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Mission:Wolf Article
Education vs Extinction and
The Trophic Cascade |
Mission:Wolf is a peaceful wolf sanctuary located in the remote mountains of Colorado. Many people who visit the sanctuary are astounded by how far removed we are from civilization. This comes from the desire to provide our resident wolves with the most peaceful life as possible. We have large fenced-in areas for the wolves to call home. We experience the tragedy that results when wolves are confined to captivity; therefore we discourage the keeping of wolves as pets.
The Sanctuary
Born into cages and imprinted by humans, the wolves and wolf-dog crosses who come to the refuge cannot be returned to the wild. Located in the remote Rocky Mountains of Southern Colorado, Mission:Wolf provides a quiet home far from pavement and people. They are given room to run in large natural enclosures with diverse terrain. We feed them raw meat on a feast and famine cycle. Males have vasectomies so the wolves can perform natural courtship rituals without producing puppies. The refuge also houses a horse rescue facility where a few abandoned or neglected horses can get a second lease on life.
Conservation
With the help of caring volunteers and generous donors, Mission:Wolf has secured 200+ acres of protected land, including a three acre village for visitors, 50 acres of fenced habitat, and 150 acres placed in conservation for native wildlife. Additionally, the wolves enjoy a buffer of more than 240 acres owned by friends of Mission:Wolf. With education and understanding, we hope one day wild wolves and people will co-exist and that sanctuaries for captive wolves will be obsolete. When that day comes we intend to tear down the fencing so generations can enjoy a 200 acre nature center overlooking the Sangre de Cristo mountains and San Isabel National Forest.
Summer at the Refuge
Summers at Mission:Wolf bring to mind the sprawling metropolis of an ant hill. Hustling and bustling, Mission:Wolf can have as many as 50-60 campers in a night, and scores more in daily visits. Without these productive volunteers and tours the refuge just wouldn't be the same, and we would be far behind on projects and chores. Some of the groups might run away, however, at the mention of our number one summer chore, FIREWOOD! Preparing for the winter requires many trips for the gathering, splitting and piling of the fiber for warmth. Another ongoing project is fence work which includes upper mesh, ground mesh, rasta staking and hog ringing. There is much excitement over the now functional 12 and 20 acre playpens, ready for bounding wolves. Let's not forget the most popular Mission:Wolf activity; cutting up animals for wolf food!
Mission:Wolf is more than the wolves. People of all makes, models and moods, from all over the world come together in common cause to figure out how to do what they may not know how to do to help the wolf.
How do wolves give fish cold water?
The Trophic Cascade refers to the 'cascade' effect seen after the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Previously it was believed that an ecosystem is built from the bottom up. For years, in accordance with this belief, scientists tried to restore damaged ecosystems from the bottom. First they would grow the right grass and then add the correct insects and so on until the population of large herbivores would increase. Only then would they consider returning the top predator. After studying this method for decades, they discovered it was a slow process and would take eons to totally restore an ecosystem. The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone has resulted in a re-evaluation of these beliefs. Since the reintroduction in 1995 and 1996, the ecosystem is recovering at a remarkable pace. This has lead scientists to believe that ecosystems are built from the top down, starting with large predators. The widespread effects of the wolf, referred to as the trophic cascade, are being seen on a diverse group of species that extend from the grasslands to the trees and even includes the grizzly bears. Some of these effects are as follows:
In Yellowstone, grizzly bears have been observed chasing wolf packs off their fresh kills and taking the meat for their cubs. The net result is an increase in food availability for the endangered grizzly bear.In areas populated by wolves the coyote population has decreased by 80%. Fewer coyotes results in an increase in their prey, small rodents.A rise in the number of rodents provides more food for raptors, thus increasing their population.Wolves generally cull the old, young and the sick from a herd of elk. In the process, they force the entire herd to run.Because the elk are now running, they are not eating all the young trees. There has now been an increase in new growth of aspens, cottonwoods and willows. Also when they run they aerate the soil which results in taller, healthier grass.Some birds prefer to build their nests in immature trees.More trees and healthy grass results in increased water retention. The trees provide shade which lessen water evaporation and makes water cold.Beavers use the young trees to build dams which also increase water retention and provide aquatic habitat for a range of species.Increased cold water and marshland provides more habitat for fish. More fish means more prey for fish-eating animals.Though a distant effect, wolves may help reduce the risk of forest fires by increasing the amount of water retention in the ecosystem.
WOLVES - chase elk - allow trees to grow - feed bears - aerate grass - increase water retention - establish population levels for most other species.
