The Worldly Wolf

Here’s an article I had published in the Spring 2023 Issue of ‘Lake of the Woods Area News’, a local Northwestern Ontario stewardship association magazine. Some of the photos in this blog were not a part of the published version.

A wolf pup, roadside in the early hours of dawn.

Wolves occur in North America, Europe, Asia and North Africa. According to some, there are three species and close to 40 subspecies of wolf. Others believe there is only one species of wolf – the Gray (or Timber) Wolf (Canis lupus). As all three wolf species and sub-species are believed to be able to interbreed and produce viable offspring, I’m in the camp that says there is only one species of wolf.

There is widespread acceptance that wolves and coyotes (coyotes are only found in North America) are separate species, although the situation is not cut and dried. For example, weights of adult Gray Wolves are reported to be between 40 – 175 lbs (18 – 80 kg), while coyotes tip the scales from 20 – 40 lbs (9 – 18 kg).  Wolves in the 40 lb range are often referred to as ‘brush wolves’.

Gray wolves are typically gray in colour, but black, white, creamy coloured and reddish-brown wolves are not uncommon.

A typical gray-coloured wolf, licking its chops after a meal of road-killed moose.

A light, cream coloured wolf, with a few porcupine quills on its face.

Coyotes are distinguished from wolves by their smaller size and having a more slender, pointed snout.

A lot of people have an interest in wolves. It’s not surprising, nor should it be. Wolves have a long relationship with humans – our pet dogs are their direct descendants.

Wolves are carnivores that rely upon meat (but not exclusively) to survive. Sometimes wolves – and coyotes – kill people.

Nowadays, wolves seldom attack people. But in Old World history, wolves often attacked and killed people. In France there are about 9,000 recorded wolf attacks between the 17th and 19th centuries. Between 1764 and 1767, about 100 men, women and children fell victim to something called the Beast. The Beast is presumed to have been a wolf; some say it may have been a werewolf.

Wolves (Ma’iingan in Ojibwe; Mahihkan in Cree) are prominent in North American Aboriginal cultures. For some, their relationship with wolves is sacred; in others, wolves are treasured as a brother or a sister. In general, Aboriginal people tend to not hurt any wolf.

There is a belief that the wolf was the creator of the world and a guardian of the underworld. Part of Ojibwe culture has their fate and that of the wolf intertwined. It’s been said “As the wolf goes, so go themselves.”

In Inuit mythology, the gigantic wolf spirit, Amarok or Amaroq, is often described as a giant wolf that devours hunters reckless enough to go out hunting alone at night.

Note the shining eyes of a second wolf.

Wolf numbers decline

Overseas, wolves were feared and were a nuisance for those who raised livestock; Europeans and their neighbours hunted wolves relentlessly. In Britain, it’s believed wolves disappeared sometime in the 1700s, following centuries of persecution.

Unrelenting hunting pressure took a toll. By the End of World War II, wolves had been extirpated from all of central Europe and most of northern Europe.

Europeans brought their distaste of wolves with them when North America was colonized. It’s thought that about 2 million wolves once roamed North America, but by the 1960s they were gone from all the lower 48 except for Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park and parts of Minnesota. They were still common in Alaska; in Canada wolves remained common, but did become absent or rare in large swaths of countryside

In the 60’s, public sentiment about the environment began to shift. This included a much more tolerant attitude towards wolves. Worldwide, many countries enacted tougher legislation and regulations on hunting and trapping that helped provide wolves with opportunities to recover.

Unequivocally, wolf populations are recovering. Still, they currently occupy only about two-thirds of their former, historic, worldwide range; a meagre 10 percent in the continental USA.

Here in Northwestern Ontario, wolf populations continue to thrive, despite decades of hunting, trapping and poisoning. Hunting and trapping is still permitted; however, rules and regulations have been tightened considerably and wolves killed by humans are much reduced from the days of airplane hunting.

Today, the resident attitude about wolves is largely positive, interspersed with reasonable trepidation.

In the 1960s, the Department of Lands & Forests, the precursor to the Ministry of Natural Resources, often used poisoned baits to try and kill wolves.

New times

The wolves in this region survive largely on a diet of deer, moose and when available, beavers. Further to the north, caribou are a favoured prey. Of course, wolves catch and kill other animals, including bears. As detailed in Farley Mowat’s fictional book Never Cry Wolf, even mice might do in a pinch.

Wolves consume blueberries and other types of foods that aren’t meat, in moderation.

Some wolves turn to scavenging. They can be regular customers at dumps and landfills, spending time and effort scrounging for scraps.

Wolves are of concern to local livestock and to much dismay, seem to be particularly fond of (hu)man’s best friend.

Such traits are not particularly endearing. It’s very distressing to see or hear about a much beloved family pet being snatched by a wolf when out for a walk. Such attacks may be somewhat uncommon, yet consistently recur.

While less traumatic, it can be unnerving and menacing to see a wolf in the yard or on the street. People think these are places where wolves don’t belong.

Having been given a chance, wolves are adapting to living in close contact with people.

But living in close proximity to wolves is not without risk.

It was recently reported that the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen’s prized horse Dolly, was killed by a wolf just 300ft from her home in northwest Germany.

While unpalatable to some, regulated hunting and trapping of wolves appears to be necessary to keep wolf numbers in balance with societal mores.

Ups and downs

Wolf populations tend to fluctuate with prey abundance.

When white-tailed deer numbers exploded in Northwestern Ontario several years ago, wolf populations followed suit. Wolf sightings by deer hunters, reported on Ministry of Natural Resources postcard surveys, increased by more than 500% in less than 10 years.

In addition to the abundance of prey, wolf numbers are kept in check by wolves themselves. Studies have shown that wolves are pack animals with territories they defend. A pack can be as small as 2 animals; large packs may have more than 30 members! About a dozen is the average.

Most wolf packs consist of two parents and their puppies, including one to three year old offspring that have not yet headed out on their own. David Mech, a well-known wolf researcher, called pack leaders alpha animals in his early research, but later recanted on that theory.

Most now believe the adults are in charge simply because they are the parents of the pack.

Wolves leave the pack for a variety of reasons. One is to look for a mate and establish a pack of their own. Wolves may kill other wolves to claim territory.

Some move great distances. In four months, one left the Algoma area and went east 2,500 km to establish a territory in Quebec. One collared in Michigan travelled 6,800 km in a year and a half. It passed through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ontario and finally Manitoba, where it was shot (legally) in the Whiteshell.

Other radio-collared wolves have been tracked moving between Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba and the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, traversing Lake of the Woods.

For interesting, locally pertinent information about wolves, check out https://www.voyageurswolfproject.org/.

We may not like everything about a wolf, but the presence of wolves makes the world a better place.

A pure white wolf – but not an albino.

Climate Change and Cervids

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post. There never seems to be enough time.

This post is an article I had published in Ontario Out of Doors magazine. The published version is much reduced – it was originally written to be a ‘feature’, but it wound up being one of my columns, which are only about half the length of a feature. I like the long version better.

What Happens to the Populations of the Cervids if the Climate is Rapidly Changing?

Climate change.

Some days it seems to be what everyone is talking about. In the mainstream media there’s always something about climate change, sometimes nothing but. On everything Internet, it’s inescapable.

How Ontario’s cervids – white-tailed deer, moose, elk and caribou – respond to a rapidly changing climate is of great interest to hunters.  Cervids respond quickly to changes in their environment – a big winter dump of snow can see thousands of white-tailed deer perish. Although forest fires are often described as catastrophic, Ontario’s cervids are (except on agricultural and urban landscapes) dependent on forest fires in creation and maintenance of suitable habitat. 

Although there’s no specific definition as to when weather becomes ‘climate’, there’s somewhat of a consensus that 30 year time periods are the minimum lengths needed to look for trends possibly indicative of climate change.

30 years is also plenty of time to see drastic changes to cervid populations – often attributed to weather – as many hunters can attest to.

For hunters, what happens to the deer because of climate – weather – is always a concern. Fewer tags are issued, opportunities decline.

Responding to population shifts often means changes to how hunting is managed. The ways and means by how licences are issued, how many tags are available, who gets a tag and more has seen a lot of changes over the past 30 years, especially for deer and moose, by far our most hunted cervid species.

If 30 years is short term that leaves a lot of room to roam around in to try and define long-term.

Wildlife biologists and cervid scientists turn to geological time periods when looking at how species evolved and adapted to changing environmental conditions, changes that let some species flourish while others sank into oblivion.

Geological times are time periods measured in millions of years.

The Distant Past

The late, world renowned Dr. Anthony (Tony) Bubenik wrote that antlered deer, including the cervids, first appeared during the early Miocene epoch, beginning about 30 million years ago. Epochs have the shortest time periods of geological time; epochs typically last more than three million years.

Over the ensuing millions of years, antlered animals thrived and prospered, but during and in the aftermath of the Pleistocene epoch – a time period from 2.5 million years ago to less than 12,000 years ago, a noticeable uptick in species extinction occurred, including many deer and closely related species.

A feature of the Pleistocene was a climate with repeated periods and cycles of glacial advances and retreats.  

Presumably, the changing climate – especially the ice and cold – played a major role, although the how and why of the extinctions remains in dispute.  Some believe excessive human hunting was a contributing factor.

For example, populations of Irish Elk – some had racks with a 12 ft spread! – began to die-off about 12,000 year ago, with the last gone from the wilds of Russia only some 7,700 years ago, long after the glaciers had melted.

Imagine hunting Irish Elk!

The Present and Recent, Past Trends

Today, when the talk is about climate change, there’s not much discussion or concern about imminent glaciation, although that fear did surface in the 1970’s. Mostly, it’s all about warming, a rise in sea levels and more extreme weather events, such as heat waves, hurricanes and snow storms.  

Extreme weather events are known to be hard on cervids, particularly white-tailed deer.

For example, severe winters of prolonged and deep snow wreak havoc on whitetails. Weeks of 50 cm of snow or more on the ground see deer die of starvation and succumb easily to predation. Fawns don’t make it. Even rack size diminishes.  

Short-term climate changes are linked closely to whitetail population explosions and collapses in Ontario.

In the 1983 MNR publication “The White-tailed Deer in Ontario”, the great peak of deer numbers around the end of WW11 and the subsequent crash is attributed to a number of factors, including the fact “the climate changed. The long-term warming trend that began at the turn of the century ended in the early 1950’s, and winters became colder with deeper snow”. 

Interestingly, what came later – starting in the late 1980’s – was a time of great winter warm-ups that coincided with deer numbers that reached the highest population levels and range occupancy ever seen in Ontario.

More recently, winters have tended to be cold and snowy and deer have declined – a lot. Deer hunting has suffered.

In parts of Ontario, particularly in the northwest, moose populations similarly grew and then collapsed; again, with strong linkages to climatic shifts. 

The Future

Given weather and weather patterns are known to have impacts on cervids – elk and caribou included – changes in the frequency and intensity of weather extremes (temperature, rainfall, snowfall, etc.) over the short term will impact cervids and hunters. Long-term impacts will follow.

Should populations increase, I think it’s safe to say hunting opportunities will also increase. If populations decline . . .

Keeping climate change simple, the following general trends commonly discussed, with accompanying potential impacts to cervids, are:

• milder, shorter winters

In general, white-tailed deer populations, moose, elk and caribou will experience population increases

• longer, hotter summers

Difficult to assess. Hotter, drier weather can go hand in hand with drought, forest fire, insect infestations and more. Short-term and long-term habitat impacts can differ.  

• more frequent, bigger storms

Generally negative for all.

There are numerous caveats: some of the caveats with milder, shorter winters include;

• With a spate of mild winters, deer populations will increase. But more deer support more wolves, a problem for slower reproducing, moose, caribou and elk. 
• High numbers of whitetails can be a disease threat to other cervids. Whitetails suffer little from a parasite known as the meningeal, or brain worm, but it’s extremely lethal to caribou and will often kill moose. Elk are somewhat more resistant to brain worm than moose. Dr. Murray Lankester, Lakehead University parasitologist, says moose suffer when deer populations exceed about 5 deer/km². 
• Other parasites, e.g., winter tick on moose, are likely to increase, with negative implications.

