Page 37 - Canadian Geographic

YUKON WOL VES

I WOLVES IS THEIR SURROUNDINGS: Clockwise from above: Prime wolf
IT’S A RARE THING to spot a wolf
WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT THESE
in the Yukon wild. While grizzlies
territory in central Yukon’s Ogilvie
and black bears forage on the hill-
Mountains; a paw print on the bank of
sides above the highway, and moose
the Snake River; moose are a top food
stand knobby-knee-deep in the
THE ECOSYSTEM THEY MOVE
murky ponds below, putting them-
den in the territory’s southwest corner.
selves on easy display for passersby, THROUGH SO INVISIBLY IS INTACT. source for wolves; pups outside their
the territory’s wolves play hard to get, really unique is that they’re com-
offering only glimpses and hints: a pletely naturally regulated,” says Bob
dark flash on the riverbank as you’re pad- driven out and exterminated in many Hayes, author of Wolves of the Yukon.
dling, a set of oversized paw prints on the parts of North America and only slowly, Mark O’Donoghue, a northern regional
snow-covered surface of a frozen lake. painfully, reintroduced in some, in the biologist for the Yukon government,
But they’re out there. There are an esti- Yukon they’re still thriving. agrees. “We have a natural predator-prey
mated 5,000 wolves in the Yukon — that’s There’s nothing special or unique system,” he says. The wolves and their
roughly one wolf per seven human about the biology or physiology of the ungulate meals — moose, primarily, and
residents, or one wolf for every 96 wolves in the territory — they’re grey caribou and mountain sheep to a lesser
square kilometres. Their range spans wolves, Canis lupus, like the ones you extent — are largely in balance.
almost the entire territory, from the might find in any number of wild areas. Humans, of course, haven’t always
boreal forest to the alpine and Arctic What’s different, though, is their sur- been content to leave that balance alone.
tundra; only the vast Kluane icefield is roundings: the ecosystem they move Wolves existed in the Yukon as many
wolf-free. While wolves have been through so invisibly is intact. “What’s as 47,000 years ago, according to

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 37