Daily Citizen from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin • 15

www.citizvnol.com Saturday-Sunday, July 20-21, 2001 Daily Citizen Page 15 OUTDOORS Collared Leg trap, Lady Luck capture wolf for state radio monitoring Ar.i-1 Vis Vs I'- 1 By DICK ELLIS An Outdoorsman's Wisconsin Adrian Wydeven uses his boot to spring yet another trap set off the secluded gravel road south of Clam Lake. Like five of the foothold traps already checked on this clear Sawyer County morning, the scent lure intended to bring a Wisconsin gray wolf to capture has gone either undiscovered or ignored by any individual animal or pack on the move throughout the night. The trap is pulled and taken to the truck. The next morning, the July bear hound training season begins, and the mammalian ecologist monitoring Wisconsin's growing wolf population won't risk capturing a dog instead of his intended target. Time, and what little optimism Wydeven carries on this final day of trapping, slips away with each snap of another empty trap.

WYDEVEN HAS captured one adult wolf and one pup too small to radio collar in a month of intensive trapping. It has been a chain's perimeter, a meal of whitetail fawn intended to be regurgitated for pups recently weaned from her milk and waiting at a rendezvous area for the adults to return from hunting. With Lena immobilized and relaxed with an injection of ketaminexylaine administered from a long jabstick, Wydeven moves with urgency. The wolf is stressed, time is critical, the situation potentially dangerous, even lethal. Although losses are rare, particularly in comparison to the wolves' mortality in the wild, Wydeven has already lost a wolf in May that aspirated on its own food within the most critical 24 hour time period after its release.

Any such loss causes his own internal debate to continue. "I'm constantly weighing if this is worth it," Wydeven said. "This is so useful in monitoring the wolf, but if there is a bad injury or one dies, it stays with you for a long time. I report everything. I hate for it to happen, but I need to be up front with people." Unlike a state effort fit iiiii I designed to reintroduce wildlife to the state, monitoring wolves began in 1979 after the "timber" wolf began to re-enter WisconsinfromMinnesota after a 25 year exitus forced by man.

Initially, monitoring was undertaken to prove that wolves were actually here, and that habitat could support "This is so useful in monitoring the wolf, but if there is a bad injury or one dies, it stays with you for a long time." -Adrian Wydeven (Above) Lena, alpha female of the Black Lake Pack, recovers after sedation and radio collaring by Adrian Wydeven, DNR mammalian ecologist heading Wisconsin's monitoring and management programs for the returning gray wolf. (Right) Immobilized, alpha female Lena of the Black Lake Pack is carried by Adrian Wydeven for radio collaring. listed as threatened by the state, and endangered by the federal government. Although reviewed on a five year basis, the current state population goal is 350 wolves, a number reached after review by many management groups assessing habitat and population viability. Too many wolves would invite the animals to inhabit less suitable habitat (farmland), and greater conflict with man.

Immobilized, Lena is carried by Wydeven to the tailgate of the truck. She is weighed at 72 pounds, and measured at five-foot, three-inches from tail-tip to nose-tip. Blood is collected, wood tick and scat samples taken and she is ear-tagged. TRAP PUNCTURE wounds on the foot are attended to and Lena receives a shot of penicillin. A radio collar vital to the state's wolf population monitoring efforts is fitted, and a microchip implanted for future identification.

Over much of the hour, Wydeven walks the fine line between exhilarating success and disaster. Ketaminexylazine causes Lena to lose the ability to thermo-regulate. Internal body heat builds, and coupled with the strain of a night of captivity, temperature rises to dangerous levels despite constant cooling with water, alcohol and ice packs administered by Schmidt and Wydeven's 17-year old son, Todd. A temperature reading exceeding 107 degrees is reported by Schmidt, six degrees higher than normal. Human tension them.

