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David Mech, PhD

L. David Mech (“Dave”) is a Senior Research Scientist with the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center and works at the St. Paul, Minnesota duty station.

Dr. Mech

Wolf Information

Dr. Mech has studied wolves since 1958 in Isle Royale National Park (1958-1961), Minnesota (1964 to present), Yellowstone National Park (1995 to Present) , Denali National Park (1986-1995). Each summer from 1986 through 2010, he lived with, and studied, a pack of wolves tolerant to humans on Ellesmere Island, in Canada’s High Arctic.  He chaired the IUCN Wolf Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union from 1978 to 2013 when the group was absorbed into the Canid Specialist Group (CSG).  Dr. Mech is now an advisor on wolves to the chair of the CSG. He is continuing his research on wolf ecology and behavior, predator-prey relations, population regulation, and social ecology.

Professional Experience

  • Senior Research Scientist, 1999 to present; U.S. Geological Survey

  • Research Wildlife Biologist, 1969 to 1999; Biological Resources Division of the USGS (formerly Division of Endangered Species Research, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Education and Certifications

  • Ph.D. Degree, Wildlife Ecology, Purdue University, 1962, Lafayette, IN

  • B.S. Degree, Conservation, Cornell University, 1958, Ithaca, NY

Honors and Awards

  • Aldo Leopold Memorial Award - The Wildlife Society

Science and Products

Filter Total Items: 404

The challenges of success: Future wolf conservation and management in the United States

Gray wolf (Canis lupus) recovery and conservation has been a remarkable success over the last 30 years in the United States. Remarkable success yields remarkable challenges, however. As populations expand, wolves will colonize more human-dominated landscapes and face numerous challenges, such as fragmented habitats, barriers to dispersal, and increased encounters with humans, pets, and livestock.
Authors
David Edward Ausband, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Cooperative Research Units, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Geographic isolation reduces genetic diversity of a wide-ranging terrestrial vertebrate, Canis lupus

Genetic diversity is theorized to decrease in populations closer to a species' range edge, where habitat may be suboptimal. Generalist species capable of long-range dispersal may maintain sufficient gene flow to counteract this, though the presence of significant barriers to dispersal (e.g., large water bodies, human-dominated landscapes) may still lead to, and exacerbate, the edge effect. We used
Authors
S.A. Frévol, D. R. MacNulty, M. C. Anderson, H. D. Cluff, L. David Mech, M. Musiani
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

A plea for Red Wolf conservation throughout Its recent distribution

Canis rufus (Red Wolf) is one of the most endangered mammals in North America. However, genes of the Red Wolf persist across much of the species' original range, carried predominantly within C. latrans (Coyote) populations. It is now known that such genes are distributed from extreme north-central Texas through most of eastern Texas to southern Louisiana. Publicizing of the most recent findings of
Authors
L. David Mech, Ronald M. Nowak
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

A field test of R package GPSeqClus: For establishing animal location clusters

The ability to track animals with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars opened an enormous potential for studying animal movements and behaviour in their natural environment. One such endeavour is to identify clusters of GPS locations as a way to estimate predator kill rate. Clapp et al. (2021) developed an R package (GPSeqClus) to assess a location dataset based on user-defined parameters to id
Authors
H. Dean Cluff, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Automatic recorders monitor wolves at rendezvous sites: do wolves adjust howling to live near humans?

We used automatic sound recorders to study spontaneous vocalizations of wild wolves during the pup-rearing season around rendezvous sites from 24 wolf packs in six study areas across North America, Asia, and Europe. Between 2018 and 2021, for a total of 1225 pack-days, we recorded 605 spontaneous wolf chorus howls and 224 solo-howl series. Howling occurrence varied across areas, from 12.50 to 94.1
Authors
Vicente Palacios, Bárbara Martí-Domken, Shannon Barber-Meyer, Bilal Habib, José Vicente López-Bao, Douglas W. Smith, Daniel R. Stahler, Emilio José García, Víctor Sazatornil, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Key observations of flexed-leg urination in the free-ranging Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)

Flexed-leg urination (FLU) in female Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) has been little studied in the wild. Captive females in packs do not exhibit FLU unless they are both mature and dominant to an associate female, but these characteristics have not been confirmed in free-ranging wolves. We present observations of wolves in Yellowstone National Park that accord with those of wolves in captivity, extend
Authors
L. David Mech, Rick McIntyre
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Newly documented behavior of free-ranging Arctic wolf pups

Whereas much is known about the behavior and development of captive young wolf (Canis lupus) pups, less detail has been published about some aspects of free-ranging wolf pup behavior. This article synthesizes 42 observations of free-ranging Arctic wolf pups from ages 13 through 52 days made during 10 summers from 1987 through 2006 on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Besides listing key behaviors
Authors
L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Do wolves control their own numbers?

No abstract available. 
Authors
L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

The dog was the first domesticated animal. Its derivation from grey wolves Canis lupus is important to the study of mammalian domestication, and wolf domestication is an active area of investigation. Recent popular books have promoted a hypothesis that wolves domesticated themselves as opposed to the earliest hypothesis that featured pup collection, adoption, and artificial selection. Continuing r
Authors
L. David Mech, Luc A. A. Janssens
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The importance of wilderness to wolf (Canis lupus) survival and cause-specific mortality over 50 years

We assessed the relative importance of wilderness to gray wolf (Canis lupus) population dynamics over 50 years in a population that 1) was long extant (i.e., not reintroduced or recolonized), 2) was not subject to harvest in our study area until recently, and 3) used both wilderness and adjacent, mainly public, non-wilderness. We analyzed the survival of radiocollared wolves (n = 756 collared-wolf
Authors
Shannon Barber-Meyer, Tyler Wheeldon, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The enigma of the Předmostí protodogs. A comment on Prassack et al. 2020

Prassack et al. (2020) analyzed dental microwear in a sample of canids from the Gravettian site of Předmostí that had been identified as either Paleolithic dogs or Pleistocene wolves (n = 10 in each group), accepting that the morphological differences between the groups validly distinguished the (self-domesticating) protodogs from wolves. The authors then concluded that differences in one m2 micro
Authors
Luc A. A. Janssens, Myriam Boudadi-Maligne, L. David Mech, Dennis Lawler
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Behaviorally-mediated trophic cascade attenuated by prey use of risky places at safe times

The mere threat of predation may incite behavioral changes in prey that lead to community-wide impacts on productivity, biodiversity, and nutrient cycling. The paucity of experimental manipulations, however, has contributed to controversy over the strength of this pathway in wide-ranging vertebrate systems. We investigated whether simulated gray wolf (Canis lupus) presence can induce behaviorally-
Authors
Meredith S. Palmer, C. Portales-Reyes, C. Potter, L. David Mech, Forest Isbell
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
link
Photo of radio-collared wolf.

Superior National Forest wolf population trajectory

When the wolf was listed as endangered, the last remaining mainland wolf population in the lower 48 states was in the Superior National Forest (SNF) of northeastern Minnesota. Since then, using radiocollaring and aerial tracking, we have studied the wolf population trend, factors influencing it, and prey species, white-tailed deer, moose, and beavers, affected by wolves. During winter 2018-2019...
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
link

Superior National Forest wolf population trajectory

When the wolf was listed as endangered, the last remaining mainland wolf population in the lower 48 states was in the Superior National Forest (SNF) of northeastern Minnesota. Since then, using radiocollaring and aerial tracking, we have studied the wolf population trend, factors influencing it, and prey species, white-tailed deer, moose, and beavers, affected by wolves. During winter 2018-2019...
Learn More

Number of adult wolves and pups each year studied near Eureka, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 1987-2006

Number of adult wolves and pups each year studied near Eureka, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 1987-2006
By
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Wolf survival and cause-specific mortality from 1968-2018 in the Superior National Forest. In

This dataset contains gray wolf (Canis lupus) survival and cause-specific mortality data from radiocollared wolves (n=756 collared-wolf tenures) from 1968-2018 in the USGS Wolf Project study area (2,060 km2) of the Superior National Forest, USA, an area that also includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Also, included are the annual resident winter wolf counts for the study area.
By
Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Garden Lake Deer Yard (Lake Co., MN) Migration Data, 1998-2017

This dataset contains the capture location and summer location of deer radio-collared in the Garden Lake deeryard, near Ely MN during the summers of 1998, 1999, 2001, 2014, and 2017. The data set also contains the distance and direction deer migrated from capture locations to summer locations.
By
Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Wolf Hematology in the Superior National Forest, 1989-1993

Hematology and body mass were studied in nine female and five male free-ranging wolves in the Superior National Forest handled 4-17 times during 1989-1993. The dataset includes the following data for each wolf studied: wolf identifier, dates caught, sex, age, body mass in kg, adjusted body mass in kg, and values of hemoglobin (Hb), red blood cells (RBC), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), hematocr
By
Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Photo of radio-collared wolf.
Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually
Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually
Photo of radio-collared wolf.

