From the Star Tribune in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota:
The rope around her ankles is in case Megan Callahan-Beckel gets trapped in the wolf den.
“I just click my heels like Dorothy and they pull me out,” she says with a grin.
At 21, Callahan-Beckel is a veteran of puppy pulls, also known as den dives. She’ll wriggle into the den where a mother wolf has given birth, a passage as deep as 35 feet and often barely wide enough to squeeze through. Sometimes, the tunnel collapses on her and the Dorothy act becomes more urgent.
Click here for the full story.
Record number of wolf pups fostered into wild dens in the Southwest
From The Durango Herald:
FARMINGTON – A record number of endangered Mexican wolf pups has been fostered into wild wolf dens in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona, state agencies announced.
Twenty wolf pups were cross-fostered into wild wolf packs during six weeks in April and May – 12 pups into four packs in Arizona and eight pups into three packs in western New Mexico. It was the first time the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish participated in the cross-fostering program since it rejoined protection efforts with the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program last year.
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‘It happened so fast’: B.C. senior speaks out about violent wolf attack
From CTVNews.com:
VANCOUVER — Stanley Russ does not remember the entirety of the attack that left him badly injured and recovering in a Vancouver hospital.
The 72-year-old was attacked by a wolf near his home in Port Edward, B.C., south of Prince Rupert, on May 29.
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Will the wolf survive? Battle over ‘los lobos’ heats up Southwest
From the Christian Science Monitor:
John Oakleaf has learned to rejoice in small victories.
One such victory came on March 17, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced it counted at least 163 Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona. That may not sound like much. And indeed the number is still perilously low. But it also represents a 24% increase over the previous annual count and follows a 12% increase the year before that.
Click here for the full story.
A gray wolf is in Utah for the first time in years. The state is setting traps.
From the Salt Lake Times:
Earlier this week, a trapper working for the state of Utah went to investigate a calf that had been killed by a predator in Rich County. He brought coyote traps, expecting the typical culprit.
But after analyzing scat, tracks and other evidence, the trapper determined the calf was killed not by a coyote, but a rare gray wolf — a species that has been sighted in Utah only a handful of times since it was extirpated from the state in the 1920s.
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Advocates question investigations used to target wolves
From the Associated Press and KOB TV:
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An environmental group is raising questions about investigations into livestock kills by Mexican gray wolves in the southwestern U.S.
The Western Watersheds Project has documented oddities, errors or conflicting details in more than two-thirds of the 117 investigations it reviewed from 2019. The investigations are used to compensate ranchers for cattle that are killed in Arizona and New Mexico.
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Yellowstone Facebook Live broadcast attempts to dispel wolf myths
From the Billings Gazette:
Among some people wolves have a reputation of being super killers, able to wipe out wildlife like deer and elk when they move into a territory. But that’s simply not true, according to Dan Stahler, a wolf biologist in Yellowstone National Park.
“There are limits to their ability,” he said during a recent Facebook Live broadcast.
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Wolfing it down: Ice Age hunters tucked into wolf meat, researchers find
From thefirstnews.com:
Polish researchers has discovered that wolves were among the animals eaten by hunters in Europe during the Ice Age, around 30,000 years ago.
Humans have long hunted wolves for their pelts and to keep them away from livestock. But new research in the Czech Republic by Polish archaeologists and their Czech colleagues shows that, during the Ice Age, they were actually eaten by humans.
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Advocates question investigations used to target ‘problem’ Mexican wolves
From Tucson.com:
The remains of the dead cow were found early last year in the bottom of a canyon on National Forest land near Reserve, New Mexico.
All that was left was a wadded scrap of dried hide that investigators photographed then collected from the rocky ground at the base of a pinyon pine tree.
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Conservation officers issue warning after wolf approaches woman in British Columbia
From the Times Colonist in Canada:
PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. — Conservation officers are warning of a “significant increase” in wolf activity around Prince Rupert, B.C.
The Conservation Officer Service says it has received several reports of dogs and cats being attacked over the last few weeks and other pets have gone missing.
Click here for the full story.
How did wolves become dogs?
From the Star Tribune in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota:
The rope around her ankles is in case Megan Callahan-Beckel gets trapped in the wolf den.
“I just click my heels like Dorothy and they pull me out,” she says with a grin.
At 21, Callahan-Beckel is a veteran of puppy pulls, also known as den dives. She’ll wriggle into the den where a mother wolf has given birth, a passage as deep as 35 feet and often barely wide enough to squeeze through. Sometimes, the tunnel collapses on her and the Dorothy act becomes more urgent.
Click here for the full story.