# Wolves in the northern lower confirmed



## KEN C (Oct 28, 2002)

Dead wolf evidence they've migrated below bridge 

October 26, 2004


BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER



A wolf was killed Sunday by a trapper near Rogers City, the first solid proof that wolves have crossed the Straits of Mackinac from the Upper Peninsula.


Todd Hogrefe, a state Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist in Lansing, said several more radio-collared wolves had disappeared from the UP and also might have crossed the winter ice to the Lower Peninsula with the one that was killed.


Craig Milkowski, a DNR conservation officer, said the wolf was a 70-pound female caught in a coyote trap by Rogers City resident William Karsten, who had been hunting several weeks with some friends for what they thought were unusually large coyotes.


Karsten shot the animal, discovered it had a radio collar and realized from its size and the collar that it might not be a coyote. The DNR's position until now has been that there was no proof wolves had migrated to the Lower Peninsula.


But Karsten contacted Milkowski, who confirmed that the dead animal was a female wolf.


Karsten could not be reached for comment.


Lt. Jeff Gaither, who heads the DNR's law enforcement office in Gaylord, said the incident was under investigation, "and there's not much we can tell you at this time."


DNR spokesman Brad Wurfel said the dead wolf was trapped and fitted with a radio collar last November near Engadine, about 50 miles west of Sault Ste. Marie. Its radio signal was last detected Feb. 26 by biologists in an aircraft.


About 300 wolves live in the Upper Peninsula. They apparently moved into Michigan from Wisconsin to the west. The Wisconsin wolves are thought to be descendants of the roughly 2,500 wolves that now live in northern Minnesota.


Members of the Odawa Indian tribe have said they have tracked two packs of wolves for three years in the extreme northern Lower Peninsula, one in the Rogers City area and the other at Wilderness State Park west of Mackinaw City.


Dennis Fijalkowski, executive director of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy in Bath, thinks wolves have been in the Lower Peninsula for three or four years, based on sightings by numerous observers.


"This is going to force the DNR to take another look at its management policies," Fijalkowski said. "Now that we know wolves are in the Lower Peninsula, we're going to have to answer questions like where are they, and how many will people tolerate."


Jan Van Hoesin of Rogers City is a former middle school science teacher who now does educational shows for schoolchildren with her pet lynx, bobcat, coyotes, raccoons and foxes.


She also is a taxidermist and said the DNR had contacted her about mounting the dead wolf.


"I've mounted a few wolves and coyotes," she said. "I've compared their measurements, and if you have them side-by-side, they're easy to tell apart. Besides, who'd want to radio-collar a coyote?"


Female coyotes in Michigan average 20-25 pounds and males 25-30. Adult wolves run 70 pounds on up for females and 90-110 for males.


The DNR has put radio collars on a number of UP wolves to monitor their movements and the growth of the population. Wolves are controversial animals, popular with the public at large but disliked by many farmers and hunters, who say wolves kill too many livestock and deer.


The UP wolf population has grown to the point that the state and federal governments are in the process of removing the wolf from Michigan's endangered species list. That would allow the state to begin a management program, which could include killing wolves in areas where they come into conflict with people.


----------



## Buddy Lee (Dec 17, 2003)

Hopefully Mr. Karsten is prosecuted accordingly, as he is now a documented violator. As for the wolves, how long has it been since we've had them in the lower peninsula? 100 years or more??


----------



## n.pike (Aug 23, 2002)

Why prosecute the guy for doing the honorable thing after he shot it. The DNR has denied there are wolves around here, so the guy shoots what he thinks is a coyote, but turns it in. I see no justification for penalizing him. What if you or I shot a cougar? Are we then violators? They supposedly dont exist, the same as wolves. 

The big thing is now we have documented proof for what has been known for years, Next is the big cat showing up dead.


