Resurgent gray wolves killed, despite protection

updated 1:31 a.m. ET Dec. 14, 2008

SAGOLA, Mich. - When Brian Roell got word from an aerial surveillance crew that the gray wolf's radio collar was indicating no movement, he knew what it probably meant.

A few hours later, the wolf program coordinator for Michigan's Department of Natural Resources was trudging through a swampy backwoods near this township in the Upper Peninsula with another wildlife biologist and a DNR conservation officer. Guided by a hand-held antenna that picked up the radio collar's rapid beeps, the searchers made their way into a thick black cedar stand. There, in a slight depression, lay the dead wolf on its back, legs jutting skyward.

The 6-year-old male, his neck soaked with blood, appeared to have been dragged to this spot. The wound on the right side of his chest left no doubt about the cause of death: a bullet from a small-caliber rifle.

The wolf was among more than three dozen believed to have been deliberately and illegally killed in Michigan's Upper Peninsula within the past five years, according to DNR data obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. Officials in other north central and Rocky Mountain states report scores of wolf shootings despite legal protection for the animal driven to near extinction in many areas.

Some residents of the sprawling, rural Upper Peninsula deeply resent the wolf's presence. Among them are hunters who believe the wily predators are decimating the whitetail deer herd and farmers who have lost livestock to wolf raids.

"They're born killers," said Al Clemens, a hunter from Ironwood who has lobbied state legislators to establish wolf hunting and trapping seasons. "... People are just fed up."

Yes, wolves eat deer, but not enough to put a serious dent in the total, Roell said.

"Wolves are an easy scapegoat," he added.

Wolf catch phrase
The wolf isn't universally despised in the region. The DNR says a 2005 survey indicated most residents were willing to peacefully coexist. In fact, tips from citizens have been instrumental in nabbing poachers.

Still, most cases go unsolved, and many illegal kills undoubtedly never come to official attention. "Yoopers," as Upper Peninsula residents call themselves, even have a catch phrase for dispatching a wolf and hiding the evidence: "Shoot, shovel and shut up."

But now and then investigators catch a break.

As Roell and biologist Dean Beyer examined the Sagola Township wolf's carcass, officer Chris Holmes spotted footprints beside a nearby stream. Not far away, he found fresh tire tracks from a sport utility vehicle.

The men set off, following the tracks.

Numbers rising
Wolves once ranged widely across much of North America.

But predator control programs wiped them out in most of the lower 48 states. They had disappeared from Michigan's Lower Peninsula by the early 20th century and were all but gone from the Upper Peninsula by 1960, when a state bounty program was repealed.

But in 1989, the tracks of a wolf pair were found not far from where the Sagola Township male would be shot in 2006. The couple produced a litter of pups, touching off a surprisingly rapid comeback boosted by migrants from neighboring Wisconsin. The latest census, taken last winter, estimated the U.P. population at 520.

Meanwhile, numbers also were rising in Minnesota — which now has nearly 3,000 wolves — and Wisconsin, with about 540.

So prolific had they become that the U.S. Department of Interior last year removed the upper Great Lakes population from the federal endangered species list. Many environmentalists supported the move.

"A spectacular success story," said Marvin Roberson, a Michigan-based Sierra Club forest ecologist.

Fears of poaching
But the Humane Society and other animal rights groups, believing wolves still vulnerable, filed suit. A federal judge in September restored the wolves to the list, saying the government had not followed the Endangered Species Act.

The ruling means for now, state officials in Michigan and Wisconsin no longer can kill wolves that repeatedly prey on livestock or pets — a crucial provision in management plans the states had crafted. The states are seeking permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continue doing so. (Minnesota can use lethal control because its population is listed only as "threatened," not "endangered.")

Without that option, some fear public support for wolves will decline — and poaching will rise as frustrated farmers and hunters take matters into their own hands.

"It's going to make some criminals out of honest people," said John Talsma, a retired veterinarian.

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