Hotter, drier summers could:

• See an increase in size and frequency of forest fires and a surge in moose populations; moose population explosions following big fires are well documented.
• Benefit elk, as they are known to thrive on hot, dry landscapes.
• Would likely have a negative impact on caribou.  For one, woodland caribou in Ontario prefer to winter in large, even-aged conifer stands of fire-origin; frequent fires could lessen the area where stands grow to old age before burning again.
• Whitetails can thrive in hot, dry climates. For reasons previously explained, more deer can be bad for other cervids. However, it’s worth noting that in western Canada, high numbers of deer, moose and elk can co-exist because the intermediate host of the meningeal worm – terrestrial slugs and snails – can’t survive. It’s simply too hot and dry for them.

More and bigger storm events are likely mostly harmful and negative.

• Even if winters are shorter, huge dumps of snow could still be disastrous to all the cervids.
• Extreme droughts can reduce food quantity, quality and overall habitat suitability for all.
• Floods and ice storms can be devastating to cervid populations.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, there are a multitude of possibilities afforded to climate change and what might happen to cervid populations in Ontario.

In the words of baseball legend Yogi Berra, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”.

Keith Munro, OFAH Wildlife Biologist, believes good management practices are essential, no matter what the weather and climate sends our way.

“Predicting impacts of climate change is challenging, but if cervids are kept at ecologically sustainable levels with quality habitat, populations are more resilient to change. For example, overabundant deer that exhaust their available resources are less prepared for extreme winters than are properly managed populations.”

Cervids are remarkable and adaptable animals. Hundreds of studies have detailed their abilities to survive and thrive over a wide range of climatic conditions.

With proper management, Ontario’s cervid populations are likely to continue to survive and thrive for many, many years to come; good news for hunters.

Moose Talk

A short while ago I had a call from Sarah Frankcom, a Biology student at Carleton University in Ottawa (my old Alma Mater). She had an assignment and wanted to talk about moose, mostly with respect to the area north of Kenora, in the vicinity of Grassy Narrows. Part of the assignment, or project, was to produce a Podcast.

So here it is.

Over the years, I’ve done a number of media interviews and given numerous presentation to various groups, so I was reasonably well-prepared for this. However, in listening to the tape, there’s a lot more that could be said.

But it is what it is.

I hope you find it at least somewhat informative

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uv7NMwF97imtqGq_LgXP7W2KygbA_1tp/view

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Wildlife Highway Crossings

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Photo captions, top left, clockwise: Elk beside a hwy in Alberta; a snapping turtle laying eggs on the shoulder of a road; a wildlife crossing sign (kudu) in Namibia; the Hwy 69 crossing, photo courtesy of MTO; a white-tailed deer crossing a hwy; a white timber wolf on the TransCanada hwy east of Kenora.

Ups and downs

I haven’t blogged for many months. I’m sure most will understand when I say ‘there have been a myriad of reasons’ for my yap gap.

My last post was – posted – before the Covid madness had descended. The pandemic has changed every-bodies lives, everywhere in the world and continues to do so.

There’s a lot of talk about what the new normal is going to be, the one that emerges after all this period of change settles down, but who’s to know when that will be, or what it will look like. A phrase that I keep going back to is one about how the only constant in our lives is change. Every day is a new day, also comes to mind.

Except for a swath along the equator, most of the world sees constant, seasonal change. Even equatorial regions have alternating wet and dry seasons. No two seasons are ever exactly the same, although patterns and trends may be clearly evident.

Since my last posting, the ice and snow that covered our field, marsh and forest has melted away, replaced by many shades of mostly greens. A blue pond now compliments the summer skies. Goslings and ducklings have come to be and fawns now need be aware of bears as well as wolves. It’s summer!

Anyway, thoughts about the consistency of change that comes with the seasons is an underlying premise of this blog. Things are always different than they used to be, although trends are clearly evident..

The posting has been published. It’s my latest column in Ontario Out of Doors magazine. 

As per my practice, the posting is the unedited version of the column. I know the two are always a bit different, but I seldom compare the two and if I do, it’s only a very cursory look. Editors edit – that’s their job and most are good at it.

I’ll keep posting. There was a time when I posted about once a week – well, I can’t do that anymore.

Until next time, stay safe.

woodland caribou

ruffed grouse

bull moose

wild turkey

white-tailed deer

deer eating lichen Usnea Spp.

timber, or gray, wolf

 

What Goes Up, Does Come Down

By: Bruce Ranta

I heard the hunter before I saw him. When we met on the trail, he looked at me, somewhat perplexed, then blurted out “They’re extinct!”

We were hunting moose – moose weren’t ‘extinct’, of course, but it did seem that way. Neither of us had seen a fresh track or any other sign of moose.

Unfortunately, the lack of moose didn’t surprise me. Moose on my stomping grounds close to my Kenora home had been on a steep decline for several years – and not just where I liked to hunt. Moose populations had been on a similar downhill slide in much of northwestern Ontario, neighboring Manitoba and Minnesota, as well as further afield, in places like Vermont and New Hampshire.

What was going on?

There were many theories. To sort it through, Dr. Murray Lankester, a parasitologist with Lakehead University and I analysed data pertaining to moose and deer in the Kenora area going back, in some cases, over 100 years. We concluded that several factors were driving forces behind moose (and deer) population fluctuations.[i]

For one, we found that both moose and deer populations surged in the aftermath of large, landscape scale disturbances, namely fires, large blowdowns, clear-cut logging and spruce budworm epidemics.  Deer abundance was also tied to winter severity – long, cold and snowy winters knocked deer down – short winters without much snow saw big upticks in deer numbers.

In the 1990s, deer and moose numbers swelled in tandem. Winters were mild and food was abundant. Even a bad winter in 1995 didn’t have much of an impact on deer – the woods were full of easy to reach and nutritious arboreal lichens growing on millions of balsam trees killed by a spruce budworm outbreak. The same thing had happened 40 years earlier.

When deer became super-abundant, moose numbers began to plummet. Brain worm appeared to be a factor. The parasite has no discernible impact on deer, but is deadly on moose. When deer densities get above 4-5 deer/km², the disease becomes problematic to moose.

