'Hunting highways': How human infrastructure changed the relationship between wolves and deer

Alex Rheault has been hunting on the northwestern Ontario landscape for almost 70 years. He owns the Big North Lodge north of Kenora. 

"We used to hear wolves howling pretty much every day, almost year round," he said, adding that now he barely hears them anymore. 

"We used to see wolf and deer tracks all the time. There were areas where the deer trails were like cattle paths. Now you hardly ever see any. 

"The deer are gone, and so is the wolf," said Rheault. 

Rheault's experience reflects the findings of a new study from the University of Minnesota's Voyageur Wolves Project.

Researchers found that human activities change where deer are on the landscape, and wolves tend to go where the deer are. They also found that wolves leverage human infrastructure to their advantage. 

Sean Johnson-Bice, who led the project, says it took very intensive field work to come to these conclusions. He and his team went out and captured wolves to install GPS collars on them. 

They then visited every single location where a wolf spent more than 20 minutes.  

"We're basically going out there like crime scene investigators looking for evidence of a kill," he said.

This is how they found that wolves are more likely to kill deer closer to roads and trails, as they provide them with a "hunting highway" of sorts that allows them to go faster, further and cover ground more efficiently.

"We also found that kill sites were disproportionately located in recently logged areas," said Johnson-Bice.

He says these environments have small tree saplings that provide good food and protection to deer, who tend to use them as nurseries for their young.

"These human activities have essentially concentrated deer in specific locations and wolves appear to have learned that," he said. "They will actively seek out these areas to hunt."

The researchers also found that wolves tend to kill deer close to human residences and cabins, as deer congregate in these areas in the hopes of finding food.

"We found kill sites were actually disproportionately close to human made buildings, more than we would have expected," said Johnson-Bice. 

While these findings suggest that human activity has tipped the scale in the predator's favor, Johnson-Bice says more research is needed to better understand the dynamic between the two species. 

"We only have data from the wolves' perspective," he said. 

He adds that, in theory, activities like logging could provide a boost to the deer population. 

"It could be that there are more deer on the landscape … the opposite could also be true, perhaps human activity is increasing the level of predation on deer." 

Johnson-Bice says more data on this could help policy makers make better land use decisions. 

Back in the Kenora area, Rheault hopes he will see more deer in the landscape in his lifetime.

While he knows population shifts are cyclical, he says hunting regulations, combined with a couple of years of heavy snow, have accentuated the low levels he's currently seeing in the bush. 

The situation is so dire that he hasn't really dared doing guided hunting expeditions with small groups as he used to.

"In the last ten years or so, I have not felt comfortable taking people's money for an animal that's not really there," he said. 

In his view, natural resource policies contributed greatly to the drop in the number of animals on the landscape.