The Wisconsin DNR is in its sixth year of an eight-year study to determine the impacts of highway expansion on resident and dispersing wolves. Cooperators in this study include the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. The study is being conducted in northwestern Wisconsin along a 44 mile segment of US 53 that is being converted from two lanes to four lanes.
Forty-two wolves have been captured, radio-collared, and followed to date. Data analyses have concentrated on reproductive and mortality rates of resident wolves, habitat selection for den and rendezvous sites, identification of wolf travel corridors and highway crossing sites, and impacts of the construction project on dispersing wolves.
Ultimately, they hope to be able to predict where problems may occur in future highway projects and provide guidelines to minimize those problems.
It is reprinted from the Summer 1997 Issue of WOLF! Magazine. This unique and comprehensive magazine is not supported by advertising, but by subscriptions. Please help keep this much needed resource alive!