David Mech, PhD (Former Employee)

Of 41 adult wolf-killed gray wolves (Canis lupus) and 10 probably or possibly killed by wolves from 1968 through 2014 in the Superior National Forest (SNF) in northeastern Minnesota, most were killed in months leading up to and immediately following the breeding season, which was primarily February. This finding is similar to a published sample from Denali National Park, and the...

Following the production of western gray wolf (Canis lupus) x western coyote (Canis latrans) hybrids via artificial insemination (AI), the present article documents that the hybrids survived in captivity for at least 4 years and successfully bred with each other. It further reports that backcrossing one of the hybrids to a male gray wolf by AI also resulted in the birth of live pups that...

Large carnivores are depicted to shape entire ecosystems through top-down processes. Studies describing these processes are often used to support interventionist wildlife management practices, including carnivore reintroduction or lethal control programs. Unfortunately, there is an increasing tendency to ignore, disregard or devalue fundamental principles of the scientific method when

We recently described the following six interrelated issues that justify questioning some of the discourse about the reliability of the literature on the ecological roles of large carnivores (Allen et al. In press): 1. The overall paucity of available data, 2. The reliability of carnivore population sampling techniques, 3. The general disregard for alternative hypotheses to top-down...

Although Canis lupus L. (Gray Wolf) individuals are sometimes impaled by sticks, we could find no documentation of natural impalement by sticks as a cause of death for wild Wolves. Here we report on a wild Gray Wolf from northeastern Minnesota that died due to stick puncture of its thorax and abdomen.

Scientific interest in dog domestication and parallel evolution of dogs and humans (Wang et al. 2013) has increased recently (Freedman et al. 2014, Larson and Bradley 2014, Franz et al. 2016,), and various important conclusions have been drawn based on how long ago the calculations show dogs were domesticated from ancestral wolves (Canis lupus). Calculation of this duration is based on...

We tested serum samples from 387 free-ranging wolves (Canis lupus) from 2007 to 2013 for exposure to eight canid pathogens to establish baseline data on disease prevalence and spatial distribution in Minnesota's wolf population. We found high exposure to canine adenoviruses 1 and 2 (88% adults, 45% pups), canine parvovirus (82% adults, 24% pups), and Lyme disease (76% adults, 39% pups)...

Aggression directed at conspecific groups is common among gregarious, territorial species, and for some species such as gray wolves (Canis lupus) intraspecific strife is the leading cause of natural mortality. Each individual in a group likely has different measures of the costs and benefits associated with a group task, such as an aggressive attack on another group, which can alter...

Moose (Alces americanus) in northeastern Minnesota have declined by 55% since 2006. Although the cause is unresolved, some studies have suggested that Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) contributed to the decline. After the Moose decline, wolves could either decline or switch prey. To determine which occurred in our study area, we compared winter wolf counts and summer diet before and after the...

Risk to predators hunting dangerous prey is an emerging area of research and could account for possible persistent differences in gray wolf (Canis lupus) pack sizes. We documented significant differences in long-term wolf-pack-size averages and variation in the Superior National Forest (SNF), Denali National Park and Preserve, Yellowstone National Park, and Yukon, Canada (p

When Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book in 1894 and included the famous line "For the strength of the Wolf is the Pack, and the strength of the Pack is the Wolf," he would have had no idea that over a century later, scientific research would back up his poetic phrase. Recent studies in Yellowstone have found that both the individual wolf and the collective pack rely on each other and...

Information is sparse about aspects of female wolf (Canis lupus) breeding in the wild, including age of first reproduction, mean age of primiparity, generation time, and proportion of each age that breeds in any given year. We studied these subjects in 86 wolves (113 captures) in the Superior National Forest (SNF), Minnesota (MN), during 1972–2013 where wolves were legally protected for...