Deer densities rose to at least twice that level.

Exacerbating the problem was the weather – a series of wet summers made conditions ideal for terrestrial snails and slugs, the brainworm’s conduit for the disease.

High deer numbers also led to skyrocketing wolf numbers.

The quantity and quality of moose browse declined precipitously with a slowdown in logging and the maturing of burns and blowdowns.

In short order, the moose population crashed.

Deer eventually depleted the supply of arboreal lichens. Winters turned cold and snowy. Wolves were everywhere. Deer too, crashed.

Today, there aren’t a lot of moose or deer in much of the Kenora area (except in the city where deer are relatively safe from wolves and people feed them).

With deer numbers down, will the moose recover?

Maybe, although with only low levels of logging and no recent large forest fires or blowdowns, moose habitat is presently sub-optimal.

Deer have continued their downward spiral owing to a spate of snowy winters and continued predation by wolves. With few deer, wolves will eventually crash. Then, with at least a few mild winters – deer might stage a comeback. The next spruce budworm epidemic will help, but that’s still a few years off (budworm outbreaks occur about every 40 years).

The fact is, ups and downs are normal in many populations of wildlife.  Stable populations, especially in seasonal climates, are the rarity.

What happened in the Kenora area isn’t exactly why moose – or deer – numbers have gone up or down elsewhere. Still, there are parallels and commonalities.

Food availability is commonly linked to population changes, as is weather, the abundance of predators and human hunting pressure. Diseases are also problematic, especially during population peaks.

Across North America, some populations of barren ground caribou have recently shown dramatic declines. Although somewhat alarming, it’s not unprecedented. Northern herds have a history of spectacular ups and downs. In Alaska, the caribou population dropped by more than 50% in the late 1970’s. In Quebec/Labrador, the caribou population jumped from less than 200,000 in the late 70’s to around 1 million in just 20 years. They have recently plummeted to only a few thousand.

In winter, caribou eat lichens, a very slow-growing plant, almost exclusively. Although over-grazing lichens isn’t the only issue they face (wolves, hunting pressure, disease and parasites and the weather are also important), food does matter.

After being reduced to paltry numbers (and extirpated in eastern Canada), wild turkeys, aided by re-stocking and re-introductions, underwent a huge expansion in range occupancy and population. But in the USA, turkey numbers peaked about a decade ago, and have since declined – again, not unexpectedly – ‘new’ or reintroduced populations often flourish, subside, then have years of – you guessed it – ups and downs.

While wildlife population ups and downs can’t be curtailed, they can be managed.

As OFAH Wildlife Biologist Keith Munro says, “We really need to take a big picture approach to wildlife management. Rather than focusing on a single factor that may be affecting a wildlife population, we need to consider the whole system which includes, but is not limited to, harvest (both licenced and rights-based), predation, competition between species, diseases, parasites, and habitat”.

But no matter what we do, what goes up – does come down.

[i] To read the entire study, see Ranta, B., and M. W. Lankester. 2017. Moose and deer population trends in northwestern Ontario: a case history. Alces 53: 159–179. https://alcesjournal.org/index.php/alces/article/view/227)

 

All Wrapped Up

January, 2020. Happy New Year!

Winter has set in and the forecast is for a cold spell. But first, some (more) snow.

It was cold early to mid-fall in 2019, but then it turned ‘mild’. Not a snow-melt above the freezing mark mild, but few -20⁰ C bone chillers, the last couple of days a minus 32, but no minus forties at all. All in all, a rather pleasant Christmas and New Year holiday season.

The moose and deer seasons are closed and I stop grouse hunting on Dec. 15. For years and years Dec. 15 was when the moose, deer and grouse hunting seasons used to simultaneously close here in the part of northwestern Ontario where Lil and I live. In recent years, there have been some season length extensions to grouse seasons, but I haven’t taken advantage of them. It seems that once the snow comes, the grouse are hard to find and from my perspective, a 3 month hunt for big and small game that ends Dec. 15 is all I want or need. By then it’s time for get ready for the upcoming holiday season and try and be primed to participate in the festivities.

And so here I am in early January at the beginning of a brand new decade. A hundred years ago we’d be entering what came to be known as the roaring 20’s.

But this is a new time and place. We’ll just have to see where it leads.

As usual for me, this is when I reflect on the hunting seasons that just passed. As I previously wrote, I had a wonderful hunt with Neva, our Wachtelhunde hunting dog and companion.

I didn’t go moose hunting as neither Lil nor I even applied for a tag to hunt an adult moose. In the two Wildlife Management Units we like to hunt, there was only 1 tag available in each unit. One of the tags was for a cow, which seemed ridiculous (if there are so few moose that licensed hunters are provided with only 1 tag, why would it be for a cow?) and in the other WMU, we had no idea where there might even be a moose in a place with both access and where there was a reasonable chance of success. So we opted out of applying for a tag, but bought licences to retain priority for future draws. Prior to the season, and then during the season in a WMU where I was deer hunting, I did see moose.

I didn’t shoot a deer, either. I did have opportunities, but did not have a doe tag and the few bucks I saw I opted not to shoot.

There are lots of places where I see game during the fall hunting season where I can’t hunt. Some of the animals are on protected areas and other properties I have no permission to hunt on; sometimes I see animals I don’t have a tag for; and, there are a lot of animals that are on or adjacent to a road. Around here, you can’t shoot down, across, or from the traveled portion of a road and on some roads you can’t even have a loaded firearm until you are well away from the right-of-way. And on many roads, it can be dangerous to come to a stop unless you can pull off, which isn’t always possible. Often, there is simply no space to stop, pull off or park.

So given all these places where I’m not hunting, I take advantageous of photographic opportunities when I can. As with a gun, there’s still much more seen than shot, and there’s still places where I can’t shoot with the camera – but there’s more spots where I can pull out the camera to try and get a shot than there are spots I can pull out a gun.

I also have to say that shooting wildlife with a camera isn’t easy. Often, it’s harder than with a firearm. For example, shooting ruffed grouse on the fly with a camera is quite the challenge that I haven’t yet mastered and likely never will (although for me, the same is true with a shotgun . . . ). Still, I sometimes score and when I do, it’s a very satisfying feeling.