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Photo of radio-collared wolf.

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Science and Products

Filter Total Items: 404

The challenges of success: Future wolf conservation and management in the United States

Gray wolf (Canis lupus) recovery and conservation has been a remarkable success over the last 30 years in the United States. Remarkable success yields remarkable challenges, however. As populations expand, wolves will colonize more human-dominated landscapes and face numerous challenges, such as fragmented habitats, barriers to dispersal, and increased encounters with humans, pets, and livestock.
Authors
David Edward Ausband, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Cooperative Research Units, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Geographic isolation reduces genetic diversity of a wide-ranging terrestrial vertebrate, Canis lupus

Genetic diversity is theorized to decrease in populations closer to a species' range edge, where habitat may be suboptimal. Generalist species capable of long-range dispersal may maintain sufficient gene flow to counteract this, though the presence of significant barriers to dispersal (e.g., large water bodies, human-dominated landscapes) may still lead to, and exacerbate, the edge effect. We used
Authors
S.A. Frévol, D. R. MacNulty, M. C. Anderson, H. D. Cluff, L. David Mech, M. Musiani
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

A plea for Red Wolf conservation throughout Its recent distribution

Canis rufus (Red Wolf) is one of the most endangered mammals in North America. However, genes of the Red Wolf persist across much of the species' original range, carried predominantly within C. latrans (Coyote) populations. It is now known that such genes are distributed from extreme north-central Texas through most of eastern Texas to southern Louisiana. Publicizing of the most recent findings of
Authors
L. David Mech, Ronald M. Nowak
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

A field test of R package GPSeqClus: For establishing animal location clusters

The ability to track animals with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars opened an enormous potential for studying animal movements and behaviour in their natural environment. One such endeavour is to identify clusters of GPS locations as a way to estimate predator kill rate. Clapp et al. (2021) developed an R package (GPSeqClus) to assess a location dataset based on user-defined parameters to id
Authors
H. Dean Cluff, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Automatic recorders monitor wolves at rendezvous sites: do wolves adjust howling to live near humans?

We used automatic sound recorders to study spontaneous vocalizations of wild wolves during the pup-rearing season around rendezvous sites from 24 wolf packs in six study areas across North America, Asia, and Europe. Between 2018 and 2021, for a total of 1225 pack-days, we recorded 605 spontaneous wolf chorus howls and 224 solo-howl series. Howling occurrence varied across areas, from 12.50 to 94.1
Authors
Vicente Palacios, Bárbara Martí-Domken, Shannon Barber-Meyer, Bilal Habib, José Vicente López-Bao, Douglas W. Smith, Daniel R. Stahler, Emilio José García, Víctor Sazatornil, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Key observations of flexed-leg urination in the free-ranging Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)

Flexed-leg urination (FLU) in female Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) has been little studied in the wild. Captive females in packs do not exhibit FLU unless they are both mature and dominant to an associate female, but these characteristics have not been confirmed in free-ranging wolves. We present observations of wolves in Yellowstone National Park that accord with those of wolves in captivity, extend
Authors
L. David Mech, Rick McIntyre
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Newly documented behavior of free-ranging Arctic wolf pups

Whereas much is known about the behavior and development of captive young wolf (Canis lupus) pups, less detail has been published about some aspects of free-ranging wolf pup behavior. This article synthesizes 42 observations of free-ranging Arctic wolf pups from ages 13 through 52 days made during 10 summers from 1987 through 2006 on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Besides listing key behaviors
Authors
L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Do wolves control their own numbers?

