Algonquin Park wolves illustrates a population that is losing its ecological and population integrity. The Algonquin wolf has been proposed as a distinct species, Canis lycaon, (Wilson et al., in press), along with the red wolf, so its conservation is important. The population exhibits a set of characteristics that jeopardize its future, including a low and non-compensatory recruitment rate and a consequent limited ability to offset annual mortality. A migratory habit leaves between 1/3 and 1/2 of the population vulnerable to human exploitation, and mean territory size results in approximately half the population spending time on territory outside the Park where wolves are not protected.

As a result, the major cause of death, exceeding all other causes put together, is human killing. The population on the eastern half of the Park under most intensive study has declined by 36% since 1988 after previously declining by about 25% since the early 1960s. The social structure is one typical of a highly exploited population with a high rate of dispersal, little traditional use of den or rendezvous sites, and rapid pack turnover. Threatening, too, is the invasion of small, genetically distinct coyote/wolf hybrids, resulting in coyote alleles throughout the wolf population. This coyote gene introgression may account for a slight shrinkage in skull sizes, an increase in the percentage of small females in the population, and an abnormally low incidence of lethal aggression considering a high frequency of interpack encounters. Hybridization has not yet occurred to the extent that it has throughout the Frontenac Axis southeast of the Park, or the Magnetewan region to the west, where Algonquin type wolves have been replaced with small animals with small territories and other coyote-like features.

Park management has failed to adequately protect the biological and ecological integrity of the wolf population, partly through jurisdictional authority ending at park boundaries. One crucial remedial action is buffer-zone protection around the park, proposed by a consortium of conservation organizations. Unless a conservation strategy is developed quickly for this population, and species, we may enact the same sequence of events that caused the extinction of the red wolf in the wild (same species as the Algonquin wolf) in the southern United States between 1945 and 1970.