Similarly, I’m always trying to get good shots of buck deer. Deer are not near as plentiful here as they used to be a few years back, but there’s still some around. The best place to see buck deer though, is in the city. Over the past few decades, deer in northwestern Ontario, like in a lot of villages, towns and cities all across North America, moved in, found suitable housing and are now a fixture in many neighborhoods.

The other thing with the camera is that you can shoot any species at any time with no need for a license or a tag. There’s waterfowl, fur-bearers and basically anything that walks, crawls, slithers, swims or flies can be the subject of a photo shoot.

But now that we are into January, there’s not near as much life around. Big game hunting is over as it is for waterfowl and upland game birds. With respect to photo shooting, the majority of birds have left, many of the animals have gone into hibernation and most of the deer have lost their antlers. I still see a few grouse – lately a couple come each evening just before it gets dark to bud in the white birches. A few other odds and sods, but it’s not a wildlife viewing paradise by any stretch.

So the hunting season is a wrap and photo season has transitioned.

Still, it’s a New Year and it’s all good.

Time to go ice-fishing.

Wolf Confusion . . .

A white Grey Wolf

A grey, Grey Wolf.

a Black Grey Wolf.

Typical Grey Wolf colour.

Some of the Kenora area wolves I have seen.

Back in 2014 I wrote on my blog how the local wolves, particularly the big wolves that prey on deer and moose, were still doing well. Locally, meaning within about a 100 km radius from the city of Kenora, the moose population had collapsed and white-tailed deer numbers were plummeting – but there were still a lot of big wolves around. Smaller canids, namely coyotes, were present, but not numerous.

These days, I can report that moose populations have not recovered and deer populations really crashed; there are still some deer around, but very, very few moose.

Surprisingly, a sizable population of big wolves has endured here, but maybe not as many as back in 2014. Coyote and other smaller wolf numbers seem to be up.

With respect to wolves in general, there remains much controversy regarding wolf taxonomy and wolf management. Research on wolves continues to provide interesting information on wolf biology.

Big wolves are widely distributed – they are found across much of North America and Eurasia, as well as India, China and even parts of Africa. There’s general agreement that the majority of these wolves are all one and the same species, the Grey Wolf (Canis lupus). Some claim there are not one but three species of wolf in the world; the Grey Wolf, the Red Wolf (C. rufus) and the Ethiopian Wolf (C. simensis). A few – mostly some Ontario-based biologists and scientists – say the Algonquin Wolf is also a separate species of wolf ( C. lycaon).

In North America, there is also the other ‘wolf’, the Coyote (Canis latrans), which many suggest is not really a wolf.

 

Coyotes – or Brush Wolves?

A Coyote – Kenora, Ontario

A Coyote – in Alberta

Small Wolves . . . .

The trouble with taxonomy is that there are no clear rules as to what constitutes a species. It appears that all these wolf species can interbreed and produce viable offspring. So are they all one species with a lot of variety, or  . . . what?  For example, the Red Wolf is in danger of extinction in large part because of hybridization (interbreeding) with coyotes.

The Algonquin Wolf was, until recently, referred to as the Eastern Wolf, a sub-species of Grey Wolf or perhaps a distinct species. However, recognized hybridization with Coyotes and Grey Wolves messed thing up and somehow it became the Algonquin Wolf. Interestingly, on the official Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry website on the Algonquin Wolf (https://www.ontario.ca/page/algonquin-wolf), the scientific name provided is Canis sp. Which seems to me to say: ‘We don’t know exactly what it is, but we know one when we see one.’

Anyway, regardless of the taxonomy, the prevailing attitude almost everywhere is definitely pro-wolf protection (the exception may be coyotes). Often, the attitudes and management direction seems to me, to be totally bizarre.

For example, on the USA side of Lake Superior, Grey Wolves have been re-introduced to Isle Royale (at great expense), after apparent inbreeding brought the resident Grey Wolf population down to two. Two wolves couldn’t keep the moose population in check and moose were eating themselves out of house and home.

The resident wolves on Isle Royale came to be there by crossing the ice, like the moose (when early Europeans went to the Isle, they found Caribou; apparently, there were no moose, or wolves).

Natural re-population of wolves from the mainland was thought to be a non-starter because climate change was making the chances of an ice-bridge in the future unlikely. Same with Caribou.

Meanwhile, over on the Canadian side, wolves crossed Lake Superior’s frozen waters a few years ago and pretty much wiped-out the resident Caribou on the Slate Islands.  Then wolves proceeded to do the same on Michipicoten Island – to save the not so long ago introduced Caribou (a species officially classed as Threatened under the provincial and federal legislation), the Ontario government  . . . decided to catch the Caribou and move them to (again, at great expense). . . the Slate Islands.  In other words, save the Caribou (???), but only by doing no harm to the wolves.

The Grey Wolf, by the way, is a species that in Ontario is not at risk under the Endangered Species Act, (they are common and widespread in distribution); although the Algonquin Wolf is listed as ‘Threatened’. By consensus, the wolves around Lake Superior are thought to be Grey Wolves, not Algonquin Wolves.

Back on Isle Royale, ice has made a bridge from the mainland to the Isle a couple of times in the last few years. On at least one occasion, researchers documented wolves from the mainland did cross the ice over to the island, but they didn’t stick around.

It’s supposed to be another colder than average winter in the Great Lakes Region, so chances seem good that in 2020 there will once again be an ice bridge from the mainland to Isle Royale.

Back home in Kenora, I’ve been seeing coyotes (brush wolves?) on our property over the last few months. I have seen tracks of much larger wolves, but haven’t seen one lately. When I was out deer hunting about 50 km from the house the other day, my hunting partner and I came across tracks of a pack of at least three big wolves.

Off property, I have been deer hunting on 8 different days – neither I nor my hunting partners on those days have seen a deer (or a wolf).  But one day we did see a moose!

Recent studies in Minnesota are confirming Grey Wolves can move vast distances and set up a new home range. Hundreds of kilometers of movement does not seem all that unusual, as evidenced by northern Minnesotan wolves re-locating to the Red Lake, Ontario area (about 300 kms, as the crow flies). See https://www.facebook.com/VoyageursWolfProject/ for interesting updates on their findings.

