Is climate change affecting wolf populations in the high arctic?

Author: Mech, L.

Source: Climatic Change, Volume 67, Number 1, November 2004 , pp. 87-93(7)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Gobal climate change may affect wolves in Canada’s High Arctic (80° N) acting through three trophic levels (vegetation, herbivores, and wolves). A wolf pack dependent on muskoxen and arctic hares in the Eureka area of Ellesmere Island denned and produced pups most years from at least 1986 through 1997. However, when summer snow covered vegetation in 1997 and 2000 for the first time since records were kept, halving the herbivore nutrition-replenishment period, muskox and hare numbers dropped drastically, and the area stopped supporting denning wolves through 2003. The unusual weather triggering these events was consistent with global-climate-change phenomena.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-004-7093-z

Affiliations: 1: Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, 8711-37th St., SE, 58401-7317, Jamestown, North Dakota, U.S.A., Email: mechx002@tc.umn.edu

Publication date: 2004-11-01