Big Howl In Minnesota

Now and then I have had the opportunity to meet timber wolves, sometimes in situations of considerable intimacy. One of the best evenings of my life was spent watching wolf pups play outside their sandy den in the central Arctic and then later listening most of the night to the adult members of the pack making music. However, I have always come to wolfy places as a temporary traveler; I could admire these magnificent animals in situations that involved no basic conflict of interest on either side. I think very well of wolves, but it is understandable that other people who have had different and less benign experiences are inclined to think less well of them. For example:

?Julian Brzoznowski owns 800 acres near Orr, Minn., about 30 miles south of International Falls. He is a livestock farmer and during the last two years has had 26 head of cattle killed by timber wolves. During 1976, federal wildlife agents live-trapped and removed 31 wolves from Brzoznowski's property, which, for reasons that remain zoologically obscure, was a piece of land apparently surrounded by several separate packs. Brzoznowski is now suing the Federal Government, the legal guardian of the wolves, for $58,356 to cover his cattle losses and the wolf-caused depreciation of his farm.

?One afternoon last November, John Pahula, a retired employee of U.S. Steel, was walking in the woods in the vicinity of Vermilion Lake, Minn. He was accompanied by a mongrel, Pedro, which he later was to describe as the best dog he ever owned. Making a turn on the trail, they came upon three adult wolves about 60 feet distant. Pedro charged ahead to challenge the wolves. Pahula said he was mad and scared. "I ran back to my neighbors to get a gun. Those wolves must have been five times bigger than my dog." When Pahula returned, both the wolves and Pedro had disappeared. He finally found his pet-companion but only the remains—Pedro's collar and a few wolf-gnawed head bones.

?A dead wolf with a bullet hole in its skull was deposited one night last winter on the steps of the headquarters building of Voyageurs National Park in International Falls. On the carcass were painted the initials SOS. SOS (Sportsmen's Only Salvation) is a Minnesota organization which, despite the fact that molesting a timber wolf is a federal crime punishable with a $20,000 fine and/or a year in jail, has vowed to do something about what its members consider to be a plague of wolves in their state.

These incidents are reported from Minnesota for the good reason that it is the only state among the lower 48 which still supports an appreciable number of timber wolves, the great canine hunters that once ranged most of the woodlands east of the Mississippi. There are now a few wolves in Wisconsin, perhaps an occasional one in northern Michigan. Alaska has between 10,000 and 15,000 wolves but fewer problems than Minnesota because there is so much more wilderness.

Timber wolves lingered on along the Canadian border in northern Minnesota because this is still wilderness country, a portion of which is maintained as federal park or forest lands. Here there is secluded habitat, a good population of moose, deer and other wolf-prey species and not very much human settlement. Even so, Minnesotans who did come in contact with the wolves, especially hunters and a few stock farmers, traditionally tended to regard them as vermin. As they had been elsewhere, wolves were poisoned and shot and for a long time a bounty was paid for dead wolves. Ten years ago it was estimated that there were only 600 timber wolves left in Minnesota. In response to this situation, the U.S. Department of Interior added the eastern timber wolf to its endangered-species list. This gave the wolves absolute protection, making it a federal crime for any human to molest any wolf. It also removed the management of the wolf from the state department of natural resources and turned it over to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Currently, on the basis of extensive field studies, it is thought that there are between 1,000 and 1,500 wolves in Minnesota. Their numbers have increased in the wilderness tracts along the Canadian border but, more controversially, there are now many more wolves showing up considerably to the south in semiwilderness, on privately owned agricultural and recreational lands. Though the endangered-species status has certainly contributed strongly to the comeback of the wolves, it is probably not the sole reason for the increase—the state had commenced conservation efforts before the federal takeover. Nevertheless, the federal endangered-species law—and its effect on wolves and people—-has become the focal point of a fierce dispute.

On one side are people who feel there are now far too many wolves in the northern part of the state and that the feds and their protective law are to blame. These include sportsmen who claim that the abundance of wolves is ruining deer hunting, farmers who have suffered wolf losses and a number of residents of this sparsely settled country who say the wolves are growing bolder and that they fear not only for their property but also for their lives. There is always a first time, but this latter worry is unfounded since there is no record of a wolf having ever caused a human fatality in the U.S.

The only answer to these problems, according to the antiwolf forces, is to remove the animals from the endangered species list and turn management back to the state. Then, it is assumed, state agents or individual hunters will kill enough of the wolves to bring the population to tolerable levels. How many wolves is enough is a matter of dispute. Robert Lessard, a state senator from International Falls, where there is a lot of feeling against wolves, told a meeting of his angry constituents, "I have always figured that 500 wolves in the state would be a viable population. I wouldn't want any more." Will Sandstrom, a spokesman for Wildlife Unlimited, a sportsmen's group, believes, despite the name of his organization, that wolves are creatures which must be limited. He says 280 wolves, "about 40 packs with seven wolves per pack," would be sufficient.

On the other side of the question are protectionists who believe the wolf is an irreplaceable natural resource not only for Minnesota but for the nation as a whole. In their view it is unthinkable that we cannot maintain 1,000 or so of these great hunters. They fear that if the population becomes much less than that, all the wolves might suddenly be wiped out by epidemic disease or a sudden degradation of habitat. Protectionists want the endangered status of the wolves continued. They feel that the return of the animals to state management might result in a wildlife pogrom.