From my perspective, wolf management, or a lack thereof, is symptomatic of the problems facing the wildlife management profession everywhere.

Too much emotion, too little use of scientific principles.

It’s a big problem.

Another Winter Come and (almost) Gone

When I began to write this, on April 8, 2019, the temperature outside was hovering just above the freezing mark and it had just begun a rain/snow mix. Snow still carpeted the ground, although there were bare patches under some of the conifers and on some south facing slopes. The ponds and lakes were still ice-locked, except where there’s current.

Now, three days later, not much has changed, except it’s clear and cold (-6⁰ C this morning), rather than overcast with snow and rain.

Two geese showed up on the pond on April 5^th and hung out most of the day, before leaving, but they have since returned, at least once. Last year, geese arrived on the pond the same date. I suspect these early arrivals are to do with claiming the pond as their own in an effort to build a nest and raise some young, something that has been a failure on this pond two years running. Maybe this year will be different and both geese and ducks can successfully hatch and rear some progeny.

The wolves whittled the deer down again this winter, but there are still a few around. The deer population, overall, is a shadow of what it was about 10 years ago and seems to still be on a downward trajectory. As I’ve said before, I don’t think deer herds here will recover until the next spruce budworm epidemic is well underway, something that as far as I know, hasn’t even started yet. Interestingly, I did see a deer chewing on some lichens the other day, but like deer, lichen abundance is minimal.

A couple of weeks ago I gave a presentation to the Canadian Institute of Forestry, Lake of the Woods Chapter, on Moose Emphasis Areas, or MEAs. Basically, MEAs are large patches of forest – e.g., 5-10 thousand hectares – where the forest managers try to coordinate the creation and maintenance of good to excellent moose habitat when carrying out forest operations, namely harvesting, renewal and maintenance of wood fibre. Dr. Vince Crichton – Doc Moose – gave a presentation on moose and moose management in general, and there were two other presentations by District Biologists as to how MEAs were actually being implemented in approved forest management plans.

I think there was a general consensus that good moose habitat is a key component of managing moose, but other factors, including predation, disease and human harvest, are also important. Unfortunately, all factors, not just moose habitat, are difficult to control.

For example, starting with moose habitat, successful planning and implementing MEAs require a skillful planning team. But that alone is not enough, as public input needs to be accommodated. In many areas, the benefits of MEAs might not be realized without restrictions on road access (you need roads to practice forestry, but roads also provide access to human hunters and other predators).Meaningful restrictions on road access can be difficult if not impossible, because the public simply won’t accept them.

And good habitat, even with road restrictions, might not be enough. Sometimes, predators can suppress prey (e.g., moose) populations – which in some circumstances might warrant predator control. But these days, any talk of predator control seems to be met with a great deal of derision. Governments everywhere – certainly here in Ontario – have pretty much tossed the option of predator control aside.

There’s not much that can be done about disease, but at least there have been, in this part of the country, harsher, more snowy winters of late, which has reduced (a) deer populations, which in turn has reduced the incidence of brain worm, a major moose killer, and (b) moose tick abundance. Moose ticks thrive when winters are short, but take a hit from early and late snow cover (moose die-offs from severe moose tick infestations are fairly common in some areas). Fewer deer also mean fewer wolves, so again, that’s a good thing. Bears are another story.

Human harvest can be controlled to some degree, but again, there are issues that probably should be addressed, but can’t, or aren’t. These include:

(a) there is little control over harvest by Aboriginals and Métis, who do not require licences to hunt and are generally not subject to road use restrictions. Some Aboriginal and Métis groups and communities have voluntarily agreed to moose harvest limits, but there are no enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance.

(b) despite reductions in the number of adult tags available to licenced hunters in many Wildlife Management Units (e.g., in WMU 6 there was a single bull tag issued last year – to me – and I didn’t fill it), there is still an unrestricted, two week hunt for calf moose. That means anyone with a moose licence can hunt and harvest (one) calf moose in any WMU during the ‘open’ calf season.

(c) there seems to be a mis-guided desire to have a bull:cow ratio close to 50:50. Doc Moose presented evidence that bulls can be substantially fewer in number than cows and still ‘get the job done’. It seems patently ridiculous to lower the number of bull tags and increase the number of cow tags, especially in WMUs where moose are declining and below population targets.

(d) there is also evidence that shows younger bulls are less effective breeders than older bulls, yet in Ontario, there are no restrictions on what kind of bull a hunter can harvest with a bull tag. Cows are less responsive to the clumsier wooing of young bulls as compared to mature bulls and young bulls have both lower sperm counts and lower sperm quality, making conception less likely. In addition, in many WMUs, there has been a tendency to have an early bow season, to allow hunters to call in a bull to the close range a bow hunter requires. As such, bulls are harvested before or during the peak of the rut. Fewer old bulls and harvesting bulls immediately before or during the rut might still let all the cows be bred – at least in those WMUs with a reasonable moose population –  but breeding might not be concentrated during the prime estrus, around the end of September. As a result, calving can be spread out over a longer period the following spring, making it easier for predators that specialize in taking young calves (i.e., wolves and large bears), thus reducing recruitment.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to moose management is cultural. In Ontario, moose management is not the pressing issue it used to be for the government, replaced with concerns such as the plight of species at risk and a desire to deal with climate change hysteria. The perceived indifference to moose by the government is exacerbated by the fact that many hunters have little faith in government actions or policies, resulting in a ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude. So poaching and a general disregard for rules have, in my opinion, increased (and I’m far from alone in believing that).

While I’m not completely convinced things can’t be turned around, I’m not in the habit of looking at things through rose-coloured glasses, either. The problems are huge and not easily addressed.

Still, outside of moose (and deer) world, life is not all bad.  Spring is in the air, or at least it should be over the coming weeks. I do look forward to the return of the migratory birds and seeing the return of the colour green.

Plus many a BBQ, with a cold beverage in hand, are looming in my future. And that’s a very good thing.

 

Tags and Seals

In addition to wolves and coyotes, bears, deer, moose and turkeys have to be tagged in Ontario.

