Looking at Wolves as Scientific Subjects Rather Than as Storybook Villains (1970)
John McClung, Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, Vol. 37 No. 1, pages 19-22

This post is part of a series highlighting selected articles from the Journal of Minnesota Academy of Science archives. Read more about
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John McClung’s 1970 article in our Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science begins dramatically, announcing “throughout history Canis lupis has symbolized cunning, savagery, and cruel death for man and beast alike. In Minnesota Canis lupis is the gray ghost of the northwoods.” However, McClung — who was a UMN graduate student studying scientific journalism — quickly draws readers away from these stereotypes to present information about an innovative research project aimed at studying wolf populations in Minnesota.

At the time of McClung’s article in 1970s, wolves had been almost completed wiped out of the United States, where packs had once roamed across most of the country. The northeastern corner of Minnesota was home to the last remaining wild wolf population in the United States outside of Alaska. However, biologists knew little about the size of this wolf population and their basic behaviors such as diet and mobility.

McClung’s article reports on a study by Albert Erickson (who was a professor at the University of Idaho) and Victor Van Ballenberghe (a doctoral student) who were investigating those questions. He writes that field methods for the research involved trapping wolves, which were “tranquilized and then weighed, measured, examined for old injuries or impairments, and tagged. Coat color and shedding patterns are noted, and blood samples are taken. Shortly thereafter a healthy, if slightly wobbly, wolf is released to go about his business in the wilderness.” Twenty-seven of the wolves were fitted with radio collars, enabling individual animals to monitored.

In addition to providing information wolf population dynamics and movement, researchers used data from wolf scat to investigate their diets. They found that wolves ate a broad range of food, including beavers, fruit, deer, black bear, and insects.

Graph displaying food remains in wolf scat. Image: McClung 1970.

After the wolf study reported in McClung’s 1970 article, both Van Ballenberghe and Erickson continued to make important contributions to wildlife biology.

Van Ballenberghe relocated to Alaska and was later described as “the man who knew moose better than perhaps anyone else on Earth.” His 2004 book, In the Company of Moose brought the science behind this intriguing animal to the public.

Albert Erickson (who was once employed as the Curator of Mammals at the Bell Museum in Minnesota) went on to work as a regional director at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and spent the last decades of his career in the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Science at the University of Washington. A highlight of his work was seven research tours to Antarctica to study killer whales, seals, and other marine mammals, which resulted in the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names designating a series of bluffs the Erickson Bluffs in honor of his contributions to scientific knowledge of the arctic.

The Minnesota wolf populations discussed in McClurg’s 1970 article spread throughout northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan after hunting wolves was outlawed under the Endangered Species Act. Currently, Minnesota’s gray wolves are a federally protected threatened species, and cannot be hunted in the state. The statewide Wolf Management Plan (finalized in 2022), used up-to-date scientific research to guide population management in Minnesota for the following decade.

Although McClung’s article was written over half a century ago, some of the tensions involved in managing wolf populations are still present today. Managing wolf populations is an ongoing conversation among Minnesota wildlife biologists, residents, and public policy makers. Information about wolf populations and behavior derived from scientific studies such as the one described in McClung’s 1970 article remain essential to these decisions.