Dates: Tuesday, March 11th or Thursday, March 13th, 9:30am

Location: Online

Website: https://wolf.org/

This week we are talking about wolves with the International Wolf Center, located in Ely, Minnesota. They are a research and educational center, focused on wolves. Their mission is to: 

“use science-based education to 

teach and inspire the world 

about wolves, their ecology, and 

the wolf-human relationship.”

The Center evolved from a 1985 exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota titled “Wolves and Humans”. The 6,000 square foot display garnered millions of viewers as it toured 19 cities in the US and Canada. Dr. L. David Mech, who had consulted on the exhibit, brought together representatives to form an International Wolf Center to create a dedicated home for wolf education. Minnesota boasts a significant gray wolf population, one of the most significant in the lower 48 states, so Ely was the natural choice for the center! We will be talking to the International Wolf Center about their work in Minnesota and how they study and track wolf populations. Before our visit, we’ll learn a little bit more about wolves around the United States!

So why bother with wolves anyway? What makes them such a big deal? Wolves, though their numbers are usually not large, are considered a keystone species. These keystone species are those who have an outsized impact on their ecosystem, especially relative to their population size. So while elk, deer, birds, and other prey animals may exist in far larger numbers, wolves significantly impact how an ecosystem survives and even thrives. Other examples of keystone species include:

• Sea otters - they keep the sea urchin population in check which helps promote healthy kelp forests (a huge producer of oxygen in our atmosphere).

• Mountain lions - function much as wolves do, keeping elk, deer, and other grazing animals in check over their wide ranging territories. 

• Kangaroo rats - not a predator, but still a very important contributor! These rats live in desert habitats and encourage and control plant life by feeding on vegetation and dispersing seeds. They are also an important food source for predators like snakes, coyotes, and owls. 

• Beavers - these busy animals build dams to help establish and maintain a biodiverse habitat in wetlands. Their construction skills make sure that rivers and streams have water year round, keeping fish alive and providing food and water sources for a variety of animals.

• Hummingbirds - beautiful AND important! These wide ranging birds are vital for pollination, allowing for new plant growth across habitats in North America. These plants are an important food source for other animals. So if you can, replace your hummingbird feeders with flowers they like to help these pollinators protect our ecosystems!

• Saguaro Cactus - plants can be keystone species too! These ‘armed’ cacti provide a lot of benefit to their communities; birds build nests in them, they produce fruit, flowers, and even a water source for bats, birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals. 

Ok, back to the wolves, our keystone species of this week! Wolves maintain an ecosystem in a number of ways:

• Regulation of prey populations

When prey species like deer, elk, and others become too large, it can lead to overgrazing. Stripping the land of vegetation causes soil erosion, reduces habitat for small species, and can even impact insect populations. By keeping the grazing population in check, wolves help maintain a balance for all these species

• Cascading Effects on Food Chain

Aside from supporting the vegetation population, wolf kills also help other carnivorous animals, such as bears, ravens, and eagles, who feed from the carcasses. 

The ripple effect of wolves on entire ecosystems is known as a trophic cascade (hint, this is almost for sure going to be a term that appears in Jeopardy). 

Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) was once widely distributed across the United States. But habitat loss and systematic hunting by humans have reduced their population to ⅔ of their former range worldwide and about 10% of their range in the lower 48 states. Red wolves is a subspecies of gray wolf, usually smaller, and is considered critically endangered. Red wolves were found throughout the southeastern United States, though now the bulk of the population lives in zoos and are part of a species survival program. As of 2023, the distribution of gray and red wolves in the United States looks like this: 

Though wolves were hunted and eradicated throughout most of the lower 48 in the 1900s, there have been significant attempts to reintroduce wolves into ecosystems. As with many wild animals in the United States, the National Park system is a refuge and protection for these animals. Here are the parks you might be able to catch a glimpse of a wolf:

• Isle Royale National Park, Michigan 

Isle Royale is a remote island in Lake Superior and the site of the longest running predator-prey study in the world. To read more about this study, you can click here: https://www.isleroyalewolf.org/

• Yellowstone National Park

I left this one for last because it’s one of the best examples of the importance of wolves to an ecosystem, because we can so clearly document what the park looked like without wolves (after they were hunted and removed in the 1920s) and what happened after they were reintroduced in the 1990s. The 41 wolves introduced into the park between 1995 and 1997 have grown to a population of more than 100 and a valuable area of study for the park. To learn more about this ecological success story, check out the following resources:

To read more about the wolves of Yellowstone, click here:

Tune in this week to learn more about wolves, how they are studied and tracked in Minnesota, and more! It should be a howling good time (sorry, I really can’t help myself).

https://enviroliteracy.org/how-common-are-wolves-in-minnesota/

https://wildlifeinformer.com/keystone-species-examples/

https://nywolf.org/learn/u-s-wolf-populations/

https://www.travel-experience-live.com/best-national-parks-to-see-wolves-in-america/

https://enviroliteracy.org/why-are-wolves-important-to-the-ecosystem/#Wolves_as_Keystone_Species

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf