Poster Presentation C Thursday, 5:00 – 6:00 pm C Edmund Fitzgerald Exhibit Hall
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.