MARQUETTE, MI— Not everyone is on board with a proposal to move some U.P. wolves downstate and establish a population there.
State Representative Greg Markkanen introduced a resolution and a bill this week urging the DNR to relocate the animals.
But DNR Wildlife Biologist Brian Roell says the Department of Natural Resources does not facilitate or hinder the movement of wolves to areas where populations aren’t currently found, and besides, the animals tend not to stay where you put them.
“It’s not like you’re going to bring them down here and say, ‘Hey, you guys gotta stay in the Pigeon River.’ Well, they’re not going to do that. They’re going to move out, they’re going to find different territory. They may move long distances. They may even come back.”
Roell notes the DNR hasn’t tried to move wolves in the U.P. over the past 20 years because it just doesn’t work.
Around 700 gray wolves live in the Upper Peninsula. They were put back on the Endangered Species List a year ago.