"Monitoring is important to get a scientifically sound count on wolves," Wydeven said. "It also helps us to further assess where wolves are able to live, to study the general ecology of wolves, and it allows us to more carefully plan future management, including the control of problem wolves." In addition to live-trapping and radio tracking, monitoring includes winter snow track surveys and summer howl surveys. Radio telemetry, though, is the significantly more decade since any reporter has been with Wydeven to record a successful capture, though many have ran the trapline. "I almost told you not to come," he said. "This is a shot in the dark." Lucky six beat the odds.

The trap has been sprung just off the road and a beaten trail of vegetation marks a path of intended escape. One hundred feet from the trap point within a dense aspen stand, trap and chain are hung up in the trees as -mr rrtm iwrttTf designed and ends the Mhf. precise method in determining there, stands, Lena. The, alpha pack territory range and near-exact wolf numbers. Rebuilding a northern pike fishery By MARK WALTERS An Outdoorsman's Journal Hello Friends, Back in August of 1952 the state record northern pike was caught out of Green Lake and Marquette Counties, Lake Puckaway.

This record still stands. That 38 pound pike is Wisconsin's true definition of a gator, haug, dandy or trophy. My family has vacationed on this 5,000 acre body of water, with a maximum depth of seven feet, that is fed by the Fox River, since the early 50's. In the late 60's thru the mid-80's I averaged about eight weekends a year camped at Stan's Puckaway Resort with my father and brothers, Mike and Tom. On a typical morning dad would be frying eggs on the Coleman stove long before sunrise.

The four of us would be on the water at first light. Dad would tow our Jon boat behind a 14-footer with Mike and Tom in it. Depending on which way the wind was blowing, we would drift across the lake and cast with Mepps Spinners. We enjoyed excellent fishing for northern pike with an occasional walleye or bass tor variety. My family witnessed the slow but certain death of Puckaway's pike fishery as did thousands of other fishermen and, most importantly, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

April 1995 The traditional limit of five northern pike of any size is removed and a new limit of one fish that has to measure 32 inches is installed. I spent a day back in '95 with several DNR fishery employees as they checked Fyke nets which were set for adult pike. They record both numbers and size of adult (spawners). Dave Bartz, Fishery Biologist for the West Upper Fox Valley Basin was one of the men that I worked with that day. I spoke with Bartz and fish technician David Paynter about what has happened with the pike fishery on Puckaway since the rule change back in '95.

Thursday, July 5 High 87 Low 63 There are three reasons that the 32 inch size limit was imposed on Lake Puckaway. They were to increase northern pike numbers, size, and to keep the rough fish population (carp) in check. Back in April of '91 each fyke net averaged 15 northern per night, with very few escapes due to muskrat holes, as the rat population was kept in check by trappers. In April of 2000 over 30 northern were caught per night, with many escapes due to an exploding muskrat population. Muskrat are able to chew through fyke nets.

Only adult pike are counted, the younger ones easily swim out of the nets. As far as size is concerned, there has been no substantial change in the size average of males, which run about 21 inches. The females, which are generally larger than the males, have increased in average length from 22.7 inches to 25.2 in just six years. If you talk to any fisherman spending time on Lake Puckaway, they will tell you they are having a blast catching 22 to 31-inch fish with maybe a keeper every other outing. A solid gizzard shad population and 32-inch limit has built Puckaway into a reliable pike fishery.

Now the question is asked of when do you lower the size limit, if you do at all? Bartz and Paynter truly do want to lower the limit. Possibly to 28 inches for one. and smaller for another. They have several ideas, but are concerned that it may only take two to three years to get back to what Puckaway was in the 80 if the size limit is lowered. If you understand the situation you can see that the question of a smaller size limit is an excellent question.

During their April netting each year they are finding larger numbers of 31 inch fish, but not a major increase of 33 inchers. In other words, fishermen are catching and keeping the fish that have just become legal. If the limit becomes 28 inches, two years down the road will they be netting a lot of 27 inch fish, but very few of 29 Bartz and Paynter welcome your opinion at their Montello worksite. It's important in any fishery work that the public understands what's going on. Keep up the good work! Sunset livetrapped since spring, and 36 wolves transmitting over the air via radio collars.

