The Mountaineer - Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada
© 2007 The Mountaineer Publishing Company Limited.

Province rejects controversial wolf research project
by Cameron Strandberg

A controversial government sanctioned wolf pack study to take place in Clearwater County that proposed the sterilization of alpha wolves and reduction of wolf pack numbers to perhaps two or three members, has been rejected by the province.

Other research of wolves will continue in the county, but rejected is a January 2008 proposal drawn up by researchers at the University of Alberta for a research permit from the province to "experimentally address an alternative management approach to maintaining stable wolf packs at low numbers." The original reasons for the wolf population control proposal have sparked a firestorm of debate. Government employees say the proposal is intended to raise endangered caribou numbers. Nature preservers claim the proposal is just a cover to create more elk for hunters to hunt.

David Ealey, spokesmen for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, says the proposal was never meant to serve hunters. "We do not manage elk, moose, by manipulating predators." He said that part of the reason the proposal was brought about was to help increase caribou numbers, not elk, in the province. Caribou are categorized by the Canadian Governments Species At Risk Public Registry as threatened, not endangered.

Jim Pissot, executive director of Canmore-based Defenders of Wildlife Canada, claims that the opposite. He said, "This is unquestionably for sport hunters . . . there was no other evidence preceding this investigation, other than hunters complaining."
The proposal cited a desire to build on data from Yukon based experiments in "reducing wolf packs to two to three individuals and maintaining them at small sizes (via continued annual removals or sterilization)."

Initially, four packs would have been targeted for experiment. There are thought to be 15 different wolf packs living in the Clearwater County area and according to the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, wolf packs can contain between two and 20 wolves, though eight is a more typical size. The research project would have removed all the sub-adults and adults but the alpha pair. This pair would be sterilized in such a way that their hormones would be un-altered.

According to a letter by Anne Hubbs, a Senior Wildlife Biologist with Fish and Wildlife Division, and written to the Jasper Environmental Association, "Wolf numbers in the Foothills Region west of Rocky Mountain House are the highest reported in North America (20 wolves/1,000 km2)."

Ealey said that the reasons for the proposal rejection are that a provincially appointed science advisory committee, which included wolf and bio-diversity experts, decided against it. Their reasoning was, "You have to expect that the change you make can be examined and then analyzed for a cause and effect relationship . . . it's the basic scientific method," said Ealey. Ealey said that the committee found that "there are a lot of things going on in this area (Clearwater County) that would make the cause and effect relationship difficult to see." Ealey said a main reason was the lack of caribou in the Clearwater region, which would make studying the relationship between the wolves and caribou difficult.

Anne Hubbs, who is a senior member on the research project team, has written a number of documents that seem to indicate a concern with raising elk numbers by managing wolf numbers. She helped to write the proposal which states in its introduction, "Concern over ungulate herds that are below objective in portions of this area has lead to discussions of reducing wolf predation, particularly in areas of low elk numbers in the mountainous eco-regions of the central east slopes of the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. This proposal builds on past research to experimentally address an alternative management approach." She wrote in the Jasper Environment letter, "Elk populations in the Foothill Region west of Rocky Mountain House have declined over the last 8-10 years and numbers are well below population goals. High wolf numbers are thought to be one of several possible factors contributing to declining elk populations in the area."

Pissot of Defenders of Wildlife Canada admits that he does not know if elk numbers in Alberta and the Clearwater region are lowering, but claims that the proposal to reduce wolf numbers was a simplistic way to approach such a problem, if it existed.
"There could be so many other factors . . . diseases, other predators, irregular winters. It's all much too complex to just be focusing on wolves." He said that a grad student associated with the proposal told him that the province approached the University of Calgary about setting up the wolf population experiment. "Science didn't direct them to this research . . .You have to wonder about the motivations," he said.

Although Ealey claims that parts of the elk habitat are changing, and their numbers in the Clearwater region have been lowering, he still maintains that the proposal's motivations was simply to give caribou a fighting chance. He mentioned that the many geological cut lines and forestry roads in Alberta have created a network of paths that improve the wolves’ sight lines and their ability to traverse ground, boosting their ability to hunt caribou. "The caribou can't hide . . . and isn't fast enough to out run the wolves," he said. Although the January 08 proposal to keep wolf numbers low has been rejected, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development is still looking at a variety of tools for controlling wolf populations in Alberta — "this includes trapping and shooting," said Ealey.

"When it comes to controversial wildlife preservation, action (from the province) has been shameful," said Pissot. "The province doesn't have sound policies for any animals species that may interfere with natural energy and resources," said Pissot. Pissot accused the Alberta government of conducting policy with a kind of "patronizing arrogance . . . They're just not accustomed to engaging Albertans in policy," said Pissot.