I recently purchased a wolf/coyote tag so I can hunt wolves. Actually, I just need/want the tag to be able to shoot a wolf if it happens to show itself on the frozen pond in front of the house. As I’ve said on a number of occasions on this blog and elsewhere, I don’t hate wolves and appreciate the important role they play in the overall scheme of things. However, there are, right now, lots of wolves around, a holdover from when deer were super-abundant. Deer populations have collapsed, but wolves have hung on.

But with few deer (and virtually zero moose), the local wolves are getting desperate. They broke into a neighbors kennel the other day and attacked a dog; the dog was saved only because the neighbor heard and then saw what was going on and managed to beat the wolf off. Hence the need/want for a wolf tag.

It’s not a wolf licence. Wolves in Ontario fall under the auspices of a small game licence, so to hunt wolves you need a small game licence and a wolf tag. There are some stupid regs associated with this scenario – one can’t hunt wolves with “a rifle with a muzzle energy greater than 400 ft-lbs . . . during the open [firearm] season for a big game species [without] a valid licence for a big game species that a season is open for.” Even if you have a small game licence and a wolf tag. That’s just ridiculous. But, since there is no moose or deer or elk rifle season open where I live right now, it’s not a pressing issue.

Anyway, I had to go down to a licence issuer to buy the tag. It cost me $11.36 and was printed out on a sheet of letter-size bond paper. The tag itself is only a portion of the sheet of paper (less than ¼) and there are instructions where to fold it and cut it out.

As I said, the tag was printed out on standard bond paper.

The Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary says “The term ‘game seals will be replaced by ‘tags’.”

I haven’t asked anyone why the change, but it seems to me it’s pretty hard to claim a piece of paper that can virtually disintegrate if it gets a soaker is a ‘seal’.

Which leads to the question: what is the purpose of a ‘seal/tag’?

Seals have been used by game agencies to ‘tag’ an animal a hunter has the authority to harvest. ‘Seal the deal’, so to speak. A seal was meant to ensure the harvest of a particular species, or type of animal (e.g., buck, doe) was tightly controlled. This is different from how fish are generally managed, where there are simple catch and possession limits (e.g., you can catch x number of walleye every day during the open season, and possess another number. But if you eat, or give to a friend your catch limit, you can go out the next day and do it all again). It’s all about abundance – generally there are lots more fish than there are animals.

Although there are caveats, the simple way to view seals and tags is to understand they are meant to ensure that once one has sealed/tagged an animal, you can’t kill another, unless one has another seal/tag.

In Ontario, and many other jurisdictions, seals have been made from a relatively indestructible material; like plastic, or nylon. Often, they had one side that was ‘sticky’; to seal an animal one had to remove the covering on the sticky side of the seal, attach the seal to the animal (at the kill site), and press the sticky side together. Usually, the time and date of the kill had to be notched into the seal. These two requirements (having a sticky seal that couldn’t be ‘unstuck’ and notching the seal, were designed to keep hunters honest and ensure the seal couldn’t be used again. In addition, seals are/were difficult to copy, so what you got was what you got.

The last few years Ontario has been getting out of having tags ‘stick’, but they were still made out of a mostly non-destructible material, had to be attached to the animal at the kill site, and had a requirement to be notched as to time and date of the kill, again, at the kill site. And they were difficult to copy.

But such seals, even without the sticky (or a wire which also used to be issued that was used to help attach the seal to the downed animal) aren’t cheap, or at least have some cost to them. As such, they’re one place where game agencies, being stretched ever thinner and under constant pressure to trim costs and find ‘efficiencies’, have been focusing their attention of late.

To achieve ‘efficiencies’ – and supposedly to make life more convenient for hunters – Ontario has done away with seals and replaced them with tags. There’s no requirement for tags to be printed on something that’s weather resistant and, except for wolf/coyote tags (I have no idea why there is an exception for these canids), a hunter who is eligible can print off both their licence and associated tags at home.

I’ve heard that there has been advice put out by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) to put tags in something like a zip-lock bag to keep it from being destroyed, but I don’t see such info on the tag I purchased nor do I see anything like that in the hunting summary.

There’s still the requirement to notch the tag at the kill site, but the tag doesn’t have to be attached to the animal if the hunter remains in possession of the animal until it’s brought “to the site of processing and is being processed for long-term storage”. If one isn’t in accompaniment of the animal, or “immediately available to produce the tag for inspection”, the tag has to be attached to the appropriate place on the animal as described by the tag.

Well, I can see problems here . . .

For one, requiring the tag to be notched at the kill site before the animal is moved, and not destroying the integrity of the tag, is going to be a challenge in any kind of inclement weather.

It is an offence to make a copy of any licence or tag, but given they can be printed out on paper and it doesn’t state, in either the current regulation summary or on the tag itself (at least it doesn’t on the wolf tag I have ), in plain language that making a copy is illegal, the tag is a weak replacement for a ‘seal’. And a paper tag is very easy to copy.

There is a code on the tag that can be scanned by a QR reader, and apparently it is encrypted for use by Conservation Officers. However, everything I have heard to date suggests the field CO’s don’t have, at least as yet, the ability to detect whether a tag is an original or a duplicate. Hopefully, that will be sorted out before too long . . .

Still, the tag is on paper, which means the QR code can be easily damaged and thus won’t, if damaged, be of much use with respect to enforcement.

Apparently, the switch from a ‘real seal’ to tags created a fair amount of acrimony within the MNRF owing mostly to problems around enforcement and security. I think I can see why.

To a large degree, MNRF and others in the hunting community are counting on hunters to be supportive of the new system and abide by the regulations.

However, as I pointed out in my last post, hunting culture in Ontario, in my opinion, has moved away from being supportive of what the MNRF is up to, and the incidence of blatant disregard for rules and regulation is high.

I hope I’m wrong and the things will go off this year with minimal problems.

I guess we will soon find out.

 

Another Moose Review

In Ontario, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), is undertaking a review of the present moose management program. It’s the latest in a long list of moose management reviews that have been done over the years.

The moose is the largest member of the deer family in the world. They are an important game animal in no small way because they are highly edible. They taste good. The harvest of a single moose can provide the meat needs for a few people for a year. And bulls grow large antlers, which provide hunters with a trophy and fond memories of past hunts.