Although returned to the wild, Wydeven won't be completely comfortable until Lena is, symbolically, out of the woods, and fully recovered from an intimate, intrusive meeting with man. Radio telepathy verifies that Lena is laying low for several days near the capture point. Soon, though, Wydeven receives word from DNR pilots tuned to her frequency. The matriarch of the Black River E'ack is on the move six miles from capture. Lena, Wolf 370F officially on the books, is an integral part of the Wisconsin state wolf monitoring program.

mingles with professional purpose. Soon, Lena's temperature stabilizes, then gradually declines to a degree above normal. The drug yohimbine is administered to reverse the sedative. With Lena already raising her head and struggling for balance within 20 minutes, Wydeven moves on to check the remaining traps. LENA'S FINAL recovery will be monitored by Schmidt.

She walks away within 60 minutes of receiving the reversal drug, her radio signal loud and clear. Lena will be part of an elk-predator study near Clam Lake to be conducted jointly by the DNR and UW-Stevens Point. She joins 14 Wisconsin wolves female, the breeding matriarch of the Black Lake Pack. "I think we've got a mama," Wydeven said as he retreated from his first look at the wolf. Mama isn't happy to see us.

Her amber eyes say this is not a good start to a morning after a terrible night as Wydeven and DNR Elk Biologist Technician John Schmidt move in from opposite directions to sedate Lena, a name designated on location. Flattened ferns around the aspen, and bloodied mouth from several lost premolar tell the story of an extended struggle for escape. Her foot held firmly in the trap is bloodied but uninjured, as 3 designed. Vomit lies piled at the DNR PILOTS locate a wolf on the airwaves in winter, and are able to precisely count other pack members. The Wisconsin wolf population, averaging annual increases of 19 percent, has grown to 251 animals in 66 packs of two to 10 animals each predominantly found in 14 northern counties, primarily in the northwest and northcentral.

Nine of the packs reside in six central Wisconsin counties, with 10 "loners." There have been recent sightings of lone wolves as far south as Jefferson and Rock County. At current numbers, the Wisconsin population remains Survival is state wolves' ongoing challenge By DICK ELLIS An Outdoorsman's Wisconsin From the time of settlement in 1832, the grey wolf has roamed Wisconsin as hunter 1 and hunted. It's interaction with man and animal as predator and prey has meant a declining state existence, forced departure and relatively recent re-emergence. Today, the wolf is despised by some as a jthreat to livestock and competition for whitetail deer, and welcomed and admired a I Dy omers wno see room ior a returning native animal; an efficient and beautiful predator which hunts to survive. Even without man in the equation, the jrey wolf faces high mortality through fjstarvation, disease, infection, low pup survival rates and confrontations with natural causes and four undetermined causes.

Seven wolves being actively monitored in the state died during last winter's study period, with two other radio signals lost. Causes of death included; four of sarceptic mange, one inner ear infection, one shot, one unknown disease or infection, one killed by other wolves and three non-collared wolves and one Michigan-collared wolf killed by vehicular collision. And, although 74 to 101 pups survived last winter, the survival rate was only 28 percent, which Wydeven called typical. Eighteen packs apparently had no surviving pups. The wolves efficiency as a hunter with preferred prey the most abundant hoofed (omgulet) animal, and its tenacious defense of territory and pups, has over time evoked the ire of both farmer and hunter.

Between October 2000 and March of 2001, two bobcat hunting hounds were killed by wolves in Douglas County. A single wolf or wolf-dog hybrid killed 65 poultry in Sawyer County. And. a farm in northern Burnett County that had experienced chronic problems with wolf depredation on calves since 1995 had two calves killed by wolves in the summer of 2000. That fall, when farmers rounded up their cattle, an additional 30 calves were missing.