----------



## Buddy Lee (Dec 17, 2003)

n.pike said:


> Why prosecute the guy for doing the honorable thing after he shot it. The DNR has denied there are wolves around here, so the guy shoots what he thinks is a coyote, but turns it in. I see no justification for penalizing him. What if you or I shot a cougar? Are we then violators? They supposedly dont exist, the same as wolves.
> 
> The big thing is now we have documented proof for what has been known for years, Next is the big cat showing up dead.


It is against the law to kill a wolf in Michigan. I've seen both wolves and coyotes in the wild, and it's not real hard to tell the difference. The DNR denies lots of things for reasons unknown to us. 

If you or I shot a cougar, yes we would be violators. But that won't happen, because there aren't any cougars in Michigan....


----------



## KEN C (Oct 28, 2002)

They have no choice, but to prosecute him its a federally protected animal. Shoot a big cat and its the same thing. The guy should have called the MDNR like the guys that treed the wolverine did. The MDNR would have traquilized it and released it from the foot hold trap. They guy obviuosly cant tell the difference between a 70 lb wolf and a 25 lb coyote!!!!!


----------



## Biggbear (Aug 14, 2001)

It was a while ago during one of the debates on here about Wolves in the UP that one of the MS members that live in the UP said that they wished there were wolves in the LP so more would be sensitive to their situation, I guess it came true. It will be interesting to see how the area is effected by the wolves.


----------



## Ogre (Mar 21, 2003)

I had them on my consistently roaming my property in Presque Isle County (Rogers City) for well over half a year. I have photos and confirmation sightings by friends. I did see the pups playing in the sand around their den during the summer. I contacted the DNR via email to make some broad inquiries and did not follow up as I did not want or welcome the DNR's or anyone's presence regarding this issue. My personal observations were that just prior to the packs disappearance we did not see a tweaty, a squirrel a rabbit, or anything. It appears that they wiped everything out of the area and after exhausting their food supply moved on. I know that wolves are large animals and a pack requires a considerable amount of food. However, my observations were that they killed everything exceeding their personal living/food requirements. Now, several years later, the birds and squirrels are back but certainly not the deer or the rabbits. The high coyote numbers and the deer slaughter in the TB area might have something to do with the almost absence of the deer and rabbits. It's funny during the time that I had the wolves in the area I did not have any coyote tracks and now their every where. Is it that the wolves go after the coyote or is it that the coyote is smart enough to avoid his larger cousin? I know that the wolf is a symbol for many wildlife anti hunting organizations and their resurgence is applauded. From my experience they appear to be wanton killers an as such the UP clamor over cattle and domestic animal killings is more than legitimate in my eyes. Now the truth can be told about this subject. I did not want this knowledge out in the public fearing the clamor about this kind of animal. In the area there are already pamphlets on store counters recommending that people keep their children and pets indoors due to cougar sightings and now the wolf. I fear peoples reactions.


----------



## Buddy Lee (Dec 17, 2003)

Ogre said:


> I had them on my consistently roaming my property in Presque Isle County (Rogers City) for well over half a year. I have photos and confirmation sightings by friends. I did see the pups playing in the sand around their den during the summer. I contacted the DNR via email to make some broad inquiries and did not follow up as I did not want or welcome the DNR's or anyone's presence regarding this issue. My personal observations were that just prior to the packs disappearance we did not see a tweaty, a squirrel a rabbit, or anything. It appears that they wiped everything out of the area and after exhausting their food supply moved on. I know that wolves are large animals and a pack requires a considerable amount of food. However, my observations were that they killed everything exceeding their personal living/food requirements. Now, several years later, the birds and squirrels are back but certainly not the deer or the rabbits. The high coyote numbers and the deer slaughter in the TB area might have something to do with the almost absence of the deer and rabbits. It's funny during the time that I had the wolves in the area I did not have any coyote tracks and now their every where. Is it that the wolves go after the coyote or is it that the coyote is smart enough to avoid his larger cousin? I know that the wolf is a symbol for many wildlife anti hunting organizations and their resurgence is applauded. From my experience they appear to be wanton killers an as such the UP clamor over cattle and domestic animal killings is more than legitimate in my eyes. Now the truth can be told about this subject. I did not want this knowledge out in the public fearing the clamor about this kind of animal. In the area there are already pamphlets on store counters recommending that people keep their children and pets indoors due to cougar sightings and now the wolf. I fear peoples reactions.


