http://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/nature/mammals/rwolves_danger.html
Are Algonquin's Wolves in Danger?
Are Eastern Wolves in Danger Overall?
Because wolves have been persecuted for so long and have disappeared from so many areas around the world, there is widespread concern among many environmental organizations about the prospects of the wolves we still have. This is true for all wolves but, if we accept that the wolves inhabiting southeastern Canada from Quebec to Manitoba are not just a race of the widespread Gray Wolf but are the surviving population of a separate species (the Eastern Wolf), it puts conservation of wolves in Ontario-and Algonquin Park's role as a major protected area-on a higher, much more critical plane. After all, if the southern race of the Eastern Wolf (i.e., the Red Wolf) could almost go extinct, we have to ask ourselves if the same fate might threaten the northern race as well. Overall, however, we are happy to say that the outlook is good. Some authorities estimate the number of Eastern Wolves to be at around 7500 in Canada and at around 3000 in the U.S. (where their numbers are rapidly expanding in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota).
Could the Wolves of Algonquin Park be in Danger?
It does not necessarily follow, however, that Eastern Wolves must always be as prosperous everywhere within their range-even in an area like Algonquin Park where they are officially protected. In fact, a study conducted by University of Waterloo professor, John Theberge, and his students on the east side of Algonquin Park from 1987 to 1999 rang alarm bells in the minds of many people. The study showed that most deer on the east side of the Park spent the winter outside the Park in a wintering area (deer yard) near Round Lake and that many east-side wolf packs were making periodic, long-distance forays out of the Park to this area to hunt deer. While outside, many radio-collared Park animals were killed by local residents seeking to protect deer in the Round Lake deer yard. From 1988 to 1993, an average of 24% of 16 to 22 radio-collared Park wolves died at human hands outside Algonquin each winter. In two seasons, the human kill was much higher (41% and 50%).
Killing of Wolves by Humans does not necessarily lead to a decline in their numbers
It might seem that killing that many wolves would automatically affect the Park wolf population but, if the food supply is good, wolves can quickly make up such large losses when they produce their next litter of pups. To quote Dr. L. David Mech, the world's leading authority on wolves, "various studies have shown that up to 40% of wolf numbers can be harvested without reducing the population. Furthermore, to really suppress a sub-population within a larger one, an annual take of about 70% is necessary." Another finding of great interest is that the wolves of Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior are completely protected against human killing but nevertheless still die at the same rate (about 35% per year) as John Theberge's east side Algonquin wolves did in the 1990s. This suggests that the Algonquin wolves killed by humans may soon have died from other, completely natural causes with little or no difference in the death rate. Another way of saying the same thing is that when humans killed those Algonquin wolves they may have decreased the competition for prey and therefore made it possible for other wolves to avoid starvation and therefore to survive. Either way, within the limits suggested by David Mech, the same number of wolves end up dying every year whether or not people are killing them.
Be that as it may, the Theberge team was understandably dismayed that so many of their study animals were being killed outside our boundaries. For those particular animals it meant that the protection afforded by Algonquin Park really didn't matter. And in the minds of the Theberge team and several environmental groups in Ontario it raised the spectre that Algonquin Park might actually lose its wolves through human killing of the sort seen at Round Lake.
How did the Ontario Government Respond?
In response to those fears and in support of the principle that Algonquin Park wolves should be protected year round, the Ontario government imposed a ban on the killing of wolves in 1993 in the three townships containing the Round Lake deer yard during the December to March period when the deer were in the yard (and when Park wolves could be expected to come looking for deer). The government also appointed a special Algonquin Wolf Advisory Group under the chairmanship of a former Algonquin Chief Park Naturalist and co-sponsored an international workshop of wolf biologists and other interested parties to scientifically evaluate the status of Algonquin Park wolves. The workshop, held just outside the Park in February 2000, specifically addressed three particular fears, any of which, if true, would pose a serious threat to our wolves.