Wydeven said an average of two dogs are killed by wolves in the state annually, with a high of 11. He said he has never heard of a bird dog being killed. Most dogs are killed in July and August when wolf pups are left alone in rendezvous areas while adults by the 1930s wolf populations were restricted to less than a dozen northern counties. The population declined from an estimated 150 animals in 1930 to less than 50 by 1950, and the last wolf pack disappeared from Wisconsin in 195657. In 1975, wolves began re-entering northwest Wisconsin from Minnesota.

Lone wolves will travel up to 300 miles, often to set up a new pack, with the known record of travel approximately 550 miles. A Wisconsin wolf radio-collared northwest of Merrill was shot during the legal hunting season near Rainy Lake, Ontario. Wisconsin pack territories average 70 square miles. Wisconsin packs include two to 10 animals with recent average pack size averaging less than four animals. Packs include dominant breeding (alpha) male and female and generally surviving offspring from the previous year, and current year's pups.

Occasionally, older offspring remain with the pack, or an unrelated adult wolf. Captured adult males average 77 pounds with females averaging 62 pounds. Continuous population monitoring of the population has taken place since 1979. Numbers currently stand at about 250 animals in 66 packs in 20 Wisconsin counties, with 10 loners. The comeback has not been easy.

For example, 29 radio-collared wolves were found dead between 1979 and 1991. Fifteen were human-caused mortality (12 shootings), three were killed by other wolves, four of disease, three unknown hunt. Territory will be defended against other animals, including trespassing wolves, bears, coyotes and in western states, cougars. Those animals will also kill wolf pups if found unattended and at times, adult wolves. In the 1940s, deer niacie up 97 percent of 435 wolf scats (droppings) evaluated when the deer population was high and beaver population low.

From 1980 to 1982, 55 percent of the wolves evaluated diet was deer, 16 percent was beaver. 10 percent snowshoe hare, with miscellaneous prey making up the remainder. Today, about 80 percent of the wolves diet is whitetail deer, Wydeven said, with each animal consuming 15 to 20 deer annually. When a reporter's math for 250 state wolves shows 5.000 total whitetail consumed annually, a fraction of the 600,000 deer killed by hunters and additional 60,000 killed by vehicular collision, it is Wydeven who makes the obvious correction. Wisconsin's wolves, he says, are found in 20 counties, making the wolf predation impact for inhabited regions significantly greater.

"And hunters care about their own 40 or 80 acres," Wydeven said. "But it is upsetting that some people still hold old prejudices and feel that they have to kill wolves. Wisconsin is well suited for wolves. We have suitable habitat for bear, deer and many other mammals. It would be nice if man would also share our habitat with the wolf." are ready for camping.

Jpther wolves tenaciously defending adopted territories. Often, the wolves world is a eat land be eaten world. ACCORDING TO Adrian Wydeven, who coordinates the state wolf monitoring cand management program of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), wolves probably inhabited Wisconsin in presettlement. A bounty was placed on the wolf in 1865 due to the perception oi tne won as a menace 10 lvestock, and wolves were eradicated irom Southern Wisconsin by the 1880s. The last wolf was killed in Waushara County i(central) in 1914.

bWith sport hunters also favoring unties because they saw wolves as wanted competition for whitetail deer. Fire officials continue to monitor dry conditions DNR weekly outdoor report. The DNR warned people to carefully watch outdoor files and refrain from setting off fireworks left over from the Fourth of July. Restrictions on burning permits in some areas also are in place. The dry conditions allowed the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers to return to normal summer levels after spring flooding.

Sandbars in the rivers MADISON (AP) Fire officials continue to watch dry forest conditions across the state, even though some rain fell in southern Wisconsin earlier this week, the state Department of Natural Resources says. Northern Wisconsin got only some light sprinkles, and fire officials there are stepping up their surveillance and have all available firefighting equipment ready, according to the Rivers in northeast Wisconsin have remained above normal summer levels, while others like the Peshtigo and Oconto are low, creating unfavorable conditions for canoeists and kayakers. Anglers are having luck with muskies in the north, but heavy boat traffic on some lakes made musky fishing better during the evenings and nights..