The World of Wolves: New Perspectives on Ecology, Behaviour, and Management

by Marco Musiani (Editor), Luigi Boitani (Editor), Paul Paquet (Editor)

Overview

The grey wolf is one of the world’s most polarizing and charismatic species. Respected, adored, or held in awe by many as an icon of wilderness, wolves have also sparked fear and hatred when they have come into conflict with human presence. Not surprisingly, they are one of the most intensively studied mammalian species in the wild.

The World of Wolves offers a fresh and provocative look at current trends in wolf and wildlife management. Representative case studies, from geographically and culturally diverse areas of the world, highlight the existing interconnections between wolves, their prey, their habitat, their ecosystems and people, and the role of science in policy formation and wolf management. In addition, the studies involve many issues (for example, population genetics and livestock husbandry practices) that are entry points into larger aspects of ecology and evolution.

This book will appeal to conservationists, scientists, wildlife managers, and anyone seeking a better understanding of wolves and their co-existence with us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773854342
Publisher:	University of Calgary Press
Publication date:	05/12/2010
Series:	Energy, Ecology and the Environment , #3
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Marco Musiani is an associate professor of landscape ecology at the University of Calgary and is also affiliated with the University of Montana. He was born in Rome, the city of the famous she-wolf, and has conducted research and published internationally on wolf management.

Luigi Boitani is the head of the Department of Animal and Human Biology at the University of Rome and a leading authority on wolves. He has conducted an extended series of research and conservation projects on the Italian wolf population, which has recovered dramatically in the last thirty years. He has authored more than two hundred peer-reviewed scientific publications and eight books.

Paul Paquet is an adjunct professor with the Faculties of Biology and Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. Dr. Paquet has studied wolves for more than thirty-five years and is considered an authority on carnivore ecology, with international research experience. He has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed articles and was the founder and director of the Central Rockies Wolf Project in Canmore, Alberta.

Table of Contents

List of Tables vii

List of Figures xiii

Biographies for Editors, Contact Authors and Artists (drawings and photos of wild wolves only) xxv

Acknowledgments xxxii

Introduction: The Key Role Played by Wolves in Community Ecology and Wildlife Management Marco Musiani Luigi Boitani Paul C. Paquet 1

Section I Re-discovering the Role of Wolves in Natural and Semi-natural Ecosystems

1.1 Recent Advances in the Population Genetics of Wolf-like Canids Robert K. Wayne 15

1.2 What, if anything, is a Wolf? Raymond Coppinger Lee Spector Lynn Miller 41

1.3 Wolf Community Ecology: Ecosystem Effects of Recovering Wolves in Banff and Yellowstone National Parks Mark Hebblewhite Doug W. Smith 69

1.4 Will the Future of Wolves and Moose Always Differ from our Sense of Their Past? John A. Vucetich Rolf O. Peterson M. P. Nelson 123

Section II Wolves' Role in Wildlife Management Planning: Human Impacts in Protected Wolf Populations, Hunting and Removal of Wolves

2.1 Influence of Anthropogenically Modified Snow Conditions on Wolf Predatory Behaviour Paul C. Paquet Shelley Alexander Steve Donelon Carolyn Callaghan 157

2.2 The Recolonizing Scandinavian Wolf Population: Research and Management in Two Countries Olof Liberg Åke Aronson Scott M. Brainerd Jens Karlsson Hans-Christian Pedersen Håkan Sand Petter Wabakken 175

2.3 Synthesizing Wolf Ecology and Management in Eastern Europe: Similarities and Contrasts with North America Wlodzimierz Jedrzejewski Bogumila Jedrzejewska Zanete Andersone-Lilley Linas Balciauskas Peep Männil Janis Ozolins Vadim E. Sidorovich Guna Bagrade Marko Kübarsepp Aivars Ornicans Sabina Nowak Alda Pupila Agrita Zunna 207

2.4 Wolf Ecology and Management in Northern Canada: Perspectives from a Snowmobile Wolf Hunt H. Dean Cluff Paul C. Paquet Lyle R. Walton Marco Musiani 235

2.5 Livestock Husbandry Practices Reduce Wolf Depredation Risk in Alberta, Canada Tyler Muhly C. Cormack Gates Carolyn Callaghan Marco Musiani 261

Literature Cited 287

Colour Photos of Wild Wolves 353

Index 387

Editorial Reviews

Buy this book.

—Pat Goodman, The Wolf Park News

Imagine sitting in front of a warm wood stove, an ancient yellow lab at your feet, to read a book about wolves—only to learn that there may be, in fact, no such thing as a wolf. And at the same time, that your lab, as fearful and unlethal a mammal as evolution could concoct, may in fact be a wolf. Such are the mysteries and delights to be found in The World of Wolves.

