From Modern Farmer:
As the wolf population rebounds in the American West, cattle ranchers are going to extreme measures to coexist with the legendary predators.
In the fall of 2014, when the Elzinga family of Alderspring Ranch were bringing their cattle back to the ranch from the jagged river canyons and rocky peaks of their public grazing allotment above Idaho’s Salmon River Corridor, they discovered 14 of their animals were missing.
Despite riding 30 to 50 miles on horseback four to five days a week to check on their herd, the Elzingas had lost $35,000 of revenue to predators.
Most of the signs pointed to wolves.
Click here for the full story.
Minnesota wolves eating fish wasn’t a fluke — it’s a thing
From Post Bulletin:
When researchers at the Voyageurs Wolf Project first captured video of wolves catching and eating fish out of a small stream back in 2017, they thought it was probably a unique occurrence.
Now, upon further research, the biologists have found that many wolves across their Northland range likely target and catch fish in the spring — a good source of protein at just the right time of year when other food is not abundant.
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Brookfield Zoo’s Wolf Puppies Take Trip Of A Lifetime To Return To The Wild
From Crow River Media:
Seven Mexican wolf puppies were born at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago on 27 April 2023, but only one of the males will emerge from their den as the other six puppies have gone on a remarkable journey back into the wild. On 6 May the other pups —four males and two females—were flown to Arizona and placed in wild Mexican wolf dens as part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ Mexican Wolf Recovery Program.
Click here for the full story.
Wary of Wolves, Some Western Ranchers Are Returning to Life on the Range
From Modern Farmer:
As the wolf population rebounds in the American West, cattle ranchers are going to extreme measures to coexist with the legendary predators.
In the fall of 2014, when the Elzinga family of Alderspring Ranch were bringing their cattle back to the ranch from the jagged river canyons and rocky peaks of their public grazing allotment above Idaho’s Salmon River Corridor, they discovered 14 of their animals were missing.
Despite riding 30 to 50 miles on horseback four to five days a week to check on their herd, the Elzingas had lost $35,000 of revenue to predators.
Most of the signs pointed to wolves.
Click here for the full story.
Belgian MP calls for debate to allow killing wolves
From The Brussels Times:
A deputy from Belgium’s German-speaking community has called for fresh debate on the status of wolves in Belgium, German-language newspaper Grenz Echo reports. Wolves cause significant damage to livestock in the country each year.
A new litter of wolf offspring are now likely present in the High Fens in Belgium’s German-speaking region. This year, a second litter is expected in the region’s Bütgenbach-Büllingen, German-speaking deputy Christine Mauel announced in a statement.
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Mexican Wolf Puppies Born at Zoo Placed in Wild Packs Across US to Help Boost Population of Endangered Species
From Inside Edition:
Authorities have placed several of Mexican wolf pups in dens across the United States in a bid to strengthen the population of the endangered species.
Could Mexican wolves born at an Illinois zoo help bolster the species’ dwindling numbers in the wild? That’s the hope of authorities who have placed several of the pups in dens across the United States in a bid to strengthen the population.
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New approach to removing wolves from endangered species list
From Wisconsin Public Radio:
Wisconsin’s gray wolves would lose their endangered species status under a bill being introduced by Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Baldwins’ bill follows decades of legal and political battles over whether the wolf population has recovered enough to warrant dropping federal protections. Her “Northern Great Lakes Wolf Recovery Act” would take a somewhat novel approach by expanding the definition of Minnesota’s wolf population — which has been federally listed as “threatened” since 1978 — to include wolves in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
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Warning issued after wolves in southern Oregon show ‘lack of wariness’ around people
From The Register-Guard:
Two wolves in southwest Oregon have shown an uncharacteristic “lack of wariness around people,” prompting state wildlife officials to issue a warning to anyone recreating in the upper North Umpqua River area east of Roseburg.
Videos and photos show one wolf, a yearling, “approaching and laying down near vehicles and not reacting to human voice or honking horns … which is uncommon behavior,” officials with Umpqua National Forest said in a news release.
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New bill introduced to delist gray wolves in Upper Midwest
From WDIO:
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin has introduced a new bill to delist the gray wolf population in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The Northern Great Lakes Wolf Recovery Act would create an advisory committee comprised of agriculture representatives, Native and Tribal communities, heads of impacted state agencies, and wolf management experts and scientists to create the final delisting rule for the region.
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Macron goes on a wolf hunt
From Le Monde diplomatique:
Since the wolf returned to France in the 1990s, numbers have grown to nearly 1,000 animals. The public are overwhelmingly supportive, so why are so many wolves being shot?
Wolves pose no danger to humans and have strict legal protection under the Bern Convention (1979) and the EU’s Habitats Directive (1992). Individual animals are only supposed to be killed as a last resort to prevent significant damage to livestock. For the past 30 years, the French government has spent large sums to smooth the coexistence of wolves and livestock (nearly €30m in 2021 alone). This figure gives some sense of the efforts made by farmers to protect their herds under the national action plan. Roughly three quarters of affected farms suffer only one or two attacks a year, largely as a result of enhanced security, fences and guard dogs.
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Six endangered red wolf pups born at the Great Plains Zoo
From Dakota News Now:
The red wolf is one of the most endangered animal species.
It’s estimated there are only about two dozen red wolves surviving in the wild right now.
The conservation team at the Great Plains Zoo is putting in a lot of work to save the species from going extinct.
The red wolves at the Great Plains Zoo are part of what’s called the Red Wolf Species Survival Plan. It aims to breed pairs with the greatest possible genetic diversity, with the goal of bolstering the wild population.
Click here for the full story.