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5/6/2009 3:00 PM

Photograph courtesy of the International Wolf Center.

It’s spring, and litters of gray wolf pups are beginning to open their eyes and explore their underground dens. They were born blind, deaf, and with little sense of smell in late April or early May. They nurse about five times a day and by late June will be fully weaned and getting their first taste of meat.

Once upon a time, hundreds of thousands of wolves roamed North America. When settlers from Europe arrived, they hunted, trapped, and poisoned the animal. Some were convinced that wolves—the popular villain of fairy tales—would eat their children. Farmers blamed them for carcasses in the field, even when their livestock may have perished from diseases or other causes. In 1630, Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first to offer a bounty for every wolf killed. Minnesota began its bounty system in 1849, paying $3 per kill. The state paid its last wolf bounty, $35, in 1965.

“Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century,” a traveling exhibit opening May 23 at the Bell Museum of Natural History, explores the interaction between humans and wolves and raises questions about the animal’s future in North America. Created by the International Wolf Center, in Ely, Minnesota, and the Science Museum of Minnesota, the exhibit includes life-size taxidermy mounts and maps, drawings, and photographs.

The exhibit also includes information on avoiding conflicts with wolves. Wolf biologist L. David Mech, an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota and a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says the most common misconception about wolves is that they are “regularly dangerous” to people. It’s when people try to domesticate wolves or to feed them that trouble can start. “There is only one documented case of wolves killing a person in modern times in North America,” Mech says, “and those wolves were living at a dump and people were feeding them.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the gray wolf, the largest wild member of the dog family, from the list of threatened and endangered species list (wolves remain protected in Wyoming). The predator was first listed as endangered in 1974. Today, about 5,500 gray wolves and 100 red wolves roam the 48 contiguous states, a doubling in 10 years. The populations have rebounded on their own in the Midwest and through reintroduction programs in the Rocky Mountains, the southwest, and the southeast. In Minnesota, the wolf population has increased from about 750 in 1974 to 3,000 at present, says Mech, who founded the Wolf Center.

Mech warns that the wolf recovery may be short-lived, however. “Their greatest threat is habitat destruction,” he says. “We’ve destroyed a high percentage of the wolves’ original habitat by building cities and farming. . . . The long-term wolf population survival depends on how we preserve wild land.”

The gray wolf has fascinated Mech for half a century because it survives by preying primarily on mammals much larger than itself: moose, bison, musk ox, and caribou. A moose, for example, is 10 times the size of a wolf. “I don’t want to [say] that if we don’t have wolves the world is going to fall apart,” Mech says. “There are some people who would almost claim that, but I don’t think that’s valid. I think the best reason to preserve wolves is because we like them.”

“Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century” runs May 23 through August 23 at the Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis. Call 612-624-7083 or visit www.bellmuseum.org. —Pauline Oo

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