—Jeff Gailus, AlbertaViews

From the Publisher

Alberta Views, December 2010 The World of Wolves, by Marco Musiani, Luigi Boitani and Paul Paquet (eds) University of Calgary Press $34.95, 398 pp. Imagine sitting in front of a warm wood stove, an ancient yellow lab at your feet, to read a book about wolves - only to learn that there may be, in fact, no such thing as a wolf. And at the same time, that your lab, as fearful and unlethal a mammal as evolution could concoct, may in fact be a wolf. Such are the mysteries and delights to be found in The World of Wolves, a brand-new book about the ecology, behaviour and management of wolves and the environments in which they live. Be forewarned: this isn't Barry Lopez's encyclopaedic Of Wolves and Men, which remains (in my opinion) the single best book on wolves. Instead, consider The World of Wolves an update of Lopez's 1978 masterpiece, a collection of nine scientific papers about very specific lupine topics that together cover more ground than a dispersing wolf. You will find gray wolves, red wolves, Mexican wolves and just about every kind of "wolf" you can imagine. Wolves from as far away as Finland and as close to home as Longview. Many are hopelessly endangered, others have been gratefully or grudgingly recovered (depending on your perspective). You'll also even find the coyote roaming these pages, the great Trickster who has somehow found its way into the wolf's very bones, where it defies our attempts to cling to taxonomic categories that modern genetics no longer support. Readers of Alberta Views might also like to know that much of the research documented here was done close to home. For instance, Mark Hebblewhite, a Canadian biologist who now teaches at the University of Montana, tugs at the wolf to see what other parts of the world are attached to it. As John Muir intuited so long ago, it seems that the return of wolves to Yellowstone and Banff national parks has helped bring back streamside shrubs and aspen forests - and the trills of song birds that inhabit them. Like the delights Muir discovered on his rambles through the Sierras, the ones found in The World of Wolves require a great deal of work before you can enjoy them. Each chapter is really an academic paper infected with the idiosyncratic jargon and drudging style that plagues scientific journals across the disciplines. It seems clear that the intent of this book, like its previously published companion, A New Era for Wolves and People (U of C Press 2009), is to improve the wolf's future by educating more of us about what they are and how we can live together - and yet I wonder if anyone but a fellow scientist or an energetic graduate student will have the fortitude to wade through pages potholed with terms like "karyotype" and "microsatellite loci" and "p-value." Still, there is much for the interested city slicker or rancher to glean from these pages. The key, I think, is to skim: read the introduction (in each chapter) and then skip down to the discussion and conclusion sections, where these scientists may well revolutionize everything you thought you knew about wolves. Jeff Gailus Writer Author

Alberta Views - Jeff Gailus

Imagine sitting in front of a warm wood stove, an ancient yellow lab at your feet, to read a book about wolves - only to learn that there may be, in fact, no such thing as a wolf. And at the same time, that your lab, as fearful and unlethal a mammal as evolution could concoct, may in fact be a wolf.

Such are the mysteries and delights to be found in The World of Wolves, a brand-new book about the ecology, behaviour and management of wolves and the environments in which they live. Be forewarned: this isn't Barry Lopez's encyclopaedic Of Wolves and Men, which remains (in my opinion) the single best book on wolves. Instead, consider The World of Wolves an update of Lopez's 1978 masterpiece, a collection of nine scientific papers about very specific lupine topics that together cover more ground than a dispersing wolf.

You will find gray wolves, red wolves, Mexican wolves and just about every kind of "wolf" you can imagine. Wolves from as far away as Finland and as close to home as Longview. Many are hopelessly endangered, others have been gratefully or grudgingly recovered (depending on your perspective). You'll also even find the coyote roaming these pages, the great Trickster who has somehow found its way into the wolf's very bones, where it defies our attempts to cling to taxonomic categories that modern genetics no longer support.

Readers of Alberta Views might also like to know that much of the research documented here was done close to home. For instance, Mark Hebblewhite, a Canadian biologist who now teaches at the University of Montana, tugs at the wolf to see what other parts of the world are attached to it. As John Muir intuited so long ago, it seems that the return of wolves to Yellowstone and Banff national parks has helped bring back streamside shrubs and aspen forests - and the trills of song birds that inhabit them.

Like the delights Muir discovered on his rambles through the Sierras, the ones found in The World of Wolves require a great deal of work before you can enjoy them. Each chapter is really an academic paper infected with the idiosyncratic jargon and drudging style that plagues scientific journals across the disciplines. It seems clear that the intent of this book, like its previously published companion, A New Era for Wolves and People (U of C Press 2009), is to improve the wolf's future by educating more of us about what they are and how we can live together - and yet I wonder if anyone but a fellow scientist or an energetic graduate student will have the fortitude to wade through pages potholed with terms like "karyotype" and "microsatellite loci" and "p-value."

Still, there is much for the interested city slicker or rancher to glean from these pages. The key, I think, is to skim: read the introduction (in each chapter) and then skip down to the discussion and conclusion sections, where these scientists may well revolutionize everything you thought you knew about wolves.

Jeff Gailus Writer Author
— Jeff Gailus

Alberta Views