The first fear sprang from the assumption that the wolves of Algonquin were a unique species confined to the Park. Such a small population would be quite vulnerable to extinction through inbreeding or a catastrophe (like disease) and the loss of even a few animals, especially breeders, would be very serious. But, as discussed above, the wolves of Algonquin are part of a much larger, relatively prosperous Manitoba-to-Quebec population. They are not a small, "island population" restricted to, and besieged in, "fortress Algonquin".
A second fear was that the killing of Park wolves outside our boundaries might allow Coyotes to invade vacant areas inside the Park and hybridize with surviving wolves, gradually leading to the disappearance of "pure" Eastern Wolves in Algonquin. Here too, the evidence was reassuring. Geneticists at the workshop reported that despite some past interbreeding with Coyotes, under present conditions there is very little reproductive contact, or evidence of continuing hybridization, between Eastern Wolves in Algonquin and Coyote-wolf hybrids from outside.
As for the third fear, that human killing was causing a decline in Park wolf numbers, the evidence was deemed inconclusive. There may have been a decline in the east side population between 1987 and 1999 but the trend was statistically non significant. With the information we have available to us we cannot exclude the possibility that the population stayed the same or even the possibility that it went up. Also, even if there really was a decline in the 1987-99 period, either on the east side or in the Park population as a whole, it would not necessarily follow that human killing was responsible. Even completely protected wildlife populations are constantly going up and down in response to changing conditions of prey availability, weather, and disease.
Erring on the Side of Caution
But, even if it cannot be proven that the human killing of wolves outside our boundaries caused a decline between 1987 and 1999, there is no reason to be complacent about such killing. Using John Theberge's figures for the deaths occurring in east side wolves (a large proportion caused by humans outside the Park), and making reasonable guesses about pup production and survival, there was a suggestion that the east side population could not be sustained without immigration from somewhere else. This implies that, if there really was no decline in east side wolves from 1987 to 1999, it was only because wolves moving in from outside (presumably from north of the Park) were able to make up for the excess of deaths over births in the east side population itself.
If we assume that this fear is well-founded, the wolves of Algonquin would be in a situation both ironic and undesirable. It would be ironic because it would mean that a great park, world famous for its wolves, would in fact be dependent on immigration from unprotected areas outside its boundaries for the maintenance of wolf numbers inside. And such a situation would be extremely undesirable, of course, because there could be no guarantee that the unprotected outside source of the critical wolf reinforcements would not dry up some time in the future. If that ever happened, wolf numbers in Algonquin really would dwindle away and the species would disappear from the Park-in spite of complete protection within our boundaries. As a precaution against this possibility, the Algonquin Wolf Advisory Group recommended more protection for wolves in the areas surrounding Algonquin Park. The Ontario government accepted the Group's report and, shortly before this account was prepared, strengthened the key recommendation by establishing complete protection for wolves in the 37 townships bordering the Park. This protection is intended to last for a trial period of 30 months, during which the Park wolf population will be monitored to determine if the extra protection has the desired effect. By reducing the number of Park wolves killed when they are temporarily outside the Park in winter, the new measure could bring the annual number of deaths in Park wolves into balance with the number of births. The Algonquin wolf population would then be self-maintaining and would no longer have the need it possibly has now to be propped up by immigration of wolves from unprotected areas outside the Park.
Doom and Gloom or Reasonable Optimism?
If all this talk about Park wolves being under threat strikes you as depressing and worrisome, perhaps we can give some reassurance. For one thing, we do not know that Algonquin Park depends on outside areas for the maintenance of its wolf numbers; it's just a possibility. Nor do we know that the numbers of wolves on the east side of Algonquin declined between 1987 and 1999, let alone that they declined because of human killing outside the Park; again, it's just a possibility. Finally, even if both of these "doom and gloom" possibilities are true, the real threat to Algonquin's wolf population would only materialize if wolves were to disappear from the unprotected areas in the rest of the Eastern Wolf's range to the west, north, and east of Algonquin Park. But there is no sign that any such thing is happening. On the contrary, the overall population of Eastern Wolves is believed to be over 10,000 and to be expanding. Algonquin Park accounts for just 2-3% of this total. Can we believe that wolves will disappear from the one area where they are protected most, while at the same time continuing to prosper and even expand in the remainder of their range?