Ontario has about 100,000 moose, give or take. Numbers go up and down; right now, they have been on a downward slide in most of the province for several years. People are worried about the moose population – hence the review. The MNRF review is scheduled to occur over the next couple of years.

I’ve written about the plight of moose on this blog, in magazine articles and recently published in the journal Alces a case study that was a review of deer and moose over the past many decades in Ontario’s Kenora District.

I don’t know what the terms are for the new moose review, but here’s what I think are the issues; it’s pretty much what the issues always are:

• hunting
• predation
• disease and parasites
• habitat

With respect to hunting, there’s much that could be done to help rebuild moose populations. Some of what’s recently (e.g., drastic reduction in adult tags, shortening of the calf season) been done might be helping to re-build herds in some Wildlife Management Units (WMUs), but problems remain.  For starters, I think that harvest strategies that are applied mostly across the province don’t work the same everywhere – for example, seasons and bag limits need to be more flexible and be tailored more closely to suit local conditions. I’m not the only one who believes we are still shooting too many cows and calves in some WMUs. Few, if any, other jurisdictions that manage moose allow the level of hunting for cows and calves that Ontario does.

The biggest hunting problem, though, is cultural. Few hunters believe the MNRF is doing, or has been doing, a good job of moose management. They lost faith in the system and many hunters are so frustrated they are openly flaunting the rules. More than 60 moose were seized by MNRF Conservation Officers during the first couple of weeks of the hunt. Typical offences were shooting a moose for which the hunter(s) had no valid tag, perhaps in a WMU where the tag did not apply, or shooting in an unlawful manner or place (e.g., shooting from a boat, on a road or at night).

People are doing unlawful things and have lost faith in the system for many reasons. One big one is how the draw or tag system works.

In Ontario, a hunter needs to buy a moose licence to be eligible to apply in a draw for a tag. A tag is usually valid for either a bull or a cow, in a specific WMU. In a few WMUs, a tag is also required to harvest a calf moose. In many WMUs with a moose hunting season, there is both an archery only season and a general gun season.

Everyone who buys a moose licence can hunt moose. Party hunting is allowed. There are some caveats, but basically, if a group of several hunters goes moose hunting, anyone in the party can shoot a moose as long as someone in the party has an adult validation tag.

If no one has an adult validation tag, then hunters can only hunt calf moose. The moose season in most of northern Ontario is 8 or 9 weeks in length, but the calf season is only open now during about two weeks of the moose season.

Rather than get into more details at this point, I think it’s worthwhile to look at a couple of what I and many others think are fundamental problems with the system as so far discussed.

First, everyone can buy a moose licence which allows everyone to hunt moose. But as described, to hunt an adult moose, a hunter must have an adult validation tag. A validation tag is available through a draw – some validation tags (typically about 12-14% of the total available in the province) are allocated to the tourist industry (outfitters) and can be purchased from the outfitter. Most resident hunters opt for the draw, as non-residents, for the most part, can hunt only through a tourist outfitter. As a result, a moose hunt through a tourist outfitter is pricey.

The basic problem with the draw system is that a hunter must purchase their licence before being eligible to enter the draw. The draw is random, with two pools – a preferred pool (Pool 1) and a non-preferred pool (Pool 2). To be in the preferred pool, one had to have applied previously and have been unsuccessful in drawing a tag.  First time moose hunters are in the non-preferred pool as are moose hunters who drew a tag through the draw in the previous year.

Some hunters are lucky and frequently draw an adult validation tag; others might go 10 or more years without drawing a tag. There are some wrinkles to the system, but that’s the essence of Ontario’s moose draw system.

The simple pool that can result in going years without a tag coupled with the need to buy a moose licence before knowing whether you actually will get a tag has resulted in a great deal of discontent among Ontario moose hunters and is one of the major factors why hunters have lost faith in the system.

Other jurisdictions with a draw for big game animals, including moose (such as Alberta and Wyoming, to name a couple), charge a modest fee to enter into the draw, but don’t require you to buy a licence unless you get drawn and are eligible for a validation tag. In Alberta, every time you apply for a tag, but don’t get one, you get a point. The way that system works is that hunters with the most points get a tag.

For example, if there are 10 tags in a WMU and 50 people apply and have been applying every year, one gets a tag every 5 years. If more tags become available (e.g., because the moose population increased) and the number of applicants remained the same, it might take only 4, or 3 years to draw a tag. If the population dropped or moose hunter applicants increased, it would take more years to get a tag.

But it allows the hunter with a relative amount of certainty to see where and when they are likely to get a tag. A hunter can apply to whichever WMU they wish; some will take longer to get a tag, some less – but the hunter has much better certainty about the chances of getting drawn. Plus, one doesn’t have to dish out the expense of a licence every year, which is a plus to hunters worrying about costs, which over time, can add up.

Ontario justifies its system partly on the basis that all hunters can still go hunting – party hunting is allowed and everyone can hunt calf moose.

Few jurisdictions provide these opportunities and for good reasons. Party hunting can be quite effective and killing calf moose has been shown to be an impediment to maintaining moose populations. Other jurisdictions tend to have much more restrictive party hunting regulations than what’s allowed in Ontario. It was also once thought that the hunter kill of calf moose would have little or no impact on moose population growth, because the hunter harvest of calf moose would be what biologists call ‘compensatory’. In other words, if hunters didn’t kill calf moose, wolves, or bears or other causes of mortality would, and at the end of a year the number of calf moose that survived to be one year of age (and require an adult validation tag to be harvested by hunters) would be the same.

However, that theory has been thoroughly debunked. Except where the hunter harvest is relatively low and moose productivity high (e.g., areas with excellent habitat conditions and relatively low numbers of wolves and bears), hunting calf moose is additive mortality. It makes sense – adult moose were once calves; kill too many calves and where do the adult moose come from? Not the cabbage patch.

There’s lots more that can and could and should be done to improve the management – and numbers – of Ontario’s moose herds.

Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be discussing many of them.

In the interim, I think we need to fundamentally change the way the draw system works. Sticking with the same system and expecting things to improve is insane. We need a system that hunters can support. Without the support of hunters, all is lost.