S1: Oral Presentation C Friday, 8:30 – 9:00 am C Lake Superior Ballroom MN

Wolves in the Superior Mixed Forest

Jan Slaats
The Nature Conservancy
1313 5th Street Southeast Suite 314
Minneapolis, MN  55414
jslaats@tnc.org

The (powerpoint) presentation will briefly provide an overview of Wolves (Canis lupus) in terms of their habitat requirements. Then a review of The Nature Conservancy's Superior Mixed Forest Ecoregion is provided. This Ecoregion covers parts of Manitoba and Ontario, most of northeastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. 

The presentation will focus on the modeling of wolf habitat in terms of roadless and low road density areas. According to the USFWS, the desired future state is to manage average public road densities so as not to exceed 0.6 km road / km2 area (1 mile per mile2) in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota where road density is limiting wolf recovery. This measure was used to determine what areas of the Superior Mixed Forest Ecoregion meet this road density criterium.

The GIS methodology to model wolf habitat (based on road density) is described and the analysis results are compared to wolf behavior as observed by GPS collared specimens from Camp Ripley.