Wolves will run the yotes out of an area if they can, and they'll prey on them too given the chance. 

The public's fears are largely unfounded, and most of the horror stories about wolves are pure myth. It's so easy to fear what you don't understand.


----------



## kingfisher 11 (Jan 26, 2000)

Ogre
I can confirm what you say when it comes to wolves and home areas.

In 1998 I was Sasktachewan deer hunting. I hunted for three days in a spot and I could not believe the amount of wildlife I saw from my blind. Every kind of small Critter I could imagine.

I was taken to another area during the week that had a pack of wolfs living. You could not hear or see a bird, see a rabbit track or anything else. The place was completely void of anything but wolf sign. Just wolf trails in the snow.

This was my first exposure to wolves. I had no opinion either way until I saw this first hand. 
They can be locust, move in and completely clean an area out, then move on. This is fine if they don't live in your neck of the woods. I don't mind a few around I just think they need to be severly checked. I have seen first hand and its not pretty.


----------



## KEN C (Oct 28, 2002)

I hunt in Metz twp. so that is Rogers city area. I am not real happy about having wolves in the northern lower. I never liked the idea they were in the UP. Oh well there must be some good reason we want them back? Cool to see one, but seems like it will be tough on the wildlife.


----------



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 26 OCT 04
Contact: Glen Matthews, 989-732-0794

Gray wolf found in northern Lower Peninsula

Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologists today confirmed a gray wolf has been documented in Presque Isle County, the first wolf substantiated in the Lower Peninsula since wolves began returning to Michigan 15 years ago. 

The 70-pound female had been part of a wolf pack in the central Upper Peninsula. She was trapped and fitted with a DNR radio-tracking collar last November, and was last detected Feb. 26 near Engadine in Mackinac County, by biologists using an airplane and telemetry equipment. 

The wolf was still wearing the collar when it was found Oct. 23 in a coyote trap in Presque Isle County and killed by a trapper who mistook it for a coyote. The trapper contacted DNR law enforcement officials, who transported the dead wolf to a wildlife biologist at the DNR Atlanta field office. 

DNR law enforcement and wildlife officials are investigating the situation. Further information will be released as it becomes available.

Once found in all 83 Michigan counties, the last recorded wolf in the Lower Peninsula was in 1910. They began naturally returning to the U.P. via Canada and Wisconsin in the late 1980s. Today, Michigans Upper Peninsula is home to at least 360 wolves.


----------



## AceMcbanon (Apr 2, 2003)

Plenty of wolves in my county and have never noticed a decline other then good years and bad years. Other then a few problem wolves i hear about that need to be killed for livestock killing in the western counties i don't see any problems.


----------



## Eastern Yooper (Nov 12, 2000)

Well, well, well.......

Just like many of us thought: Despite what the ex-spurts told us, that which was highly unlikely/impossible turned out to be so.

_I-m-a-g-i-n-e that._ :yikes: 

Interesting to note that they've remained unusually silent on this thread; or maybe they're just busy wiping the egg off their faces while getting ready to eat their serving of humble pie. :gaga: 

How'd that saying go? Oh yeah: _"A man (or woman!) believes what he wants, and ignores the rest. Everything else is just lies and jest."_ 

A wolverine, and now a wolf. Now about those cougars.......


----------



## One Eye (Sep 10, 2000)

Now, that has to be impossible  I know for a fact that the DNR has repeatedly stated that there are NO wolves in the Lower. Of course, if there were they would tell us, right??

What is funnier is those here that believe every piece of crap they have shoveled for the last several years.