No abstract available. 
Authors
L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

The dog was the first domesticated animal. Its derivation from grey wolves Canis lupus is important to the study of mammalian domestication, and wolf domestication is an active area of investigation. Recent popular books have promoted a hypothesis that wolves domesticated themselves as opposed to the earliest hypothesis that featured pup collection, adoption, and artificial selection. Continuing r
Authors
L. David Mech, Luc A. A. Janssens
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The importance of wilderness to wolf (Canis lupus) survival and cause-specific mortality over 50 years

We assessed the relative importance of wilderness to gray wolf (Canis lupus) population dynamics over 50 years in a population that 1) was long extant (i.e., not reintroduced or recolonized), 2) was not subject to harvest in our study area until recently, and 3) used both wilderness and adjacent, mainly public, non-wilderness. We analyzed the survival of radiocollared wolves (n = 756 collared-wolf
Authors
Shannon Barber-Meyer, Tyler Wheeldon, L. David Mech
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The enigma of the Předmostí protodogs. A comment on Prassack et al. 2020

Prassack et al. (2020) analyzed dental microwear in a sample of canids from the Gravettian site of Předmostí that had been identified as either Paleolithic dogs or Pleistocene wolves (n = 10 in each group), accepting that the morphological differences between the groups validly distinguished the (self-domesticating) protodogs from wolves. The authors then concluded that differences in one m2 micro
Authors
Luc A. A. Janssens, Myriam Boudadi-Maligne, L. David Mech, Dennis Lawler
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Behaviorally-mediated trophic cascade attenuated by prey use of risky places at safe times

The mere threat of predation may incite behavioral changes in prey that lead to community-wide impacts on productivity, biodiversity, and nutrient cycling. The paucity of experimental manipulations, however, has contributed to controversy over the strength of this pathway in wide-ranging vertebrate systems. We investigated whether simulated gray wolf (Canis lupus) presence can induce behaviorally-
Authors
Meredith S. Palmer, C. Portales-Reyes, C. Potter, L. David Mech, Forest Isbell
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
link
Photo of radio-collared wolf.

Superior National Forest wolf population trajectory

When the wolf was listed as endangered, the last remaining mainland wolf population in the lower 48 states was in the Superior National Forest (SNF) of northeastern Minnesota. Since then, using radiocollaring and aerial tracking, we have studied the wolf population trend, factors influencing it, and prey species, white-tailed deer, moose, and beavers, affected by wolves. During winter 2018-2019...
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
link

Superior National Forest wolf population trajectory

When the wolf was listed as endangered, the last remaining mainland wolf population in the lower 48 states was in the Superior National Forest (SNF) of northeastern Minnesota. Since then, using radiocollaring and aerial tracking, we have studied the wolf population trend, factors influencing it, and prey species, white-tailed deer, moose, and beavers, affected by wolves. During winter 2018-2019...
Learn More

Number of adult wolves and pups each year studied near Eureka, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 1987-2006

Number of adult wolves and pups each year studied near Eureka, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 1987-2006
By
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Wolf survival and cause-specific mortality from 1968-2018 in the Superior National Forest. In

This dataset contains gray wolf (Canis lupus) survival and cause-specific mortality data from radiocollared wolves (n=756 collared-wolf tenures) from 1968-2018 in the USGS Wolf Project study area (2,060 km2) of the Superior National Forest, USA, an area that also includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Also, included are the annual resident winter wolf counts for the study area.
By
Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Garden Lake Deer Yard (Lake Co., MN) Migration Data, 1998-2017

This dataset contains the capture location and summer location of deer radio-collared in the Garden Lake deeryard, near Ely MN during the summers of 1998, 1999, 2001, 2014, and 2017. The data set also contains the distance and direction deer migrated from capture locations to summer locations.
By
Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Wolf Hematology in the Superior National Forest, 1989-1993

Hematology and body mass were studied in nine female and five male free-ranging wolves in the Superior National Forest handled 4-17 times during 1989-1993. The dataset includes the following data for each wolf studied: wolf identifier, dates caught, sex, age, body mass in kg, adjusted body mass in kg, and values of hemoglobin (Hb), red blood cells (RBC), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), hematocr
By
Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Photo of radio-collared wolf.
Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually
Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually
Photo of radio-collared wolf.

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Photo of radio-collared wolf.

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
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