I have been a part of Mission:Wolf since 2006. My current visit here started in June 2009 when I decided to spend a year at this wonderful place. With me on this trip are my two dogs Fred and Alf, both are having a blast. We all live in a tipi which now has a fence around its perimeter for my dogs to enjoy whilst keeping them safe.
This trip has been full of experiences, some of which have been new to Mission:Wolf. I would like to share with you some of these stories.
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Bear Country Puppy Delivery
In July 2009 we received a call from Bear Country in South Dakota asking us to take eight pure wolf puppies - four grey wolves and four arctic wolves, both litters born around April 2009. Knowing we had two female wolves going through phantom pregnancies, we thought it right to give them what they've been asking for so we accepted. Bear Country is a Bear and Wolf park which breeds bears and wolves for zoos and sometimes film projects, for some reason they couldn't find places for these puppies.
They arrived on July 16th, attached is a video of their arrival, it was an exciting day for Mission:Wolf. Soon after tragedy struck when one of our volunteers (Hailey) one morning found one of the black puppies seriously injured and hiding in a corner. She'd been the victim of a mobbing by members of the pack, she had a large piece of her skin ripped the size of my hand and her neck was badly punctured, our vet Dr Hancock explained to us that they were trying to get to the main artery to her brain which would have been fatal. Dr Hancock managed to stitch her up well and stapled her skin together in a star like formation. After this event we were proud to call her Little Hailey Star. After getting her home we cared for her around the clock in our veterinarian building.
In August 2009 tragedy raised its ugly head again. One morning we found one of the puppies dead, we couldn't figure out at that time what she had died from as there were no obvious signs of damage. The following day we found another puppy in a very bad state, one of volunteers climbed into the den to get him out and we immediately put him on a subcutaneous drip and headed out to the vet (a 2 hour drive to Colorado Springs), no sooner had we reached the end of the driveway the puppy had already passed. We contacted a local horse vet who lived in the area and brought one of the deceased puppies to her to see if she could figure out what was wrong. We were also contacting various specialists to get some answers, but as we saw no obvious symptoms other than them going into what seemed like a comatose state, we were heading nowhere fast. We then drove once more to Colorado Springs for Dr Hancock to do a thorough autopsy on the second puppy that died. He took some blood and various samples of organs to send of to the laboratory. No sooner had we arrived back at the refuge, Kent (Mission:Wolf founder) came to tell me one of the other puppies were starting to go down and couldn't account for another puppy. We managed to kennel the sick puppy, then I had the job of climbing into two of their dens to search for the other puppy. Eventually I found him in their main den, rope in hand I crawled into the very narrow entrance which then opened up into what I can only describe as a lobby area with another narrow section off to the right, a complete 90 degree angle from the entrance and there was a very frightened little pup poking his head out. I was to somehow try to get the rope around his neck. Lying flat on my stomach and only able to move my arms, equipped with bite gloves I was able to noose the rope around. I had Kent, Tracy and a few other volunteers at the entrance to the den with the other end of the rope. I started to pull, afraid many times that I would choke him, he moved forward just slightly but retreated back further into the den. Time for plan B. The lobby area I figured was big enough for me to turn myself around in, so I would then be behind him as he came out which I thought would be more of an incentive for him to move forward. Still on my stomach but now completely inside the den it would be a process of Kent pulling on the rope while I guided the little pup. The pure fear this puppy was going through not to mention the probable choking from the rope will follow me to my grave. At one point, having got him out of the first section he was on his back with his long legs and large paws pushing on the roof of the den, which then made pulling him impossible without choking him. I managed to take hold of his legs and release them from the roof and explained to the others on the end of the rope to pull in chapters at my signal. Finally he was out and in the kennel as I lay there sobbing in their enclosure. Both kennels were loaded into the truck and Kristina and I travelled once more to the emergency clinic in Colorado Springs as we were now out of hours and with the understanding that we would probably have to stay in Colorado Springs that evening. We arrived at the clinic at 1am the following morning, both puppies still alive, only to be told to go to the other branch across town. I will say now that when roads are closed over here, no diversions seem to be offered, we encountered this when trying to find the other emergency clinic, so it took us over an hour to reach them. We were led to a waiting room and were asked to get stool samples from them which we managed to do fairly easily, while the vet was examining the samples we were able to care as much as we could for the waiting puppies, one seemed to be doing better than the other, it was then that we decided to name them for ease of identification, one was Cutie Pie the other, from the den was Cupcake!!
It was determined after sending samples to the Colorado State University that it was Parvo, unfortunately Cutie Pie passed away on the journey home from the vets, but we managed to save Cupcake by administering an intravenous drip over a 2 day period, we later named Cupcake Aria who now lives with Hailey and are cared for by Raven, Maggie's sister.
 | | Happy New Faces |
For more information visit Mission:Wolf
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