Did someone mention "re-examining" their Management plan now? You would actually need to know what "management" meant in order to actually "re-examine it.

Dan


----------



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Scientists eager to study area wolf population 
Confirmed wolf likely migrated across the ice 

http://www.record-eagle.com/2004/nov/14wolf.htm

GAYLORD - Deep, dense and off the beaten track, northern Lower Michigan's forests provide shelter and sustenance for deer, elk, beaver and birds.
And, it appears, the woods provide equally fine habitat for the gray wolf.
A confirmed sighting of a wolf in northern Michigan last month - the first such documented find in nearly a century - has biologists, researchers and environmentalists excited to learn how many of the predators roam the wooded expanses south of the Mackinac Bridge.
"I would like to hear a wolf howl in the Lower Peninsula," said Brian Mastenbrook, a state Department of Natural Resources biologist. "I think that would be a neat thing."
Mastenbrook and fellow DNR biologist Glen Matthews said they weren't surprised to hear of an Oct. 23 incident in which a hunter and trapper killed a wolf near Rogers City in Presque Isle County.
Jeffery Karsten shot a 70-pound female gray wolf caught in a coyote trap near his home.
Karsten said he thought he killed a large coyote, and Presque Isle officials declined to press charges against him for killing a federally protected animal, ruling the shooting a case of mistaken identity.
But what had been rumored for years was now fact - at least one wolf somehow crossed the divide between two peninsulas and set up home in northern Lower Michigan.

WOLF HISTORY
Bounty hunters wiped out the wolf in northern Lower Michigan; the last recorded sighting was in 1910.
Virtually extinct in the Upper Peninsula, too, the wolf population slowly rebounded over the past two decades as animals migrated there from Canada, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Today, the U.P. wolf population stands at around 360.
Many researchers believe wolves crossed ice that formed at the Straits of Mackinac during two consecutive frigid winters.
Wolves are prone to long journeys, and the animal killed near Rogers City was located near Manistique in the Upper Peninsula as recently as February. 

WOLVES AND PEOPLE 
Northern Lower Michigan's habitat may support wolves, but that doesn't mean they'll be tolerated by humans.
"The sentiment is that most people are unaware that the wolves are here," said R. Ben Peyton, a Michigan State University professor who's studied human and wolf interaction. "When they learn wolves are in Michigan, they usually think it's neat, but they don't want them showing up in their back yards." 
Wolves in the U.P. are plentiful enough that they occasionally cross paths with humans, and sometimes attack livestock, rather than deer, their primary food source. 
Concerns about wolf attacks on livestock, pets or simply anti-wolf prejudices have led to a number of unsolved wolf slayings in the U.P. in recent years.

FUTURE IN MICHIGAN
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed this summer to remove wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species. If finalized, it would remove gray wolves in the eastern United States from the threatened species list, leaving states and tribes with wolf populations to assume control of wolf management in an area that stretches from the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas to the East Coast. 
The southern border includes Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with Canada as the northern boundary.
"The north woods of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are healthier ecosystems because of the presence of wolves," said Steve Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "These animals provide a living laboratory to study how a top predator affects plants and animals within the entire ecosystem."
Two lawsuits stand in the way of the delisting, filed in federal court by the organizations Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation.
Lisa Yee-Litsenberg, manager of the Great Lakes Wolf Project for the National Wildlife Federation, said the group is concerned about the proposed delisting, especially because of an increase in the number of illegal wolf kills throughout the Great Lakes area.
Meanwhile, the state is updating the wolf management plan first adopted in 1997. Matthews, Mastenbrook and Brian Roell, the DNR's wolf coordinator, said it will take time to change the plan to include the Lower Peninsula, beginning with a wolf count once snow covers the region.
Yee-Litsenberg said her organization would also be involved in the process, mainly through educational programs.
"There is a lot of work to be done to prepare residents of the Lower Peninsula to be ready for wolves," she said.


----------

