Wolf management program in N.W.T. comes to an end after 5 years of collaring, and incentivized hunting

A wolf management program by the Tłı̨chǫ Government and the Government of the Northwest Territories is in its final stages after five years of GPS-collar monitoring and incentives for wolf hunting.

The program was part of an effort to reduce wolf predation on the Bathurst and Bluenose East caribou herds.

Initially, the wolf collaring was seen as a way to determine which wolves were affiliated with certain caribou herds. Over the course of the five-year program, however, and after recommendations from the Wekʼèezhìi Renewable Resources Board, the focus changed slightly to try to better understand wolf patterns and habits in general.

Abbey Wilson, a carnivore biologist for the N.W.T. government who's been involved in the program, says they found wolves would commonly move between and prey on multiple caribou herds.

"They make these huge distances every year. So it was really hard to say, 'OK, we're going to focus our efforts on this one set of wolves because we know they're predating on this one caribou herd,'" said Wilson.

Wilson said biologists therefore shifted gears and started focusing more on wolf ecology and trying to see if there were specific metrics they could use to evaluate the program's impact on the wolf population, as well as the caribou population.

Some of those metrics include looking at wolf dens, how often wolves were coming back to use those same den sites, and how many pups were produced. Wilson added that they now have remote cameras up at den sites so that researchers can monitor things like reproduction and pup survival.

As for whether the wolf population in the territory has decreased, Wilson said they are still analyzing data collected through the program.

"One metric that has been telling to us is the age structure of the wolf population. So we would expect to see a shift towards more younger individuals in a highly-harvested population," said Wilson. 

So far with the information they have, Wilson said they are seeing more young wolves.

An "enhanced" incentive program was introduced in 2020 and saw wolf hunters receive $1,200 for each animal harvested within a certain area of the North Slave region. That came to an end last May and now hunters in those areas are back to receiving $200 for each harvested wolf skull.

The incentivized harvest numbers were fairly consistent over the five-year program, averaging around 100 wolves a year. In 2020, the proposed annual target for the program was 300 harvested wolves each year.

A large part of the harvest research was done in collaboration with Tłı̨chǫ community harvesting camps, workshops and hunters. The program's 2024 report adds that getting advice from Kugluktuk, Nunavut, hunters and working with them was positive for the program. 

To date, 477 wolves have been killed in incentivized hunting areas.